Kid Ethnic: Mixed-Race Adventures in Japan

PHOTO: My Classy Friend, Please Bring No Clouds, PLUS: A Video Experiment · 14 days ago

Rock that bowler cap.
Rock that ‘stachey ‘stache.
Rock them ‘burns.
Rock that cane.

…but do not come in here with a cartoony micro-weather system following you. My people need sun.

Spotted in front of the Yachiyoza Theater in Yamaga, Kumamoto.
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BONUS WEB FRIENDLINESS EXPERIMENT:

Last year, my siblings and I made a ridiculous bit of puppetry and music for Father’s Day and put it on vimeo.com . This resulted in kind and friendly comments.

As an experiment, this year I’m Youtubing it.

I’m guessing this will result in comments fiercely mocking my (long-gone) beard.

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An Open Letter From The Children, RE: Vegetable Chocolate · 38 days ago

Dear Adults of the World,

You must answer for this thing:

It is understood that we are in struggle.

That you are as determined to make us eat our vegetables as we are determined to shove them under our napkins.

Or feed them to our pet rabbits.

Such is our nature, and the more intelligent among us understand that it is for the best.

Given a button that would wipe all adults from the face of the earth, we would not push this button. In some strange and twisted way, we need you as much as you need us.

We are in, a manner, of speaking, of the same kind. The same beings, merely temporally displaced.

We understand that we are doomed to become you.

And still we must fight.
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Among the most vicious of our confrontations have concerned when and in what quantities we might eat chocolate. It is perhaps the only one of our dietary desires that approaches our wish to cease ingesting vegetables.

And we are happy to engage in screaming matches on either topic.

But you, our gigantic, freakish, arch-enemies, you must understand that we can’t make things.

We can perhaps sneak chocolate, we might, in dire circumstances, steal chocolate. But the MAKING of chocolate, this is against our nature. We have not the resources.

Traditionally, the battle has been over resource allocation.

We did not expect from you, this asymmetrical warfare, this burning and pillaging of our sustenance before it has reached our eyes, much less melted in our mouths and hands.

This is the stuff of nightmares: the mythical razor in our holiday candy, the organ thief in the night, the rats fried among chicken.

The vegetables in our chocolate.
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While we do not wish to threaten, we would like to remind you that we, especially in the developing nations, decidedly outnumber you.

We have not resorted to such techniques as mass coordinated biting, which, due to new technologies, those at the upper-bound of our designation (but not yet in those guerilla tween years), have the technological know-how to organize.

And we do not wish to resort to such tactics.

We are just saying.

We are hereby officially asking you to cease these tactics. If we must fight, and we are willing to allow that we must, let us fight clean.

Your future,
The Children
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Over the top, admittedly. But I saw this vegetable chocolate in the discount rack (surprising?) at the local convenience store and had to buy it. The taste was not a sensation that a child would enjoy.

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The 'L' / 'R' Glitch That Greatly Improved Things · 52 days ago

I make many, many, language mistakes. I don’t knock folks who make errors.

But I appreciate their occasional beauty.

My people, when you leave the house, you must remember this one thing: Rock.

Always and forever.

Spotted on the door of a near empty thirty buck a night hotel in Ashikita, Japan. Highly recommended.

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She's on Summer: An Ink and Film Fiction · 87 days ago

Here’s a link to a link to a big Page One.

And here’s a big Page Two.

If people like them, I’ll make more.

And more and more and more. And then I’ll stop. When I’m dead.

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On Relationships: The Rule of Seventeen Fights · 108 days ago

My friend filled my glass, and began to explain his theory (roughly translated from Japanese). *

“The most important thing in a relationship isn’t if you fight, it’s if you overcome your fights,” he said. “If you and your girlfriend successfully overcome 17 fights, then you know you are okay.”

“But if, for example, one decides to break up with a girl with whom one’s already overcome 17 fights, well that person is in for a lot of work.”

“Let’s say, for example, that you and your girlfriend have overcome more than seventeen fights, but, just for example, you meet some girl that you think you might like more than your current girlfriend. So you you break up with your current girlfriend.”

“You and your new girlfriend have a fight, but you make up. So you think you are okay. But you don’t even know anything yet. You have another fight, but you still don’t know anything yet.”

“You’re just stuck waiting until you’ve had 17 fights with your new girlfriend, and that’s the only time that you can even start comparing her to your old girlfriend.”

So there you have it. The Rule of 17 Fights.

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* SLIGHTLY PARANOID DISCLAIMER:
As I feel the need to mention quite often on this blog, most everything here is a touch blurred by the double haze of translation and memory. But I do my best.

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Photo: Front Yard Kids, PLUS: What We Sound Like · 115 days ago

In the front yard with the new toy camera. This excellent being is pretending to be a monkey…

When your camera looks ridiculous, ridiculous subjects run towards you.
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BONUS TIP (from experience!):
If you are ever curious as to what your foreign accent sounds like, might I suggest you call upon your neighbor’s children’s friends to mock you?

They will do so without fear. Amusing! Humbling! Educational.

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Home Movie Partything AND: The Earthquake and the Cardigan · 129 days ago

The RULES:
Everyone who comes should debut some kind of little movie they made.

Anything counts, as long as you’re debuting it ( World Premieres Only!)

Make it with your cell phone. Make it with a $3000 camera. Make a flip book out of your best student’s English journal. Hold up three polaroids and move them in front of our face in rapid succession.

Anything counts.

I will be especially ecstatic if someone shows up with a zoetrope.

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RATHER WRITERLY BONUS:
I’m writing a weekly column over on glimpse.org .

For starters, here’s a sort of travel manifesto called The Earthquake and the Cardigan.

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The Bowler · 141 days ago

Arm straight as cane
All hell
Lined up.
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Photo taken on the beach in Miyazaki.

I admit it: I still don’t understand the game.

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Video: How to Be a Baller: Poker Games to Gold Chains (Ashera Bonus Re-Mix) · 150 days ago

A project filmed in the kitchen over break.

Took a little challenge from a dude named Ramit:
‘Make a vid that encourages people to save early. With lots of data.’
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Stats:
Saving 100/mo over a period of ten years and then having the total continue to grow for 30 more years – age 35 to 65 (assuming avg annual rate of return on investment of 8%).

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