One of America's First Teenage Heartthrobs was Japanese

Recently I heard from my older friends that an American orchestral group was touring Japan and playing the Tommy Polka. Puzzled, I looked further into the subject. Turns out Tommy was Tateishi Onojiro, a seventeen year old member of a delegation of besworded samurai that visited America in 1860. Tateishi soon got the attention, a nickname, and a polka titled after his new moniker. These days he would get a parody song and novelty ringtone, but they had class in those days. The New York Times has a good rundown of the the whole thing here. They say:

Tommy was sort of the Robert Pattinson of his day, a heartthrob who had women swooning. “From Washington Heights to East Broadway, Tommy is already a household word,” Vanity Fair gushed. Lapping up the adulation, the young man mugged for the crowds and blew kisses to them, in stark contrast to the iron faces who formed the rest of the Japanese delegation.

They also provided a Walt Witman poem made for the event (it's so long!):

The Errand-Bearers (1860)

Over sea, hither from Niphon,
Courteous, the Princes of Asia, swart-cheek’d
princes,
First-comers, guests, two-sworded princes,
Lesson-giving princes, leaning back in their open
barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
This day they ride through Manhattan.

Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I
behold pass, in the procession, along with the
Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or
in the ranks marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold,
Libertad.

When million-footed Manhatten, unpent,
descends to its pavements,
When the thunder cracking guns arouse me with
the proud roar I love,
When the round-mouth’d guns, out of the smoke
and smell I love, spit their salutes,
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me
—When heaven-clouds canopy my city with a
delicate thin haze,
When, gorgeous, the countless straight steams, the
forests at the wharves, thicken with colors,
When every ship is richly drest, and carrying her
flag at the peak,
When pennants trail, and festoons hang from the
windows,
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-
passers and foot-standers—When the mass is
densest,
When the facades of the houses are alive with
people—When eyes gaze, riveted, thens of
thousands at a time,
When the guests, Asiatic, from the islands
advance—When the pageant moves forward,
visible,
When the summons is made—When the answer
that waited thousands of years, answers,
I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements,
merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.

Superb-faced Manhattan,
Comrade Americanos—to us, then, at last, the
orient comes.
[Read the rest here]

For a Japanese movie about a slightly similar event, wherein Japanese samurai travel to England to learn about Western technology despite the whole affair being illegal, Choushuu Five looks interesting:


In case you are curious about the Tommy Polka—we all love a good polka! no?—I have found a rendition here:

 

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Anime Characters Walking Around in Our 3D World

Spain--You may have heard of Takashi Murakami. His name struck a bell with me so I did a quick Google image search. Oh, that guy. The one that sold the really indecent statue for disgusting amounts of money and reminded us that art was dead*. Anyways, here he is with a creature that looks like it sprang from his mind. The headline: そっくり ( looks just like him).[article]



Tottori prefecture--Also ran across this monstrous guy. Gegege no Kitaro! Remember when I made that video where I started to translate the theme song and then subconsciously switched back to Japanese? The train wreck? Eh? All of my videos are train wrecks? Too true. Anyways, here our protagonist is displaying the winners of a 妖怪　(Japanese monster) 川柳 (joke haiku, or as I like to say, joke-ku) contest . I believe the haiku here are the winners, in case you don't have access to our friend, but I warn you, they are kinda cheesy.[article]
I have been wondering since I saw the live-action movie: why did they cast a half-Japanese guy as Kitaro? I mean, does that mean that he is so Japanese looking that it doesn't matter? Or that yokai look slightly like foreigners? Or that foreigners look slightly like yokai? Or maybe they just choose him for good looks and Japan is at a happy state where such things don't matter...

A contest of my own for Dear Reader: Can you translate this joke-ku (ha ha, get it, see... jyokku is the katakana word... I'm sorry...) into English?: １０年で　嫁は寝肥り　オレ河童
--
Bonus etymology:
The term for joke-kus came from a haiku critic's name. I wish I could get such an easy job. Anyways, the guy was 柄井川柳（からいせんりゅう).

--
*Hey, I was an art major, so I can say these controversial statements with confidence ;) Also, you should take the hint and not do a Google image search if you are easily offended by... seminal works.

I sometimes wonder

I sometimes wonder.
I think that the moon, in it's gibbous state, colored auburn--what they call a harvest moon-- seems to be ambivilantly and unapologetically both giving ominious and peaceful feelings.
That's nature: danger and beauty wrapped in the same package.
It is dark.
I am lost somewhere in a mikan field in the mountains. With trimmed heges jutting up like monoliths.
Who trims headges around a mikan field?
Maybe the man who lives at that giant country house.
But the man is not there to answer that question.
And he would probably think me odd for being here in the first place.
It is dark.
I am alone.
And I wonder...

そんな感じ

Sometimes I ask Japanese people if they like the rain, cold and fog. They invariably answer no. But I do, and so I honestly respond when they invariably ask me in turn.
There is something about the feeling I get on rainy or cold days; it's hard to put into words. That sit in your house and drink hot chocolate laced with nutmeg, as you play chess (these days go is the game of choice) and maybe watch a scary movie kind of feeling. The autumn leaves being crushed under-foot, and rotting old shrines, covered in tenacious moss, as the mist obscures the mountains kind of feeling. I love it. It's part of the reason I was attracted to Japan. Many people think of this as a hot place, but I think it's at its best when it's cold.
I do my best to tell this to Japanese people. They seem to agree. But that's probably just politeness.

♪ Faaaaaarm livin is the life for me ♪

The fields are burning as my train rushes by. A slideshow of a little, agricultural apocalypse. Whatever was the crop before this season, it is being cremated. I wonder if the farmers say a little prayer. Goodbye, sweet smelling friends. Hello new friends.

Did some rice farming yesterday. The Japanese family I was with no doubt had been working all day; I showed up at about an hour to go. They insisted I wear a farmer's hat, boots, and overshirt. I thought this made me look remarkably like grandma, who was working alongside the family. They let me drive the tractor. I was amazed by the ingenious wonder of a machine than can grab a few sprouts and plant them with stacatto precision. I also did some planting the old fashioned way (by hand) in the corners of the flooded paddy. I learned how the irigation system works, it's brilliant simplicity. I helped create a dam to level the water in an unlevel paddy. I felt proud.
Later, there was obligitory dining. Table-top grilling of meats and vegitables, plus sashimi. I ate the most, but there was still plates of uncooked food when I gave up.
The girls of the house first regarded me as monster, then in gradual stages something to hit, yell at, then finally play with and read to. I learned a lot about beatles and magical princess comunicators.

I walk along the street at night, as I have done so many times before. But this time, a field to my left is flooded, As the train passes, the lights from inside it are cast in reflection upon the water's surface. It is utterly picturesque, yet I don't have a camera. Even if I did, this instance of phatasmagoric beauty in the night is much too swift for me to capture.

The Rain

It's nice to be able to listen to the rain. It always comes late at night here in Japan. I hear it just outside the window.
Where I come from, the rain is somewhat rare; thunderstorms that shake the world asunder, but only during the summer.
It's nice to see the fog enshrouded mountains, the moss covered stones, the rivers that flow through stone channels.
Where I come from, the mountains are sandstone, rough, and the crags host dryed-out lichens.
It's nice to be teaching and, during a lull, look out the window and spy the sea.
Where I come from, the sea is something we read about in books.
It's nice to be able to listen to the rain.

Another life

Do you rembember?
You, with your poems
And I, clacking away at the type-writer
We both smoked cigarette after cigarette
And filled the air with a swirling haze

You loved me then,
But I, in my pride,
Spurned you
And have been regretting it ever since

Very late.
I listen to the rain tap against the window that
earlier, a gecko crawled across.

The dance

Once in a while I will think maybe a girl likes me
And I dance around it
Once in a while I will think maybe I like a girl
And I dance around it
Life is a dance, and endless waltz
And I have two left feet

each day

Each day, our life touches so many other lives.
So many stories intertwine with our own.
Meloncholy people.
People bursting with joy and smiles.
People that will leave this world soon.
People that will have the drama of giving birth soon.
It makes you feel overwelmed, inspired and connected all at once.
We are as drops of dew on a spiderweb.

Breath

There is magic in just watching someone breathe;
Moreso in having them lay next to you,
and feeling their undulant ribcage rising and lowering ever so slowly.

And that's why...

Because I love you,
I cannot be with you;
I can only make you less perfect.