1 - Can Art Bring Healing: Wing Luke Museum Reflection
Art is such a personal form of expression, and I find a way of connection in every piece that I create or view. Several pieces throughout the museum exhibit we viewed, Resisters: A Legacy of Movement From the Japanese American Incarceration, had different ways of connecting with my story or causing emotional reactions. As a method of using ones creativity, many times messages and ideas put into each piece are not easily understood, or seen at first glance, but there is almost always some part of the finished product that will resonate with any viewer. I believe that in this way, with small connections and an appreciation of the creativity, artists can heal as they spread their messages.
Pieces I observed at the Wing Luke museum taught me a lot about Japanese American experiences, both directly and indirectly. While I had learned about the horrors of forced migration and tones of racism throughout wars, the connections made personally by observing art was much more impactful, and will definitely leave a much stronger mark. Small stories of resilience, of being loud and speaking up, struck me, as I resonated with the experience of being more quiet and dealing with subtle expectations to always follow the rules. A poster from an event organized for Japanese American healing soon after the incarcerations also brought forth the importance of speaking up and creating community to me, especially shown through the cheerful celebratory signatures, and the phrase “We made history!” The lesson of fighting and resilience will stick with me, and was even seen throughout several other exhibits, such as the “Reorient” exhibit as mentioned in given readings (here), and the evidence of emotion and expression in every piece demonstrated healing.
2 - Being a Reflective Traveler
I started my reflective exploration off in Motoyoyogi, a neighborhood next to the NYC. Even though it has only been 1 day in Tokyo, I've loved observing all the aspect and differences the small neighborhoods had to home.
By the Motoyoyogi Post Office, more obvious items around were the large red post boxes or the round street mirrors. I loved how the neighborhood also had several plants around, and didn't feel too much like the concrete jungle I had expected from Tokyo. Smaller details like the size of the roads or the shape of the cars - which a lot were more boxy - added to the atmosphere, and being able to enjoy hydrangeas in bloom and learning about the circular shaped grooves in certain roads (to help cars gain extra grip going up or down hills) has made just a small area so much more interesting.
Walking around the neighborhood was nice as it was a more quiet part of the city, and seemed to be more suburban. Most buildings looked like apartments or other areas of residence, and the people I passed by on the exploration were mainly parents and their children walking home. Another observation I made were the Japanese school backpacks - also more boxy than typical American ones. It was interesting to observe how similar neighborhoods could seem to those back home, especially with the greenery, but just paying slightly more attention to anything showed differences all around.
Week 1
This week was largely exploratory, with landing in Japan for the first time and having lots of activities wandering around the city. Starting out with neighborhood wandering and 7-eleven trips had our mindsets slowly shifting to combining our original ideas of Tokyo and what we saw around us.
In addition to classroom-scheduled activities, exploring Tokyo while making new friends has proved very overwhelming, but incredibly exciting. The food, building structure, views, and even shopping areas are different from home, and are fascinating to experience in person. We’re able to see a lot of the modern structure of life by simply exploring the neighborhoods together, and I’ve loved being able to learn about the history of the city alongside our adventures. I’m looking forward to this coming week and learning more about what Tokyo has to offer, as well as the connections and importance of Okinawa.
Tokyo National Museum
I've always loved looking at screens and types of ancient Asian paintings, as they are able to fit so much detail in the larger canvases, and do so without a large need for color. This piece was fascinating for me to observe all the different aspects, in which looking closer revealed several men meeting in a terrace, and one catching up on the way up the mountain. It was interesting to see how they were similarly observing a scroll, and made one wonder what they were doing - whether it was the scroll we see, a different drawing, or something they were working on creating. I loved seeing how the artist was also able to blend in the mountains and trees into the background and natural color of the scroll, leaving room for just observation of the screen but a suggestion of the entire environment.
Researching Tokyo Neighborhoods & Current Events
After our first couple days in Tokyo, I became more interested in learning about the neighborhoods here due to the amount of subtle details that were different from home and that made Japan unique. I also love art, and was most excited to view the various museums planned for this trip, and am interested in tying in different pieces of art into my final project.
Currently, I've found an article describing the changes in neighborhood, specifically with community. Takaya Katada and Kenichiro Shino's article "Neighborhood associations in crisis over aging, other challenges", describes the changes in generation as neighborhood association's older members are ceasing to be as active, and younger populations in the neighborhoods are less interested in continuing the associations. I would love to continue learning more about other changes between neighborhoods over time.
Week 2
This week, we continued to dive into the complex history of Japan, while exploring the city more and finding some of our favorite spots. Although continuing to have fun and explore more of Tokyo, I gained a lot of insight about the less romantic parts of Japan, all of which are incredibly important issues to gain awareness on.
Current Events: Art Techniques
As I wanted to explore more of an art side of Japan and was having trouble connecting art and neighborhoods in current events, I deided to take a look at "The Art of Yōga: Rediscover Old Japan Through Its First Oil Painters, Colored Pencil Scribblers, or a way of traditional Japanese painting", where it described how western techniques and Japanese art were combined. The commentary was incredibly interesting as it described how Japan has typically tried to fit in - in terms of their global image, and was seen both in art and other aspects of Japanese life like their streets.
Week 3
Moving into Okinawa was rather exciting, but also heavy and eye-opening as we dove straight into the complicated history between Okinawa an both the mainland and the US. The Battle of Okinawa was a surprisingly large part of the history, and particularly heartbreaking to learn about, but with more free time sprinkled in throughout the week, we had more time to reflect and explore the calmer city. This week, as it was a bit calmer schedule-wise, also allowed for deeper connections to form socially within the group, and fostered lots of emotional growth as well.
Current Events: Public Art
For the last current events, I wanted to find something that would tie in the art and neighborhood aspects, and stumbled upon a town called Nagoro, where a returning resident was creating scarecrows as a form of public art and in order to bring more livelihood to the neighborhood. Reading "Valley of the Dolls: Inside Japan's 'Scarecrow Village'" was inspiring as the town's residents had been either moving away or passing, and I was glad to see that there was a method to still bring joy to the remaining residents.
Final Reflections
Overall, this experience was incredibly valuable, and I feel that I was able to pick up all, if not more, of the skills that I believed I would gain. I felt that I was able to expand on my social skills by meeting several new people and practicing more communication and presentation skills, as well as being able to gain general reading and research skills from the several class assignments. While the program was focused on a more global and history leaning topic, the several skills mentioned above will be valuable for my future endeavors, especially when I find myself in new environments. I would love to continue traveling if the future allows, and will always keep in mind to have a reflective mind and view while doing so.
Specifically learning about Japanese History and their identity was still incredibly eye-opening, in a way that allowed me to appreciate the area I was exploring past the stereotypes and overwhelming advertisements, and get a better sense of my own identity as well. There were several hidden parts of Japan that the program helped bring to light, and in both Tokyo and Okinawa, I found it incredibly interesting to explore the areas while learning about their pasts. Interacting with others on the trip also proved very educational, and I believe I was able to gain quite a bit of emotional growth and find a greater value in friendships and communication. My trip was much less individualistic as I had believed it was going to be, but I was glad to find a community among strangers in a different country, and felt that learning and exploring together created an even more remarkable experience.
More (hella) reflecting below:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ootamqBC6zwdW0yVjxsUj6QcFnza9miiIglskNpXeiM/edit?usp=sharing
