Had a great time at the 2009 Kansas City Japan Festival
Once again, I was fortunate to participate in the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival. For years, I’ve done a lot of the website and communications materials for the event. This year instead of driving across town, I had to drive across the state to attend it. I enjoyed it immensely because I could reconnect with old friends and colleagues. Our friend Carole Owsley was gracious to let Juri and I stay in her lovely home overnight. It was the perfect place to be. She made the best breakfast we could have ever hoped for. She also treated us to a light dinner and her own Strawberry shortcake, from which we can’t wait to steal the recipe.
My friend Fran Lemery is the Executive Director of the festival. He started getting involved in the Japanese community in Kansas City something like ten years ago when he decided to try to put in a smallish Japanese garden his backyard. As with much of the projects he took on, both his garden and his community participation blew up in a way that few people would consider. I’ve admired his attitude, his generosity and his ability to lead so many people to represent Japanese in the community. I just found out at the festival that he was nominated and will receive a special award from the Ministry of Japan for his cultural efforts for so many years. Absolutely outstanding. I can’t wait to know when I can come in and see him receive it. I’m just so happy he’s the guy I can call any time about anything and having him as a special friend.
I’m in St. Louis now, but I still have these strong ties to Kansas City. I enjoy seeing my good friend Fran there, my old colleagues and getting updates on how things are going. I only got to attend the actual Festival for about three hours out of the entire 11 hour day. Despite that, I got to help out with some A/V issues for the more presentation, and to take some photos and video. Both my favorite things. I’d like to extend to the hardworking groups there in the festival my appreciation to them, it was a great time, and the crowd grew by over ten percent because of Fran and other’s attention to detail and their labor of love.
September 21, 2009 at 4:51 am | Japan, inspiration, nostalgia | No comment
What to do on your birthday
There is a speaker guy named Seth Godin. Everybody likes him. Me too. And I read his site today, about birthdays. He was asking, what should we do on your birthday? Because mine is this coming week, it got me thinking about how I’ve been the past few years. Gifts have been really difficult to give and receive. I don’t take giving lightly in most cases. It’s hard for me, because if it’s going to be a thing I give, I want it to be special because it really will represent something, it acts on my behalf when I’m not there. Certainly I’m not better at receiving, because people ask me what I want for my birthday and I really can’t bring a certain object I want. I really just want to be better than I am. I want to see continuous improvement both slow and steady and through wild bursts and revelation. Projects I want finished, objectives I want conquered. Because it seems that when these things have happened, all the other gifts just flow in. But I don’t just want them done. I want to be engaged throughout the process. Nobody can do that for me, can they?
And yet when I think about that. It sounds like I want to rush through a segment of my life to get it where I expect I should be. As if I’m not quite complete yet. Not good enough. Analyzing that is kind of fun at this moment, because it’s a good reminder of how ridiculous it is. I’m happy that I don’t really believe that. And I’d be sad if others did for themselves.
If someone’s birthday is a day to be celebrated, it’s because of a person’s uniqueness and celebrating it because before that date, they weren’t here. The world before them didn’t enjoy their personality and contributions, their silliness, their ideas, and the things they do for others. At their moment, the pebble struck the water’s surface and the ripples began. The sequence of events in our world without their existence is difficult to imagine. Maybe even lonely.
And because they are here, often so briefly, it is one day a year where we remind them that it has been important that they are here, important to us, many of us. That’s the best thing we can probably do for people. And if we are all too distracted on that day to know or remind ourselves of the reason, that’s ok too. Because even if we realize it on another day, it’s that moment we appreciate somebody for who they are, we are bigger, we have grown.
So how do you celebrate someone’s uniqueness? I wish I could give a perfect answer, but I’ll try. I think the best you can do, is knowing them, you know what they like, what they do, want to be, or accomplish. Do your best to imagine what it takes to get there or to do that. And if you find your own personal way to help them do that, that day, I think it would be a hero’s gift, without a doubt. If you are close to them and already doing that, then maybe just a small surprise is something that’s needed. If you are far away, a card sent or a friendly phone call, can encourage and help and just tell them how much you and the people in their world appreciate them. You can also try to engage in their world a little more too. If you only saw them twice this year, try for five times over next year.
July 4, 2009 at 9:18 pm | family, friends, learning, nostalgia | No comment
Why having an international marriage is easier now than ever
The other day, my boss said, “Mike I don’t know how you do it, being married to someone from another country, with the language barrier. Communication is hard enough for married people from the same town and background. It has to be tough!”
It’s hard to address that kind of comment or compliment when you’re biting into a burrito on a work lunch. Later, having digested it, the statement I mean, I truly believe it is easier to have a relationship like mine (with someone from another country and culture) than it ever has been in the past. In my case an American mutt in the Midwest, making a life here with a Japanese wife.
You must have that personal time to be who you really are
Personal space can be created quite easily from the coldness of computers and the internet. No matter what size your home his, I think that you can create personal space from having separate computers. It sounds terrible doesn’t it, but it does work. Juri can research her own interests, such as crafts, Japanese news and celebrities and comedy. If you think Youtube and internet videos were just a way to waste time, but don’t provide real value, you are very wrong. It is new to us and many others over the past year and a half that Juri can watch uninterrupted streaming Japanese TV programs in short and long clips. This simple flash video technology gives her her own Japan space. It’s relief from the exhaustion of being someone else all day. She has to play the role of an english speaking teacher in real life, but at home, she can go back to Japan and laugh at Japanese comedians, see popular dramas and of course read blogs or email family and friends in her own language. As I’m writing this, she’s in that space right now, just as if she was 5,000 miles away at home. Twenty years ago, she might be able to acquire a good book collection, or a video cassette library of Japanese movies, but this isn’t the same as connecting to her culture in real time with the Internet. Almost as good as being there.
Finding a group of your own kind to connect with
Finding a support group is easier. Every organized group, including the Japanese societies that exist in any locality have some sort of online presence. It might just be a mention in an article, or a phone listing, but more likely there is a little website for the organization. This means that finding a group of like minded people is easier than ever. You can find people around you with a short search on the web such as “St. Louis” + “Swedish organizations”. You must appreciate how creating your own island of your native people is valuable to a person who is away from their home. In our case, belonging to and volunteering with the Japan-America society, we go to more events and meet more Japanese people in a few months than we would grow to know over a decade, if this was 1960. Fifteen years ago, to find them, we’d have to luckily stumble across a flyer advertising an event that we could go to or meet someone who already knew about it. Now, anyone can subscribe to multiple online calendars getting notices via email of upcoming activities within a cultural group, from festivals, to nights out for beers or a dinner party.
Family Connections
Along with a personal space and time, Juri has the benefit of email, an efficient postal system between the US and Japan, and the ever valuable Internet Relay Chat. Replaced by Yahoo Chat, which was an important tool for the two of us when separated by the Pacific, Skype is now Juri’s tool of choice to see mom and dad weekly or daily. Skype gives a simple high quality audio and decent video chat that her and her mother and father can use for free. It’s common for Juri to fire up the computer at 5:30 in the evening after work and catch her parents online cooking breakfast and ready to say hello before they head to work. Her dad also will log in at his work and chat if time permits well into our dinner time and before bed. During family gatherings when Aunts and Uncles visit, the chat line is open and we can all say hello. To be able to see your family and talk to them through a computer and having that live video is absolutely priceless.
As I mentioned before, it was Yahoo Chat that worked best, but Skype provides a near perfect audio feed, so from being upstairs and eavesdropping, the voices often sound to me like her parents are her visiting the house. Surely 10 years from now, TV screens will be larger and the video feed, beautiful and fast, clear as a home movie. For now, Juri can connect with home, even having the arguments and fights that she normally would have with parents and brother. Trust me, I’ve seen them.
Access to products formerly out of reach
In some ways, it’s unfortunate because it makes hunting for unique gifts harder, but we are exposed to all kinds of cultural artifacts and common items just by visiting certain aisles of a supermarket, or even a Target store these days. You also have the World Market, which 40 years ago, might cater to a completey different group, but now seems to fit your average design conscious citizen looking for a new kitchen set or an exotic hot sauce. We don’t have a China or Asia town where I live, but we still have places we can go. Retailers have found that providing goods from other countries is another way to stand out and to keep shoppers interested. Consumers can tap into new tastes and decorative ideas. People like my wife, are able to see products from their home country and can comment on them whether good or bad. It might seem weird, but if she sees a really bad knockoff Japan product, we can laugh about it and use that experience to learn or reminisce. That poorly crafted knockoff sitting on a store shelf somehow provides value or appreciation of home, bringing home closer for that moment.
These are just the places that might be around town, depending on the area you live. But again with an internet connection, you can access all kinds of niche stores selling the items that you might miss, such as cooking spices, snacks, utensils and wares that you would just have to go on missing if it were 1957. If Juri wants to cook something she’s used to having, most of the items can be found. Probably everything but perhaps the rarer vegetables.
Ever since we met, we’ve had really good communication, so my bosses comment somehow went over my head, as if he was talking about problems other people have. For us, mostly it’s smooth. Whatever magic that is between Juri and I, be it a mixture of the right patience for one another and ourselves, or the simple knowing that we have outlets to be ourselves and little ways to retreat, we are making it work day by day, just like any international couple from the last century would. It’s easier for us I think than it has been for others because of our historical examples we can call up, and hopes toward the future. Come to think about it, the hope may be the real reason. If you can find hope in your life you conquer and live through anything.
May 8, 2007 at 12:31 am | Japan, family, interesting, nostalgia | No comment
25 things I’m thinking about
1. I don’t introduce myself proudly enough or often enough. I can confidently say I’m a good guy.
2. removed (met that goal!)
3. Thoughout a month, I’m the most powerful and then the weakest person I know. I also cycle through being the most outgoing, fun, sad non-social, helpful, loving and off-the-wall. I think there’s no avoiding the bad spots, there’s no changing them, but I believe we all can change a state’s power and length. And though I read books from the self-help gurus, this one was actually from me.
4. I’m a pretty good video editor and animator, but I’ve become more of a perfectionist over time. Perfectionism can easily cause stress and procrastination. I do myself a huge disservice. If I would pay attention as a viewer more, I would notice that viewers are very forgiving or they just don’t notice the trees for the forest. Sometimes you have to just want to get it done.
5. When you start to wonder if having your own company is possible, just remember all the silly restaurants and shops and now e-stores selling things you’d never buy in a million years and WHO ARE DOING JUST FINE, or who might even be making huge profits!
6. I have an idea and I need some help with it. (thanks to those who have offered to help, but I can’t collaborate on it just yet)
7. Learn the art of revealing just enough, and letting people figure out your point on their own. This makes better stories. People love surprise and a chance for their brain to make the discovery. Don’t force it. Hold things back and see what happens. This is why poets deserve more credit.
8. If you ever take a friend or relative to a vacation spot or tourist attraction that you have already been, shut up and let them explore. It’s one of a few opportunities where you make the situation better by doing nothing at all.
9. A night of surfing webpages will never be as satisfying as learning to make something out of wood or paper.
10. omitted. I already figured it out.
11. The other day I called a company out of nowhere because I liked the way they created a 3D video rendering. I called out of the blue and said “Hi, you don’t know me, but I saw your video. I was wondering how you did special effect X in it. Is somebody there that might tell me?” What do you think happened after that?
12. Right now, it’s already dark outside, the ground is wet, and both are typical reasons why I would normally put off going for a run. As soon as I finish this, I’m going to run in it anyway. So there.
13. Dave Werner seems like an awesome guy. I’d like to work with him one day.
14. There comes a time in maybe everyones life they realize they will never be famous, ultra-important, or rich. This realization will depress some, and will be a huge relief to others. There are also the few that become famous and realize that it wasn’t all they thought it would be. Detachment can bring contentment I think.
15. I feel bad for people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Whether right or wrong, they are toxic people and should be avoided. And it’s a good thing to be watchful of your government, no matter what.
16. There’s no reason why many people couldn’t choose to cut their workday in half and spend the other half helping others through charity, participating in government to make things better, or to simply to give themselves have more choices the other half of the day. Culture doesn’t understand this. That is why sometimes you have to be different
17. I’m almost 30 years old and I spent yesterday afternoon riding skateboards with the neighbors kids. Our conversations were more meaningful than all of the chats I had at work that day.
18. Join and organization to create a new view. A view is like a path you could choose to go down which would probably lead to a new opportunity. You don’t have to follow these paths or views. But it feels really good to have them, to know that if something doesn’t work out, you COULD take one of them if you wanted. I believe if people had more views in life, you wouldn’t see so much depression and suicide among young people.
19. Try something, even if people are going to laugh at you.
20. My dad smokes cigarettes and I hate it. I’ve hated it forever. I had an idea the other day that I would mail him a letter every week with a freshly printed article about smoking and tips for quitting and handling the difficult addictions. I could have written 2 letters by now and I haven’t sent him anything. Why haven’t I?
21. I think practicing being yourself in a mirror would be a valuable exercise. Or better yet, using a video camera. We all should be able to master our best looks and expressions. That way we can communicate in the way we want to. It’s not just for actors, everyone would benefit from critiquing themselves.
22. My wife will never know how special she is to me.
23. A small part of me hopes this list will lead to something. But the bigger part doesn’t care and has enjoyed it just for the exercise.
24. The past two years have really started to feel interesting, where we the human race may be starting into the future that actually looks futuristic. I just hope we can handle it on all fronts. We need bright people to make sense of it, to steer everyone in the right direction.
25. We can all have a new beginning at any moment.
March 26, 2007 at 9:47 pm | friends, general, interesting, learning, nostalgia | 3 comments
The few, the proud, the Nintendo Wii owners
I got silly, I’ll admit. I sat out front of the Target Store on the opening day of the Nintendo Wii sales. I got my Wii the first day it came out. I fell victim to all the internet buzz. I haven’t owned a game system since I was about nine years old. (Atari 2600) I’ve fancied a few PC games, so don’t think I have felt I was too mature for games. But owning a game console was something I just didn’t think I would do this time in my life.
So what’s up with the Wii? For me, I liked the idea of internet surfing in the living room and being able to get my old favorite games on it. I though the motion sensitive controller was the perfect direction where game technology should be headed.
When I bought the Wii that morning, I behaved unlike how I usually do. I spared no expense. I got all the accessories and games I wanted to get. I didn’t fret over the money whatsoever. This was my game system, a fresh new source of fun, a way to live in the future and the past at the same time. Why hold back? Sometimes you just buy the movie popcorn so you can enjoy it. You know what I mean?
Since then I’ve gotten more games and even introduced myself to a few great Nintendo Game Cube played. The Wii plays those Gamecube games. I didn’t realize how good the quality of graphics the Game Cube games have. In fact, I didn’t realize some of the titles that were available for it. Resident Evil 4 and a recent Tomb Raider title to name a couple.
The Wii has a motion control system with the infrared controller and sensor bar. Wii tennis works for example by you actually swinging the controller like a racket. And though I’m more of a gory scary game fan, Wii sports is the perfect party game. At least until the novelty runs out for most people.
I’ve been working on a big freelance project lately, so no nintendo time, but I’ve got a stack of games just waiting to be played once I’m finished. It’s great to be a kid, to get all the games I wanted for a long time and never had the money for. And I can appreciate it more too I think because I know the kind of programming and graphic effort that goes into these games.
By the way, Zelda was mindblowing. I never played that style game before, it was always boring to me. But the Wii Zelda is adventure through and through.
March 1, 2007 at 4:57 am | gadgets, games, graphics, nostalgia | No comment
I have no bookstores in my neighborhood
For whatever reason, the only bookstore in my neighborhood has closed up shop. They were given about fifteen days to shut down right after Christmas. It’s not a sad story of the small business being run out by a big dog, I mean it’s a Waldenbooks, owned by Borders. The store was in a mall that connects to the back of a Target store so surely it was doing enough volume to pay the rent.
How is the closing of a bookstore somehow news or significant? I suppose it’s not, but it’s just economically interesting because my neighborhood has every other shop under the sun, but is strangely devoid of places to buy books. Sure I can go down to the Plaza and hit the four story Barnes and Noble. But I just expect more considering we have about ten drugstores, just as many hair stylists, five grocery stores. I would call my area upscale Kansas City metro area. Am I the only one noticing this gap? Maybe Borders is looking to make a change of direction? They have their large scale stores with the cafe and places to site. Maybe the relaxing larger bookstore is what people have come to expect. Waldenbooks and B.Dalton really don’t have that kind of atmosphere whatsoever.
The closing was a good thing for me in the short term, giving me 40% off two books I had wanted for a while. The sad part being that I had developed a routine with my wife to visit at least once every two weeks or more often to look at the true crime, computer and magazines.
So I am extremely curious when and how the gap will be filled. It just has to be filled right? I really could use some reassurance, somebody or some company that’s going to realize the void and step up. I can imagine a Half-Price books fitting really well close by my house next to the Indian restaurant. I’d really love a family-owned store and cafe. I’ll entertain that my perfect world, within walking distance, I’d love a bookstore / smoothie / crepe dessert place. We don’t have a smoothie shop in town so I think we are ready for that too.
January 25, 2007 at 4:38 am | books, general, nostalgia, rants | No comment
images from the past
When I was a junior back in Missouri State University, I spent a lot of time in the basketball courts between classes. On warm days you’d find me out there a couple times of week on my bike riding flatland. It was a great surface to ride on. A couple tricks I have only landed once in my life and that was the place it happened. One day in early spring, a photographer was there shooting around the area. He happened to come by my favorite spot while I was riding flatland and snapped a few pics from afar. I remember the nice photographer waving to me.
The next morning I woke up to find a surprising email. A fraternity brother sent out a group email congratulating me for getting my picture in the Springfield News-Leader. It was a pretty cool shot. I didn’t want to buy a paper, but I was able to grab some tossed copies in the lobby of the dorm. Pretty nice shot I thought.
Tonight I was googling my name. I always like to see what pops up. Crazy I know, but I don’t feel guilty about it or anything, it’s just curiosity. The News-Leader used the old photo again for a story just a few days ago. I’m glad I found stumbled across it. I’ll see if I can actualy get a print this time. Flatland freestyle frozen in time.
May 28, 2006 at 4:01 am | bikes, freestyle, nostalgia, photography | No comment
Sleepwalker
We used to live in this ranch syle house where I shared a bunkbed with my older sister. This would put me at about four years old. My parents room was adjacent to our room, and the bathroom was across from them.
One morning my mom was talking to me and told me what I had done the night before. She said she was startled in the middle of the night seeing me walk into the bedroom. I didn’t say anything to them, just walked in like a zombie. My father was there too. I proceeded to to the side wall and began to urinate on it.
Now I don’t think I have sleptwalked since then, but I’m sure I was more creeped out than they were. Sleepwalking was something you’d see in bad comedys where somebody pretends to have a reason for ending up in a room they aren’t supposed to be. But for me, I worried I’d wind up in the street. I actually sat down and tried to break down the situation as best a four-year-old can. Why did I go to my mom’s room to pee? Where did I stand? I came to the conclusion that I must have flipped around my internal map of the house. Had I been initially traveling from the opposite end of the hall, my position would have been perfect for hitting the toilet dead on. Or at least the back of the lid. That made me smile. Why? Because looking at it that way, it was in fact a pretty good shot. Not bad getting off the top bunk while asleep too. The one little detail of the wrong room became irrelevant. I turned a failure into a success!
I don’t wake up these days with urine soaked walls, but in college a friend told me that his drunk roommate came home late one night and pee’d in the fridge. What a jackass I thought. I could do way better than that.
May 15, 2006 at 4:39 pm | family, nostalgia | No comment
Learning about consequences
At some point in your life, you have to learn to look ahead to the consequences of your actions. When I was about three or four, I found this pretty little green stone on my mom’s vanity table. It wasn’t a jewel or anything, it was more like a smooth novelty stone you find in some souvenir shops. It was a jade color and I picked it up and used it like a crayon to scratch into my moms soft wooden table.
After scribbling a while, my mom routinely walked in to check on me. I don’t think I looked up and saw her reaction but I remember how composed she suddenly made herself. She always had unlimited patience with me, even when I was being a butt. Her voice was a bit different. She said “Michael look what you have done to my table. You’ve scratched it and hurt the wood. It can’t be fixed. You really need to think about what you are going to do, before you do it.”
As a three-year-old can, I looked at my handiwork and realized, she was right. I messed something up, something that wasn’t mine. I didn’t mean to. I just wasn’t thinking. Punishment wasn’t necessary here, it was a very important life lesson right there in progress. I ruined my mom’s table because I didn’t think outside of myself. I could think about the future when I do things. It was if my mom’s words actually opened up that capability in me. That capability or new awareness just needed words put to it before it could exist. Was it a sense of time and restraint she had just given me?
Many of us do bad things, often because we are selfish. Sometimes our actions are completely unintentional. Now because that moment stuck in my mind, does that mean I learned the lesson? I’d like to think so, but it’s just not true. Remembering the moment occasionally is sweet, but learning the lesson is continuous. And when you get to a certain level, you realize that it’s pretty easy not to do bad things. The next level is creating a discipline of thinking ahead to see how much good you can accomplish in the time you have, whether it be a day or month or year.
May 15, 2006 at 4:37 pm | family, nostalgia | No comment
A gift from my Aunt
I remember being about 4 years old one day with a severe bought of diarrhea. I remember sitting in the bathroom going through the process when I heard a knock at the house front door. My mom answered and my Aunt Judy walked in on that late morning. They were talking about me I could overhear. It’s funny that I sort of picked up on that, or even cared. Maybe that was my first instance of eavesdropping.
My mom pretty soon knocked on the bathroom and told me Judy had come over and asked if I was ok.
It was about time to finish up anyway and so I went out in the living room. My Aunt Judy said she was sorry I wasn’t feeling well and she brought a present over for me. She handed me a plastic Bowie knife, with a really leopard patterned sheath.
“Whoa!” I was really excited to see that. How did she know I was just planning a safari in the backyard that weekend? I’m sure I brought the knife with me on my next 5 runs to the toilet too. I kept that knife for a lot longer than Judy probably realized or intended. I think when you give a gift to a kid around that age, you tend to expect it to break within a day or so, but not this gift. That knife, that gesture really meant a lot to me. Judy made that special trip just for me. She’s always been that way and I love her a lot.
