What's Jappening?

As I'm writing this, I'm actually working on a reflective essay for my uni, but it's got me thinking a little bit about culture shock. Prior to leaving for Japan, I was very anxious. I was told by lots of people that I would experience culture shock and, whilst that's totally ok, it was also something I should be prepared to experience. The truth is though, now that I think back, I don't think I ever really experienced culture shock. If you do a bit of reading online, you will quickly see that culture shock is usually broken down into stages ( thanks Wikipedia ): The Honeymoon Stage: Every little thing is amazing and exciting and life is as if you were looking through rose tinted glasses. You may remember this phase from your last relationship The Negotiation Stage:  The honeymoon period is over and all those little quirks that you used to love now kind of piss you off and remind you of how they were better back at home. This is the phase most commonly referre

So term has ended and, before long, I'll be heading back to England. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing my dog after what feels like forever, as well as his new little brother whom I can't wait meet, but I'm somewhat less excited about starting my third and final year at uni. When did that even happen? So, in true denial style, I've decided to do a little pros and cons comparison of England and Japan by listing what I think each country could learn from each other. Let me just say here and now that I love both England and Japan very much, and these are just little things that I think could make each country even better. What England could learn from Japan: Separate bag-packing areas at the checkout - I'm certainly not the only one who finds the process of packing your bags after you've paid at the checkout intensely stressful. You're trying to pack your bags properly whilst also taking the change and receipt from the checkout person whilst

Whether I wanted to or not, it was inevitable that in my time studying abroad here in Japan I would compare my home university (UCA) and my host university (NUA). So today I thought I'd take a little look at how the classes differ between the two unis. Obviously, I can't compare everyone's timetables and lessons so I'm just going to compare my timetable in UCA with my friend Kato's timetable here at NUA. The reason I'm not comparing it with my timetable here at NUA is that I only had to take five classes in order to get enough credits to pass the year back in England and I wouldn't be able to take a lot of the classes due to my pretty shaky Japanese. So here is Kato's timetable: By comparison, my timetable at UCA goes as follows: Monday       9.00-12.00 Illustration                       12.00-1.00 Lunch                       1.00-4.00 Illustration Tuesday       9.00-12.00 Illustration                       12.00-1.00 Lunch                    

Fresh off my door-sized print and inspired by my recent trip to the Nagoya City Science Museum (which kinda looks like that robot from The Incredibles), I decided to go a little outside my comfort zone by producing a three-colour print of a pattern (as opposed to any particular thing). I was still recovering from a pretty painful hand cramp and I was starting to worry about how I'd take all this work home, so I decided to go for a postcard-size print which, in hindsight, I think suits the design perfectly. Unsurprisingly, this print took no time at all to finish, and I made a total of eight, whimsical little prints that I am very pleased with. When I get back to England, I'd really like to go back to this design and reprint it with different colour combinations, it could make for an interesting series!

One thing I should probably tell you about NUA is that, in the middle of the campus, there is a large(ish) gallery space that has a weekly rotation of students' work. It's actually something I really love about this university and I honestly wish that UCA did this as well, because it's so awesome to look at everyone's work and support your friends and fellow students in the process. I think I'll suggest it when I get back to England... Anyway, at our orientation at the beginning of the semester, we were told that there was going to be an International Students Exhibition and that this would be a chance for us to show off the work we'd produced during the term. Admittedly, this exhibition took place about a month before the end of term, so not all of our work would be finished, but the hope was that we would have enough work between us to show off the power of the foreigner (or something like that). Having just missed out on exhibiting my work with the rest o

So this is a bit of a strange one. Since coming to Japan, I've obviously noticed a whole bunch of differences between here and old blighty. Some of them were to be expected, such as the food, some of them were a surprise, such as how cheap eating out is, some of them were not a big deal, such as the train/subway system, and some of them were totally random and unimportant and yet somehow completely threw me. This is a post about one of those things. Now the majority of the eastern world uses the Roman alphabet (a, b, c...) and whilst the order of these 26 letters is fairly arbitrary, we never really think about it. It also makes sense that the vowels follow the same alphabetical order. Now Japan doesn't use the Roman alphabet. Instead, it uses Kanji (Chinese characters representing words), Hiragana (a set of 46 syllables, or sounds, used to construct words), and Katakana (the same 46 syllables but with different characters, mostly used for foreign words). Hiragana and Katak

So a few weeks ago, I was talking to my course leader here about the upcoming international students exhibition and what I was planning to exhibit. I showed her all of the work I'd done up until that point; my etchings, my first woodcut, my calligraphy etc. and she was a really big fan of the large, floor calligraphy that I'd done at the beginning of the term. She then came up with the idea that I should do a really large woodcut inspired by one of the kanji that I had drawn, with the goal of exhibiting them side by side in a few weeks time. Though hesitant at first due to the practicalities of taking a print that large home to England, I agreed, and she told me that she would have some wood ready for me to carve by that time next week. Blissfully ignorant of what I was getting into, I went about my business, and the next week I came to class with a design in one hand and my cutting tools in the other. People. This piece of wood was big . Like, the size of a large door big. I

Existential questions aside, this is something I've been thinking about for quite a while now. Obviously, I'm studying abroad, so that would suggest that I should be focusing on my classes whilst I am here. But it's not quite so simple. My friends and family, myself and the wider realm of the internet have all told me that there is more to it than that. I should not only be studying, I should be making friends, learning about the culture, learning the language, travelling (both in and out of Japan), trying new foods, going to local events, visiting galleries and museums, the list goes on. The thing is, as much as I really want to do all of those things, I don't think I can. As I'm sure many of you reading this will know, I have Aspergers, and one of the characteristics of that is that I find most situations more difficult than the average person, for a number of reasons. The two main ones being that: a) I have sensory difficulties, meaning that my senses are much

After my successful first try, I was very excited to start on my second woodcut brief. This time, our design could be any size, but it had to have three or more colours, which meant that we had to carve multiple pieces of wood that would be layered on top of one another to create the full image. I decided to use a photo that I took in Atami for my print, as it contrasted to my first print with it's more geometric shapes and block colours. Given that this would be the most complicated print I've ever done, I thought that going with a more simple image would work in my favour, as I'd be less likely to mess up. I also decided to go with the same size as before because I thought it was effective at showing off the technique without being so big that it would be cumbersome. After sketching out my image, I broke it down into four basic colours; brown, red, yellow and black. As the yellow and black were both relatively small parts, I put them on the same piece of wood, so I woul

One thing I've realised since I've been here is that the classes move at a relatively slow pace compared to the classes and workshops that I was used to taking back in England. No complaints though, as it gives me time to focus on trying to understand what the teachers are saying. This was never more useful than in my etching class. For those who aren't familiar with the process, it's super complicated and involves a lot of different steps and chemicals. In the grand scheme of printmaking, I wouldn't say it's my favourite technique, mostly because I don't think it's well suited to the kind of work I tend to produce. Having said that, I enjoyed learning about the process, and I'm really pleased with the outcome. We were each given a metal plate which we had to cut into two and then design two images with the theme "folk story". I took folk story to include fables and designed mine around The Tortoise and The Hare. I obviously decided this

I am proud to present my first finished work; a woodblock print entitled "Growth". It was super exciting for me to learn a new printmaking technique, and as an avid fan of lino printing, I had high hopes. The process is actually pretty similar to lino printing, but with a bit more room for experimentation and texture. Unlike with linoleum, you can both add and take away from the wood. Obviously, the majority is carving, but you can also scratch into it, glue stuff on top, sand it away and more. This freedom is, however, balanced out by the fact that carving it requires a lot more care, as the wood can splinter off without warning, a fact that I learnt very quickly as I lost an entire branch within minutes of me starting to carve. I was much more careful from then on in. I based my image off a photo I'd taken at Nagoya Castle when the cherry blossoms were still in bloom, and even though we were limited by only cutting one block, I decided to add more colour to the print by

It's no secret that I don't exactly blend in here in Japan. My relatively different appearance has earned me many a comment, but there's one that keeps popping up time and time again. かわいい. Pronounced 'kawaii', this word is usually translated to mean 'cute'. Now the word 'cute' in english has two meanings; cute like a puppy and cute like Zac Efron, neither of which are descriptions I would usually assign to myself. Being generally larger than most of the people I've met here, I can't be seen as cute like a puppy, and I highly doubt everyone's been hitting on me. So what's the deal? Well, just like how the word 'cute' has many meanings in English, so does the word 'kawaii' in Japanese. The first and foremost meaning of 'kawaii' is something that is cute, small, and generally makes you want to make high pitched noises and squeeze something. The second meaning is a little more subtle and is generally used to

A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to sign up for an Arimatsu Shibori workshop that was made available to the exchange students and I leapt at the idea. Arimatsu Shibori is a traditional Japanese tie-dyeing technique that is based in the Arimatsu area of Nagoya. It involves tightly sewing or folding the material in certain ways and then dipping them into a boiling blue dye. Once dyed the material is unthreaded/unfolded to reveal a beautifully unique and often intricate pattern of blue and white. We were shown the techniques and history for both the sewing and folding techniques, though we only got to try the folding one (probably for the best tbh because it looked difficult af). We each had three pieces of material, each folded into a different type of triangle in advance which, in itself was a learning process. When we got to the dyeing step, we donned out gloves and, one by one, we dipped various corners and edges into the dye before taking it to a massive bath, untying it and wa

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Japanese rest stops are better than English ones. Not only do the toilets not make you feel like you need a chemical shower after using them, but the entire entrance way is filled with sweets, snacks, drinks and all kinds of Omiyage (souvenirs), which would probably be quite handy if you were driving to see a friend or family member and forgot to get them something. Suck on that WHSmith. So this week I went to Atami, a vibrant coastal town southeast of Mt. Fuji, for two days with my friends and, despite being beyond exhausted when I got back, I had a really great time. Before we checked into our guest house, we stopped off at the Atami Museum of Art , which is quite possibly the most picturesque museum I've ever been to. Located some way above the town, MOA provides you with a sweeping panorama of the ocean and subsequently, great photo opportunities (I was particularly excited because I could see a large plankton bloom just off the bay