Category Archives: japan

The picture of the moon and Atsushi Watanabe

Recently, I’ve been into the photo of the moon. Since I’ve begun to take pictures of the moon, I’ve become more sensitive for the color of the sky, the time and the direction of the moonrise and the sunrise, etc. Because of that, my life became more fulfilling. The other day, I found by chance an article written about “How’s Hikikomori now because of COVID-19” on NHK News Web. It was the chance for me to participate in the project “Onaji Tsuki Wo Mita Hi (The day when we saw the same moon). In this article, a Japanese artist Atsushi Watanabe, who experienced Hikikomori, has offered an interesting project entitled “Onaji Tsuki Wo Mita Hi.” Taking the pictures of moon and sharing them, we can communicate with people who feel lonely. I think the idea of this project is very romantic!

It’s very interesting to communicate with the people who are in complicated situations like being a hikikomori and to know several ways of thinking through the pictures of the moon. First of all, the organizer of this project, Atsushi Wanabe, is a very interesting man who has solid conviction! By communicating with him, my prejudice against hikikomori is completely pulverized ! Now, he does the exhibition entitled Shufuku no Monument (monument-of-recovery) at BankART SILK in Yokohama. It will continue until next Sunday, July 26th. You can find more information below. If you were interested in this exhibition, please don’t hesitate to visit it. I think that he is present at BankART SILK, so if you talked to him, he would be happy!

cf.
Atsushi WATANABE “Monument of recovery”
Article NHK NEWS WEB

Jomo Karuta (Card game)

Last Friday, I did a Japanese workshop at the library. First I talked about the Japanese New Year (Oshogatsu) and then we played Jomo Karuta (Card games). After playing the normal way (taking the drawing card as a result of reading the text card), we also had fun composing words with our favorite cards or talking about our favorite cards. Some participants wrote words in their own way, such as Samurai, Niku (meat in Japanese) etc.

These are my favorite cards.
す SU/ Susonoha Nagashi Akagiyama (Beautiful mountain)
せ SE/ Senkyo Ozenuma Hananohara (Very beautiful flower)
ふ FU/ Bunbukuchagama no Morinji (What a cute badger)
み MI/ Minakami Tanigawa Suki-to Tozan (One person in white)
よ YO/ Yo no Chiri Arau Shima Onsen (Nude!)


By the way, “Jomo” is the old name of Gunma Prefecture. I bought the card game when I went home to my parents house at the end of the year. It was my first time looking at these cards carefully. The drawings are very beautiful and on the back of a card, there are explanations on each drawing. And I noticed again that this game is nice!

cf. list of Jomo Karuta