 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Ah, poor blog. I've been a bit neglectful of late but there just hasn't been the time.
So as well as becoming a pensioner during my stay, I've also become nocturnal. Am now down to around 4-5 hours sleep a night, which for me is unheard of. I like to sleep so much that it's usual for me to have dreams telling me I have the day off work and, sure I can sleep for an extra few hours. But I'm not feeling too bad on it and am making real progress with the work which is satisfying, things just look a wee bit shiny!.
I realised last night when I was being interviewed the enormity of the task I have set myself. The journalist asked to see Aiko-san's interview, when I said they weren't complete yet she said (not very tactfully I thought) oh no, will you get everything done in time, what about the exhibition, it opens on Saturday. Am quite clear about that already but just smiled and explained that in England when I made Home-Maker I developed a relationship with the 4 people and made the piece over about 6 months and that I had only been in Japan for 3 weeks so neede to work right up until the end.
It then struck me what I was trying to do and I'm not sure really why I thought that interviewing and editing in another language would somehow be really simple and could be done in a much shorter time. But it is somehow coming together and I just have to trust that everything will be there on Saturday. I'm enjoying the ride, this has been an amazing experience and I've met some really lovely people and have fallen in love with Tokyo all over again.
Mikari-san came all day today and we edited and subtitled mangi-san into english. It's really funny, here as well as the Uk the women I've interviewed are pretty concise and straightforward, the men on the other hand are very long winded and go right round the houses to say something quite simple. I've also found that the men are really quite sentimental and romantic but try hard to hide it with bravado and machismo.
The longer I spend here the stranger I feel. I keep forgetting I'm in another country as technology wise I'm only a click away and have been talking to Sheil fairly reguarly but then something reminds me where I am. Earlier this evening I discovered my toilet is actually electric and the seat heats up. My english is getting all fucked up. In Japanese the verb always comes at the end of the sentence and I've realised that I've started doing that when I'm speaking english to simplify it for whoever I'm talking to.
I've started reading Ghost written by David Mitchell which is a series of intertwining stories set in Tokyo and Okinawa. Loads of it is near here and it's really strange to read about places you've been that day. I didn't realise but the population of Tokyo is 20 million. Oh my god!
Got to go, early start tomorrow, I'm going to see the exhibition space and the home-maker room installation in roppongi
ashta x
posted by Jeanie Tuesday, February 25, 2003