Venus

She is not slim but she's not fat either.
She doesn't seem to be very young.
In fact, she looks like a woman in her 30's with some familiar plumpness.
She has round arms and soft fat tissue around her abdomen.

This is a statue of Venus.
This was the idea of "beauty" in ancient Greece, and I love that.
I stood in front of her and stared at her.
She has sexy knees but she looked quite ordinary.
And yet, she was exquisite.

The Summer Beauties

I'm calling it; time of death, eleven hundred and twelve seconds, July 20th, 2009.

I gave up on my tomato plant a month ago.

The herbs have been doing really well in the windowsill trough.

But the tomato plant, despite my love and care, didn't make it.

Apparently, most part of England is too cold for growing tomatoes.

So where do these beautiful tomatoes I purchase at the green grocers every other day come from?

Spain, perhaps? Or south of England, probably?

No airfreight, I suppose.

Anyway, this summer I'm making the most of seasonal vegetables and fruit.

Especially tomatoes. There is no day we spend without a tomato in our bamboo basket.

I can't believe I was buying them in the supermarkets all the time last summer.

The ones in our local green grocer smell and taste 10 times better, and cost half as much.

It makes me content to smell the riped red beauties on a vine as I place gently in the basket.

Oh, the joy of the summer!

This year we've been quite lucky with the weather.

We have enjoyed a fair amount of sunshine.

Even on a cloudy day, I would think "It's at least dry."

And when it's warm and nice, I'd think, "There's no place like this."

Escape over the Himalayas

These children, including a seven-year-old, climbed over one the tallest mountains in the world.

Why?

Because they needed better education.

Because it was their parents' will.

Because if they didn't, their identity would be lost, perished and extinct.

So they kept walking in the snow for weeks, suffering from frostbites, risking their fingers, toes and sometimes even life.

What was worse was the fear of getting caught.

With the world's most influential country being in debt of one of the richest, it has become even more unrealistic for these children to be able to go back to their own contry again.


The children now live in India.

KIKU Website

Parents' Evening

I was sitting in the chair in the school dining room one evening, next to a woman who was wearing a sleeveless shirt and a pair of Birkenstock-like sandals.
"It's horrible. But there's no better way to do it. At least this time the room is smaller so it's not too noisy."
I nodded to her, pressing a handkerchief gently on my forehead . I was sweating.
"You know if you call the teachers beforehand, sometimes they can tell you when they are free. I have three children and there's only one left in here, so I learned my tactics."
she continued and I started asking her questions that I already knew the answers of because I didn't know what else to talk about.
Soon, it was her turn and I was free from a small talk with a stranger.

Everything is so different from Japan in the UK, but the school system here is almost the biggest culture shock.
Parents' Evening for instance.
You have to go to the school during certain time on a certain day and queue up for each teacher's unit for a brief updates. Things they tell you is nothing out-of-blue or new, they would just repeat the same thing they had written in the report cards.
Last year I spoke with only two teachers;PE and art. Most of other queues were ridiculously long, plus my husband and I arrived there too late. And some teachers, to my surprise, weren't even there.
This year I went to my son's school early by myself and got to speak with 7 teachers. I even spoke with some learning support staff.
All of them said the same thing.
Some of it hurt ever so slightly.

Oh, parenting,
this freaking ride in a twirling coffee cup.

Don't Die, Don't Die

In November 2007, I learned about Norman Mailer's death in a newspaper article. He was 84.
I had never read his book but the small article somehow drew my attention. Just then, I received a text from my husband saying "Norman Mailer died." He was looking for empathy and he got mine.
I felt as though some part of me was plucked off without warning when I learned that Yoko Mori had passed away. She was only 52.

Among the few albums which I carefully chose to bring to the UK with me were three Yo-Yo Ma albums. One of them is Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites. The whole album is more than two hours but I hardly notice the time. For me, it's a kind of music that makes me stop doing whatever I am doing and just listen. Yo-Yo Ma gives me the illusion of more than a single musical instrument.
It's absolutely mesmerizing.

In the Guardian Weekend issued on 2 May, the US comedienne Sarah Silverman answers 20 or so short random questions in the interview. For the question "Cat or dog?", she says: Dog. His name is Duck and he's 15. All I can think when I'm curled in bed with him is ,"Don't die, don't die."

The other day, I found myself reading the liner notes of the album to check Yo-Yo Ma's date of birth. He was born in October 1955.

"Still got time."

I was actually saying that aloud.

I wasn't curled in bed with the world famous 53-year-old cellist but I guess I was having a Silverman moment.

Don't die Yo-Yo, don't die.

Nostalgia

It's spring.
Like all flower loving folk around the country, I've been gardening.

We live in a rented terraced house and there's only a tiny garden in the teeny-weeny backyard, so it's not such hard work.
I wasn't always a gardener. My only experiences of growing plants are looking after morning glories as an assignment during summer vacation in elementary, or trying to grow some dandelions and Chinese milk vetch in my parents's place about ten years ago (which I succeeded in, but my grandmother weeded them being unaware of my intentions).
I'm still not a devoted gardener; I am rather a Sunday gardener, but I really enjoy it.

The best part of it is sticking my fingers in soil, getting my nails dirty and not caring about it at all. The smell of the soil takes me right back for years.
It reminds me of the bed of Chinese milk vetch I used to lay myself on when I was a little girl.
The butterflies above my face in the blue sky.
Listening to the buzzing sound of the honey bees as I was comfortably falling asleep.
I could almost smell the sun of those days when I pull out the weeds around my hydrangea that survived the long winter.

Someday, when I have my own house and land, I want to grow all these wild flowers I like.
Daisies, buttercups, dandelions, clovers and Chinese milk vetches.
And I want to lie down there and take a nap.

The Gender of the Tooth Fairy

I was reading my older posts the other day and realized something;
I always refer to the tooth fairy as "he".

Why did I think it's "he" in the first place?

I know why.

I learned about tooth fairies from Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live.

In that show, Eddie Murphy the Tooth Fairy complains that these days kids put Tic Tacs under their pillows to get coins, so when Eddie takes the fake teeth to the god he gets offended because he thinks Eddie is implying the god has bad breath.

Anyway, that's why the tooth fairy has always been male in my mind...

Chuffed

Sometimes when I'm doing the dishes, or when I'm putting away the laundry or something, it hits me.
Thank god.
I remember the faces of this guy and that guy, or that guy I almost constructed a family with.
I would think,
Thank god I didn't marry those guys and did marry with the guy I am with now.
Thank god.
And thank god I went back to Tsuruya to buy that lovely silk agnès b. bag that day.

Organic, Fairtrade or Food Miles?

My inner conflict arises when I go grocery shopping to a supermarket.
First I would carry the shopping basket to where bread is. I usually pick the organic wholemeal bread. Then I would move to look for some fresh fruit. Gala apples from France or cox apples grown in UK? Cox, definitely. Fairtrade bananas or Organic bananas? I usually buy fairtrade bananas. Chocolate is easy. I always buy Green&Black's fairtrade organic chocolate which tastes so good. A little bit tough decisions to make await in the tea and coffee section. Fairtrade or organic? Actually, I just want good Assam tea and dark roasted Brazilian or Guatemalan coffee, to be honest.
When I shop for shoes or clothing, I can get it done in 10 minutes. I hop into my favourite shop, look around, pick some, try them on and buy if I like any and don't if I don't.
But food shopping consists of so many things. Is it fresh? Is it organic? Is it ethical? Is it affordable?
At a charity shop, I recently noticed the little fridge sitting next to the till and the cartons of orange juice in it. It's fairtrade, of course, but it is from Cuba.
Orange juice from Cuba? Can't they sell it to nearby developed country like the USA?
“Cuba can't do business at all with America.” my husband tells me.
Okay, then how about Canada?
“Do you know how far it is from Cuba to Canada?(Slight disgust on his face) I think it's faster to ship orange juice from Cuba to Europe. Do you have a world map?”
Never mind, I say. I try to picture a world map without placing Japan in the center but I can only imagine big five chunks and everything else is blurry.
But you do agree that it's faster and more ecological to get orange juice from Spain or somewhere, if not locally sourced, than importing concentrate orange juice from Cuba, don't you? He agrees.
I'd like to support fairtrade products when I can but it's tricky sometimes. If it's things like bananas or chocolate, I would buy fairtrade products. Even better if it's fairtrade and organic. But when it comes to orange juice, my priority vote has to go to reducing food miles because I think the global warming is the biggest problem on the planet at the moment.

I try to get fruit, veges and meat from a local green grocer and a butcher as much as I can.
My husband and I make 30-minute trips on foot to these shops carrying our own shopping bags.
The veges and meat they sell may not be as cheap as supermarkets' "value" food but reasonable and fresh, as they are almost all locally sourced. No herbs from the West Bank. And I am sure they are "fairly traded" with the farmers unlike the ones in some supermarkets.
Shopping this way seems to work best, quality-wise, ethics-wise and foodmiles-wise.

It's Still Sad

I read online that someone was arrested for trying to bury his wife's corpse in Japan.
Did he kill her? No. He couldn't afford a funeral so he had to face the death of his partner this way.
And it sounds like he's not the only one who was in such a desperate situation.
There were short articles of other people who just left the dead on their futons or abandoned the bodies somewhere. They too didn't have the money to have it taken care of by undertakers.

How sad.
How sad is that that you can't even have a ceremony to see your loved ones off?

I remember watching a documentary about "working poors" in Japan.
A single mum was saying in the interview that once her son needed a new notebook for his Japanese class in his elementary, but she just didn't have a hundred yen to buy him one.
Then the son said, "It's okay Mum, don't worry." and started erasing everything he had written in his old notebook so that he could re-use it.

It breaks my heart to hear these stories.
Yeah, it's not like the end of the world. Things in Japan are nowhere near as horrifying, hopeless or harrowing as, say, D.R.Congo. I know.
But how do you weigh sadness?
It's still sad.

A Naked Knitter Card

I went to a novelty shop to get a Get Well Soon card for my husband's grandmother.
Then I was reminded that it's St.Valentine's Day in 3 days by all those pinks and reds and hearts and cheesy messages in the shop.
The half of what was sold there was Valentine's Day cards.

This year, my husband and I are eating some Chinese take-away on the 14th of February with my father-in-law and his fiancee at our house.
My husband is a flowers-and-candles kinda guy and wasn't keen on the idea of having them visiting us around this time of the year, but I told him I didn't mind. We can't go out for a romantic whatever anyway because of our short person.
A bit sad but I'm cool with it.

After I picked a card for my grandmother-in-law, I started looking for something pink&red for myself. Big hearts, small hearts, "You make me complete", "Love was just a word until you gave it a meaning", blah blah blah.
There was nothing that suited my feeling.
I chose one with no message. It's not even a Valentine's Day card.
But I think it's a perfect card for my husband and me.

It will be hidden in my drawer until my father-in-law and his fiancee have finished their house tour.
Or even better, it will be in my husband's sock drawer until they've left.
A card that needs to be hidden.
That's what makes this card a perfect Valentine's Day card.

Not So Simple

It's been almost a year since I moved to this side of the planet.
For about a couple of months after arrival, I constantly received the same question from various people asking me if I was settling in okay.
And each time I replied with different answers according to the state I was in.

"Oh, you know, England is nice."
Translation: I am not sure if I like it or not. I mean, it's okay but it's not great.

"Yeah, yeah, I am glad I came here."
A polite lie to my father-in-law.

"England sucks."
Letting it out to my closest friends.

"I am not sure yet."
When I was talking with non-British people.

Whatever I was saying, it wasn't accurate.
The thing is, it's not that simple.

Money is one issue.
We would have enjoyed it more if we had more money.
We are broke.
We are surviving but have no extra money to afford any excursions.
Thank god we have no debt but it is so difficult to save money since only one of us is the bread winner.
We spent all of our little saving to start our new life.
Reality bites. And it itches for a long time.


And I am, simply, a kind of person who takes time to adjust to a new life.
I can't say anything about it until I am ready to do so.

Hey, maybe that's what I should have said.

Anyway, I'm surviving.
Although it's still lacking a lot of things, life does feel a bit easier these days.

Puberty

About 8months ago my son started acting strange.
A few weeks later, I learned that his pubes had started growing.
No, I didn't peep.
That was the only reason I could think of so I joked about it and he said yes.

A couple of months ago, he brought me a tooth and asked me if he should have put it under the pillow.
Hey wait a minute, you still had a milk tooth?
How can a kiddy have a milk tooth and pubes at the same time?
I exclaimed and my husband covered his ears trying not to hear it.

The next day he found a pound coin under his pillow and showed it off to us.

Since then he had two more milk teeth came out.
Again, how can anyone...?
My husband covered his ears and sung a random song.

The third one came out just the other day. My son placed it under his pillow but this time he didn't even find a penny.
He seemed disappointed.
"Sounds like the tooth fairy didn't come to collect the tooth last night."
I turned to my husband.
"He didn't?"
He said, and mouthed, "Oops."

That night, we were doing the dishes after dinner.
"So...you did put your tooth on the right-hand corner of the pillow, right?"
I asked my son.
"No. In the middle."
My son looked startled.
"Oh that is why the tooth fairy couldn't do his job. There's a proper way to put a milk tooth. Wrong place. Oh no wonder. Am I right? You should put your milk tooth under the right-hand corner of the pillow, right?"
"Yes, that's right. And he will be back within the next three working days."
My husband assured the kid without hesitation.

Sure enough, the poor kid found a shiny golden coin later.

But I wonder...
How could a 12-year-old who doesn't believe in Santa Clause anymore buy the tooth fairy story when he was introduced to it a few months ago?
I'm not sure if I should let him, but I guess it doesn't matter anymore.
His milk teeth are all gone now.