Category — Site Authors

New York is the international hub of the United States, and as can be expected, I spend a lot of my time exploring Japanese things in New York City. I’m sure that everyone has been to a sushi restaurant or two, but there is so much more available. From tiny authentic restaurants to huge street festivals, there are many interesting encounters with Japanese culture to be had in New York City. I have taken my tiny film camera with me everywhere and captured many various aspects of Japanese life in New York that I am looking forward to sharing them with you.

“The North side uses more butter, the South side actually uses more oil.”

Wait, what? I looked up from my computer up at my friend Frankie, cooking pan in hand.

“Oh, Italy?” Well, duh. I wasn’t exactly on my A-game, at midnight with a four page paper due in the morning. I dipped my finger absentmindedly in the jar of Nutella I had conveniently moved away from the cook.

“Yeah. Most people think that oil is the biggest ingredient in all Italian foods, but it’s totally not. In the North side, they actually only use butter. I don’t know, it’s something to do with the seasons. But crepes are French, so I don’t even know why it matters.”

I had no idea where they were from, or what they were made of, or why we were really even eating them. By the bottom of the Nutella jar, I had lost an hour and gained only one introductory paragraph to my essay. But, I learned something new. I looked around the kitchen from my white, food stained counter throne, and smiled to myself. And what did I spy but an Irish girl from Brooklyn who knows diddly-squat about cooking; a Russian girl from everywhere whose experience with Italian food stops at spaghetti; an Italian-Puerto Rican girl from the-middle-of-nowhere, Upstate whose cooking preference is primarily easy mac; and an Italian from Staten Island with cooking pan in hand and an endless stream of cooking remedies and anecdotes. All assembled for the common goal: procrastination. And on our path to procrastination, we actually found something interesting.

Also, we found out how FANTASTIC crepes are at one in the morning.

I mention that I’m interning at Bellevue, and most people will shoot back “insane asylum.” That response, coupled with the shocking number of homeless scattered about the area, and cane-bearers, struggling to walk a meager straight line, led me to investigate.

After a couple days on the job, I was more than just curious about the people of Bellevue Hospital Center. I asked someone innocently why there were so many poor people specifically near Bellevue. Her response was along the lines of “Bellevue is a public facility hospital. They accept Medicaid, and administer free health care to the poor.”

Ahhha!, that explains that!

But I was not satisfied. I still wanted to know why so many people think Bellevue is one giant psych ward. Frustrated by the general populace’s ignorance, I investigated the matter further, probing the Internet for more information.

My findings taught me that Bellevue, now an affiliate of NYU Medical Center, actually began as almshouse for the poor in the early 1800s, and opened America’s first maternity ward in 1799.

Most people know about Bellevue’s psychiatric facilities because it is one of the oldest and therefore, most distinguished, in the country. Many famous people were treated there as patients. And, of course, its pysch ward has been made all the more famous by the film, “The Miracle on 49th St.” The building, which once served as the hospital’s psychiatric facility, now serves as a homeless intake center and a men’s homeless shelter.

Every day, I amble through Bellevue Park South opposite the hospital building. I notice the same homeless men every day playing Poker on the park benches. I notice their baggage and the scraps of junk they call possessions. They seem content with their own insular culture, whatever it may be. As I approach the hospital each day, I cringe. Every time. I cringe when I see impoverished people with crooked gaits struggling with the simple task of walking from point A to point B. I feel fortunate to be young and able-bodied, and I feel privileged to own a pair of working legs.

It doesn’t get easier to go to Bellevue, to witness the pain of those who populate the area. Actually, I think it gets harder.

For my collage theme, I’ve decided to do it on the city that doesn’t sleep, New York City. Personally, I am ALWAYS tired and that’s pretty much the reason I decided to do this topic. Most days going to school in the morning, I sleep on the train. Most days going home, I sleep on the train. Some days when I get home, I take a nap. I love sleep. You can almost say that my hobby is sleeping and I know I’m not the only one. I always see other people sleeping on trains, on buses, even on the street. You can walk through Madison Square Park right outside of school and see people laying in the grass sleeping. Everyone sleeps obviously but I want to capture the moments that don’t just happen between the hours 11pm-8am in our own cozy beds. I want to be able to capture the moments where people just happen to fall asleep, whether it be on the floor of a living room, or a bench in a park.

I would like to capture the city’s tiredness and include it in a collage. I want to point out all the naps and rests that the city that “doesn’t sleep” has to offer.

This year I discovered the Swedish midsummer festival in Battery Park. I had celebrated midsummer in Sweden every year up until the age of 10, when I became too old to miss the last two weeks of school. I did not have high expectations of this New York festival, thinking it would never measure up to the true Swedish ones. When I arrived, I knew immediately I was in the right place by all the blonde and blue-eyed people milling about. The adults sat squeezed together on the grass while rosy-cheeked children raced around in traditional blue-and-yellow dress. My friends and I were handed leafy, supple branches and some twine to make wreaths for ourselves. We were then given a bouquet of native Swedish wildflowers, in purple and yellow and white, to slip in among the leaves. After helping my friends, I made my way back to the main area, just in time to see the maypole being raised to loud cheers. The traditional midsummer music started and I was brought back to cool summer evenings in Sweden. The hostess was an American-born Swede whose loud voice and heavy accent ruined the soft lyrical words of the song she was trying to sing. However her voice was soon drowned out by everyone joining in as we got up to dance around the maypole. I joined hands with the strangers at my sides and skipped around, laughing as the song required us to jump around like frogs or collapse into an imaginary ditch. Despite the childish nature of these dances and songs they are something that everyone participates in, no matter what their age. There was a short break, during which I ate a typical Swedish lunch of waffles with jam and cream, and then everyone got together again for more dancing. Even after the festivities were over people hung around. I met a lot of young Swedes, just a few years older than me, who had recently moved to New York and had come to the festival hoping to allay their feelings of homesickness. I left the festival already looking to forward to the one next year.

“Ensemble in NYC,” 9″X12″, Acrylic painting on canvas board

With the shuddering sound of window, another symphony of exotic languages flowed into my ears. I suddenly realized that there were twenty people on the bus using twenty different languages, but all heading toward one direction. I was in the middle of New York City, the salad bowl of cultures. I could see “India” from a colorful Kurta of a lady in front of me. I could hear “China” from two Chinese guys on the left. All different cultures blended into this city and created something new and sensational: the New York style.

Becoming a part of this vibrant community for five years, I always enjoyed the richness of cultural diversity. Interacting with the people out of my culture and learning how to respect theirs became a vital learning experience. However, as much as I loved the positive energy from the exchanges of thoughts and cultures every day, I could also witness so many collisions of different ideas and opinions. On the bus, at school, at home, I thought hard on this undefined society where numerous hidden conflicts and misconception reside as much as the cultural diversity itself.  When my thoughts reached the idea of social discord, I was finally came to realization about the significance of maintaining social harmony.

I decided to express an “ensemble” through my collage. All of us, the New Yorkers, are the instruments of a symphonic orchestra. Everyday, we run into a variety of random situations as if we are improvising a song on the stage. Each one of us has a distinctive voice and feelings. We are already aware that our voices are different from each other and do not instantly blend into a harmony due to our differences in political view, religious belief, or cultural background. Amazingly, somehow all those social discords are accepted and ultimately transformed into the harmony in New York City. I would like to express such transformation, the moment when “You” and “I” become “We.”  This idea may seem trite and futile. Nonetheless, we should consider why it became so worn-out: it is because we haven’t witnessed the truthful moment of “ensemble” yet.

In order to convey this thought in my collage, I used old, yet analog approach: cutting and pasting photos, painting, and drawing. I’m a firm believer in the old school. Most importantly, I believe in the power of analog sentimentalism. I cut and pasted various types of two dimensional art works on a piece of paper including photos of the city’s skyline, paintings, and drawings. Torn paper edges and carelessly painted ambiguous figures may be seen as out-of-style and even irrational to the chic New Yorkers. The night-view of a busy highway became the head part of a cello and Times Square became the tailpiece. The acute lines of computer graphics cannot easily replace the warm and unique atmosphere of a two dimensional artwork created by the rough brush touches and dramatic colors.

I personally consider creating a collage as a process of gathering and organizing my own ideas into a clearer form. The scattered blobs of thoughts, which might have been nothing significant, can transform into an entirely different creation. For this elaborate process requiring both creativity and novelty, I believe traditional style of “cutting and pasting” is more suitable than just “copying and pasting” the image digitally.

Last Friday, I found myself wandering around St. Mark’s Place in a daze, wishing I was back in Tokyo. I went to Sunrise Mart, the Japanese supermarket there, to pick up some ingredients for dinner and try to pretend I was back in Japan. It failed miserably, and I left the store with delicious food, but an even stronger feeling of emptiness and longing.

I walked slowly up the street towards the Astor Place downtown 6 station, feeling extremely sorry for myself. As I stood on the street corner, waiting for the light to change, I noticed a Japanese tourist next to me, fervently studying his map with a look of total confusion on his face. I watched as he craned his neck to see what street we were on, and then went back to his map, his eyebrows contorted in frustration. After he did this four or five times, I decided to intervene.

“Excuse me, are you okay?” I asked in Japanese. He glanced up, startled, and I repeated my question. A look of absolutely relief appeared on his face as he exclaimed “thank you, thank you!” in a thick Japanese accent.

“I”, he began in English, and looked at me to see if I understood. I nodded, smiling, and he smiled back, continuing.

“I want to go to Bleecker Street”, he said slowly. Being from Miami, I don’t know my way around the city all that well yet, but thankfully I was going to Bleecker Street station in order to get back to my dorm.

“Ah, you have to ride the train!” I told him, adding “I’m going there too.”

So off we went to the subway station. Once we arrived at Bleeker Street Station, I pointed towards the exit, telling him “you go that way”.

He nodded and bowed to me deeply, showing great appreciation and respect. I bowed back, and sent him off with the Japanese expression for “be careful”. He nodded, smiled, and bowed again, saying thank you again and again as he did so.

I turned around and walked towards the F train, smiling and almost crying with joy, thinking maybe, just maybe, not being back in Japan just yet wasn’t so bad after all.

Some significant figures throughout history are overshadowed by other individuals, although they have played their part well. Even though they contribute to our culture in a major way, the public might not directly recognize their accomplishments. These individuals are known as sidekicks. My collage will be about all the sidekicks that made a difference even though their better known counterparts overshadowed them. The sidekicks that will be included will be the ones that have affected American culture and have changed the outlook of the masses.

America is a cultural mixing pot. I walk onto 5th Ave. and look around. I see Germans, Italians, Japanese and even some natives. What I’m looking at aren’t the people, however, but rather a technological innovation brought about by them – cars. There are more to cars than most people would begin to imagine. To me, the history behind how most of these automobile companies came to be is more fascinating than the history of most civilizations on our planet. BMW started by building airplane engines, Ferrari sponsored racecar drivers, and Volkswagen, which literally means “People’s Car,” came from a government program under Adolf Hitler. My collage will combine all of the best automobiles from the world’s most famous companies into “one” supercar.

The best things in life are free, or at least nearly free.  There is the conception that quality is compromised when something is offered for free but I learned otherwise a few months ago.

I used to take yoga classes to supplement dance classes but stopped because I couldn’t see why I should pay to stretch and decided that I could just do it in my spare time.  After a few weeks of self-taught yoga, I stopped because I didn’t really know how to organize a session

One random day in February, my friend tells me that there’s free yoga at St. Mark’s Place.  Without any expectations, I go to yoga with her.  She has a mat, gym clothes, and water at the ready; I have two bucks to rent a hopefully non-infected, slip-proof, decent smelling mat, the dress that I wore to school, and no drink to hydrate myself with.  To my surprise, I came out feeling lighter, energized, and relaxed.

I laughed my way through a good part of it: at this place, they encourage you to breathe with a loud sigh or hum if it feels good and let’s just say some people are loud.  Then there’s this pose that you lie on your back, and grab for your feet called “happy baby.”  It’s possibly the most awkward pose ever but then you realize that everyone else is doing it too, and nobody’s looking at you.  Then you start hearing the “goo-goo ga-gas” and gurgling noises and you think you that you’re in a room full of absolute nuts.  Then you try it yourself.  And you know you’ve become a part of it.

There are no mirrors, and anything you change you have to feel if it is right or wrong.  Yoga is something I do for myself and when I do my practice I’m completely involved in my own world, but there’s something about the collective breathing that’s calming even if it’s next to the most hipster-y hipster, the graceful dancer, the uncoordinated boyfriend who was dragged along, or the old couple that decided they needed to exercise and are less than a half of a foot away from you or even if you’ve had the worst day and you decided that you hate the world.  The practice, the teachers, and the people have transformed me in some way; yoga has helped me realize things I want to pursue and things I want out of my life.  It’s strange because yoga really just leaves you to your own thoughts; so I guess I’ve taught myself what’s best for me and it didn’t cost a thing.