Taste the World

"Taste the World" was held again.
(Please refer to here for the last time)
The last time, the venue was mainly dedicated to photos taken all over the world, but talk session was the major part this time around.

My friend R.K had fieldwork in Uganda while in graduate school and he talked about it with a slide show.

Well, first of all, he seemed to get very used to speak in public, although I could pretty much guess he'd say "Not at all".
Even if he actually doesn't, he was still good at it. I'm sure of it.

He told in his sppech what brough him here and it made a total sense to me. Here's what he talked.

At first, he was not necessarily interested in what he's involved right now, which is international cooperative activities.
One day when he was serving himself as a voluntary music teacher in Zimbabwe, he started feeling a bit empty.
It doesn't mean he enjoyed his task there, actually he had a lot of enjoyable quality time with kids, singing playing together.

However, he realized this could be temporary. It's just for now that they are being happy. Nothing has created for their better future. There must be something he can do for them.
That's how he decided to step into this field.

It was quite reasonable and understandable.
To tell the truth, when it comes to global cooperation or something, I don't deny that hypocrisy comes to my mind, like this is something elevated and also pure-hearted people do.
But nothing like that was found in his talk. I assume that he just naturally into this world.

I have little to contribute, but promise me that you keep me posted your work, R.K? OK?!

Life and Debt

To understand more what kind of situation Jamaica has been facing against, I decided to watch this documentary.
But I wasn't focused enough to catch the point perfectly... It was a bit boring to just listen to former President or some other senior officials talk about the economic and social condition.

Here are several points I managed to grab from the film.

IMF or World Bank loan money under strict condition that Jamaica never ever seems to achieve, like trade liberalization, privatization and so on.

For instance, they have to accept imported crops from the States, which originally produced in Latin American countries.

As you could imagine, it prevents domestic agriculture stop to grow since they are lower-priced.

Overall, it critiques the West and the West-oriented global organization.

All I can do is just pray for better tomorrow for most of people in Jamaica who are not wealthy.

I dare to use the term "tomorrow" instead of "future".

What I've heard from a Japanese woman living in Kingston for more than 15 years, people only set their eyes on this coming tomorrow every single day.

One Love

I watched this twice in a row. And at the third time with my little sis. Just desperately wanted to feel the atmosphere of Jamaica.

Kassa (Ky-Mani Marley) a rasta man, hoping for musical success. One day he meets a gospel singer girl, Serena at the recording studio and instantly falls for her. Love at the first sight?!

But Serena is unattainable for Kassa. She's a sheltered daughter of the pastor and he strongly forbids her to see him and wants her to marry one of his church members.

Meanwhile the record boss organizing the contest, tries to get Kassa's band to sign to his label on his terms not theirs.
He really wants a contract that will lead to his dream, but he isn't in dilemma at all. What he matters is "HIS" own music.

The plot goes as your expectation.

Although Kassa is set up by Serena's fiance, let's say, ganja thing..., they get together at the end.

I can get a sense of how Rasta people are being treated and how they live in their villages, which was good.

Because this is something that I wanted to see, but missed when I visited Jamaica last year.

Next time I'll join Nyahbinghi at Sunday in Kingston, hopefully.

17 Again

20 years ago, Mike's got married with his high school sweetheart when he was told that she was pregnant.
He abandoned his basketball scholarship for her and their new life.
It was what he decided by himself. It could be said to be "romantic", at least partly...

But look at him now. No job, seperating life from his wife and almost no family bond with their two kids.
That decison of givung up the colleage has been one of the biggest regrets for around-40 stranded Mike lately.

One day Mike encounters a mysterious janitor, visiting his alma mater to reminisce. He transforms Mike into his 17 year-old himself.

Basically, I'm not interested in a story like this.
But I just thought it might not be bad to take a look at a "Friends" star, Matthew Perry and one of the hottest guy, what media would like to call, Zac Efron.

When I was 17, mostly I devoted myself into preparing the entrance exam for the university.
I'm not disapponited with that. It was not mandatory, but necessary. It was worthwhile.

A Heart in Winter

I think I was lucky to find this film by chance out of so many broadcastings by the Cables.
In a nutshell, this is a story about 3 French grown-ups caught in a love triangle.

Maxime is a violin workshop owner.
He's what they call, alpha man. Leader type, dominant, generally popular.
No wonder he has casual relationship with young, promising and incredibly beautiful, which seems considerably important, concert violinist , Camile.

Meanwhile, Stephane is polar opposite.Introverted, unemotional.
He works for Maxime's repair shop as a skilled craftman.

In a typical love formula, girls falls for a vigorous man like Maxime, but then gradually and uncosciously or subcosciously being attracted by a man like Stephane.

Well, personally, I'm a person who tend to be fascinated with Stephane type from the beginning...
So, I was hoping that Stephane and Camile get together.

But the plot didn't go as the formula.

Stephane rejects Camile's affection towards him !!

To make the thing more surprising, it was just when she impiled she'd like to make love with him.

Can you believe this?!

Who could do that reaction when you're a man and your heart is obviously inclined to the relationship with her?

From what I come from, at least here in Japan, people still believe men are supposed to do this kind of seductive invite, while I don't , hahaha...

So I totally understand her devastation when he didn't accept her.

It must have been so mortifying as ever.

You know what, I'm suggesting that I had the similar experience. WTF !! (Sorry for my word.)

I foud out one review, googling this movie.

It says with some evidence that Stephane is a gay and everything is being manipulated by him.

He only wanted to hurt Maxime who won't love him back.

Is that true?! I'm not sure.

Even if so, I wouldn't take the story this way.

Wish I had a chance to watch again. But the DVD seems to be discontinued....(> <)

Precious

I don't know what exactly I wanted and what I expected from this film.
Maybe I have to admit this, because I'm no hypocrite.
I wanted something to make me feel happy as I am now, by comparing myself to sort of a social pariah like Precious.

Anyway, since I knew about the movie, I'd been dying to "SEE", not "WATCH".
Actually, I just couldn't wait for the theater release and I've finished the original novel before I was headed to the theater. Hahaha.


Once I started the book, I was shocked.
I've never seen a book contains nasty words that much !
Some I could guess the meaning contextually, but some I didn't have any clue at all.
Besides, spellings were reflective of the way people in "Project" speaks so that I felt I was almost there, listening their dialect directly, which was good point.

Precious is 16 year-old, obese, illiterate living in the ghetto of Harlem.
She's pregnant when the story begins. This is her SECOND child with whom?!
It's her father !! She's been raped by him since she was quite small.

Addtion to her insane father, her mother is also disfuctional.
She abuses Precious verbally and of course physically, not tring to do anything for her family but just relying on welfare.


Her first baby has Down syndrome and she calls her "Lit Mongo".
This is only written in the book.
You might associate Mongo with some kind of Spanish name, but Mongo is named after Mongolian since kids with this challenge seem to be Asian.
As one of Asians, I was not confortable with this...

Even though I know it's not a true story, I wanted to put a curse on the author.
Because Precious finds out she's HIV positive having being carried from her diabolical father.
How could her life more miserable?! Is it necessry to make her more fucked up?!

But she decides to move on with her 2 kids, being seperate from her mother.
Doing what she can now, every single day. This is the rough story.

Her mother played by Mo'Nique is outrageous. But at one scene, I was totally with her. When she admitted her abusive behavior against her own child, she claimed like, " I wanted to be loved, I needed to be loved. My kid took it away from me. That's why I started bullying"
The way she took was completely wrong, but everybody needs love and to be loved. This is natural desire, isn't it?

My room with Kanga

Maybe you know how messy my flat is, with piles of stuff that I've been hesitating to toss away for ages without finding any decent usage.
Against chaos on the floor, the walls were purely white and no decorated.

In a nutshell, I'm a poor organizational person myself.
But one day the room has made a great change !

Honestly, I wanted to make a tote bag from this vivid cloth, well, actually, I wanted to someone good at to do this for me since I'm all thumbs. You can say "you have two left feet !" if you want.
Either way, my plan didn't work out well.

Then this idea stroke me. How about just putting it on the wall?

It was good. This brings me inner brightness. It was a quite revelation to me. How you decorate your room, it really matters, doesn't it?!

Just FYI, this is called Kanga, originally from Tanzania. Please check here if you'd like to read this article in Japanse.