Cherry Blossom at the peak in Tokyo

Originally, it's April the 5th. then moved to March the 25th. Yesterday, Japan Meteorological Bureau (JMB) declared, "It's tomorrow, March the 23rd!"

It's the full bloom date for cherry trees in Tokyo. Every year, JMB forecasts the full bloom date for every district in Japan; so people can shuffle their plans and choose a date for "cherry blossom viewing" or "a cherry blossom appreication party."

My choice of viewing area was Kanda-gawa (Kanda River or "神田川"). I hopped on a Tokyo Metro Yurakucho line train and got off at the Edogawa-bashi station in the late morning.

Truly, it was super beautiful.

Cherry Blossom viewing is "the ultimate" flower viewing or "hanami (花見）". When people say "hanami," it means "cherry blossom viewing." There's a walkway on both sides of the river with several bridges over it. Very convenient for appreciating cherry blossoms and making a trip back to the starting point.

Many people enjoy picnic with sake under a cherry tree. Many more walk along Kanda River to enjoy cherry blossom from different angles.

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Along Kanda River and next to "Basho-an" and famous "Chinzan-so," there's "Eisei Bunko" museum or "永青文庫", some of its collection such as Japanese armors and swords were shown at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco a couple of years ago.

Kanda River's cherry tree type is "Somei Yoshino (染井吉野), representative of a cherry tree. Flowers of this kind bloom in globular, and flowers in one ball bloom all together this year.

Carps and turtles live in swiftly flowing Kanda River. which used to overrun. Today, overflows will be led to a huge underground duct system to prevent flood.

Hanami will span only a week at most. If there's a windy day, cherry trees shed their flowers at once, leaving naked stems and twigs...

P.S. 3/30/13

Cherry flowers have been holding amazingly well.

Temperature has dropped since the 23rd, and we had no major rains or windy days in Tokyo. Today, people are enjoying "sakura fubuki, or cherry flower storm" in which petals are falling softly like a rain, even though there's no slightest breeze. Cherry petal falling reminds me of Gilda's song of cry in Rigoletto's quartet. Pathways underneath have become as if they were lined with pink carpet. Cheery blossom is beautiful from beginning to the end...

Sakaguchi's "Resume" at Tokyo Watarium

The Kyohei Sakaguchi exhibit, which was over a couple of days ago, made me laugh a good laugh. I agree with Kyohei Sakaguchi 80 percent, which is in fact quite high.

His work, "Resume," warmed my heart. I've been agonized by the Japanese resume form quite a while.

Japanese resume (see pic below) is the perfect representation of "life on the track": You are expected to go to a high school after a junior high, then proceed to a college and then straight to a company. No nonsense between schools and between schools and the so-called real world. "The" Japanese resume form predicates on life on the track. In a sense, it's even a minimalistic tour de force of conceptual arts.

After graduating from a college in the US, I continued my education via enrolling in a number of courses at different community colleges, part of the adult education system that USA should be very proud of. I also changed my employers several times to expand my knowledge and experience. My education and work life therefore totally run off from the Japanese form. I feel I'm "crucified" on the criss-crossing lines of the Japanese resume form. I feel I'm out of question from "their" viewpoint because my life does not fit to life on the track.

Roland Berthas, one of my favorite writers, says, "Scratch the surface, and there's a history." I tried it when I was fumed with the resume form, and somehow a Chinese term,「科挙」、pronounced "Kakyo," emerged on the surface of my brain. "Kakyo" is an infamous examination system created in China circa B.C. 200. Is Japanese resume might be one of the vestige of Kakyo and incredibly still surviving?

Pic: Watarium Museum. It goes well with yellow.

　 While I was away from Japan、a cream ban has evolved、a telephone box almost completely disappeared in Tokyo, and subway lines changed its name to "Metro" and multiplied in the underground world of Tokyo, the form of Japanese resume has not changed even a bit (and the design of the 10 yen coin hasn't changed at all). Isn't it weirdly stagnant?

So Mr. Sakamoto's "Resume" warmed my heart and I feel love toward the artist.

If I write Sakamoto style resume, I'll include playing with my brothers (cooping up a cat in an empty wooden apple box and trying to observe the cat's behavior when pouring a water from the above etc) going for a long walk with neighboring kids after school. Those were important matters definitely involved in shaping my inner space called mind. I especially liked going for a long walk (sometimes by myself), which was quite an adventure for me at that time. We just walked to a far away place to make a return trip to home. I often picked up a rusted bottle opener etc. on the way and kept it as a treasure in my tin box. Sakamoto's resume didn't include those staff. My guess is that he didn't have siblings. Also, when he was a kid, it might have been too dangerous for a kid to go for a walk by themselves.

I feel I'm forced to fit myself to that form of cross, which is "resume."

My first museum visit: Masterworks from Liechtenstein

I've been busy since I returned to Tokyo (from CA in USA). So busy because I have to relearn Tokyo's complicated subway system, various marks on electronics advertisement inserts and how to write "rirekisho" or resume in a Japanese way...

To smell a rose, I went to see "Masterworks from Liechtenstein" at National Art Center Tokyo.

Of couse, it's my first to get off at the Nogizaka station of Tokyo Metro Chiyoda-sen subway. I luckily found the elevator that would take me directly to the art center entrance. It makes my life easier as there's no way for me to get lost, which happens almost every time I go out. "Roji" or allays in Tokyo is one of the most challenging and frustrating experiences. As a newly arrived country bumpkin, I am learning the roji, which probably accounts for 80 percent of the street system of Tokyo. In a sense, the convenience of station-to-art center elevator steals my opportunity to learn roji of Nogizaka and take a pic.

National Art Center Tokyo's building looked to me a mass of concrete, which reminds me of J.Paul. Getty Museum in Los Angels. The latter especially looks like a fort rather than an art museum... The center's designed as if to protect expensive artworks (not patrons) borrowed from a foreign country, paying huge insurance premium. A Good thing about the Art Center is tables deployed along dramatic glass windows so that patrons can enjoy views through windows while having coffee. But still the building appears like an office building rather than art museum.

I thought it's Monday and there would be little patrons. Wrong! Fairly crowded with "obasan" or 40 to 50-ish married women with plentiful time on hand. A group of five is pasted in front of an exhibit and some with more than ten! I rarely experienced such a crowd in any San Francisco museum. It's not really "a rose" I was smelling but "frowsty smell of an overcoat kept in closet for two seasons." Considering the size of crowd, the center needs more bathroom compartments for sure.

The exhibit was pretty good. Many of the works were created around the same period with those masterworks exhibited in「"17th-century Dutch Masterworks"」held in San Francisco, and I was suddenly taken over by nostalgia for San Francisco.... Jan von Hysummn and Joris von Song etc. I recalled a docent explaining: "At that time, there were a limited varieties of flowers and cut flowers were luxury. So people hang flower drawings on the wall instead of real cut flowers." In Japan, there's no volunteer docent system. People pay for a recorded guide tape （SF has a sound guide system）。I tried it and found not more explanation than you read on a card pinned next to an exhibit.

One of the highlights of the exhibit is four paintings on the ceiling. They depict four different arts, one of which is paining and depict an old master teaching a young lovely lady painting. What's interesting about it is that the old master's hand is touching the woman's naked shoulder. This couldn't happen in reality. Probably the woman belonged to aristocracy and even a master painter couldn't touch her for any reason. Then why was the painting painted that way? I think it's customer service on the part of the painter commissioned by Lord Liechtenstein. He was an old guy and must have secretly drawn pleasure each time when he looked up to the painting on the ceiling.

Raffaello's portrait of a man is pretty modern and looking back at you. It's a classic painting with beautiful blue sky. A drawing of two mysterious wearing masks but must be beautiful women plotting a revenge. 17th Dutch and Flemish still paintings that emit warmth...

The last painting of the exhibit is a portrait of a baby resting peacefully. The drawing captures what it looks like when one is being in complete feeling of security and twinklings of the edge of thin silk collar softly covering the baby's neck. It's so peaceful that I couldn't help staring at the baby and when I exited the exhibition floor, I felt as if I had also had a long satisfying rest. I'd like to thank to the one who came up with the placement of works so that the baby was decided to the last work of the exhibit.

注：From Masterworks from Liechtenstein。Open to 12/23/2012.