The Roots Live in Tokyo

Nowadays I started really appreciating the fact that I live in Tokyo, the city that contains the traditional and modern Japan, the mixture of foreign cultures, and the uniqueness that you can never experience in any other cities in the world. As Japan has been accepting all kinds of music from all over the world, Japanese listners of any kind of music tend to go deep inside of the background of where the music they listen to has come from instead of just enjoying the sound itself. This tendency we have has hit hearts of many international musicians, and a lot of those musicians has named Japan as their favorite place to perform their songs.

And The Roots is not an exception. They have been supported by the heads in Japan ever since they came out with their first album. I was really glad that I got last night's ticket for their performance at Billboard Live Tokyo. Our seats were really close to the stage, and when ?uestlove's big afro appeared on the dark stage, I was like "Aight, now it is really worth paying 9,000 yen for this show." I was that excited to see them live for the first time.

It seems like Billboard Live Tokyo welcomes a lot of artists from overseas every month, and I am thinking of going back there once in a while as long as I am financially stable...

Jam of the day - "Proceed II" by The Roots with Roy Ayers

2009

It's finally here baby... We welcomed 2009 in Sendai city, where our 93 year old grandmother lives. It has been a while since I last saw her, and everytime I see her, it makes me think deeply about "God's Love". Our grandmother survived the World War II taking care of her six children. She does not talk much about what she went through, but she and her kids managed to survive on the way back to Japan from China by boat while so many other people were killed by the torpedoes in 1945. And later on, the whole family became Christians, and it is just so thankful that we managed to become a part of only 0.1 percent of the whole Japan's population. Yes, only 0.1 percent of people in Japan are Christians.



Ok, it was kinda too personal for a public blog, so here I am changing the subject, and writing about my favorite thing - food! lol

Sendai is famous for the fresh foods especially for seafood. How many of y'all have had the real sushi before?? Now I'm not talking about things like Boston salmon here (I actually enjoyed sushi in America also though..). If you ever get to go to Sendai, you GOTTA try sushi there. I don't even know how to describe the great taste of them, so here is the photo...



Don't they look so darn good??? Sendai, a cold city located 220 miles noth of Tokyo is having lots more snow this winter than usual, but our hearts are warmed up with home made Osechi.



I would like to wish everyone a happy new year!

Shall We Dance?

The remake of this movie was released in '04 in the states, and if you have seen the original Japanese version released in '96, then I'm sure you remember this guy in the photo. His name is Naoto Takenaka, a comedian/actor/singer.

Okay, so my family had quite a big Christmas party like two weeks ago, and one of our guests, my brother-in-law's co-worker, is the best friend of Takenaka's (they grew up together). He was telling me how Takenaka has never changed the way he treats his old friends after he became all successful and famous, and though he many times acts crazy or like a fool in the TV screen, he actually is a very shy and caring person. And the funny part was how he always asks his friends to give him an opportunity to sign an autograph for his fans. I thought that was kinda cool, and since I always liked him as a good actor, I asked that guest to get me his autograph.

And it didn't even take him two days to get me Takenaka's autograph... with his pix... I was like wow.. real Takenaka... Now I have one more person that I support as a fan lol...



ハリウッド版リメークが2004年に公開されたこの映画だが、オリジナルの日本バージョン（1996年公開）で強烈な印象を残した竹中直人氏。この映画をご覧になった方は誰もが彼のすさまじいダンスを覚えていると思う。

さて、二週間ほど前に家族そろってクリスマスパーティーを開催したのだが、当日来て頂いたゲストの一人が竹中氏の幼馴染であることが判明。色々彼のエピソードを聞かせてもらったのだが、映画やドラマでよくふざけたキャラクターを演じる彼は実はシャイでとても温かみのある方らしい。また、今でこそ有名になり超大物になった彼だが、決して昔の友人たちに対する接し方は何一つ変わっていないらしく、今でもしょっちゅう会っているとのこと。思わず笑ってしまったのだが、「知り合いに俺のサインを欲しがってる人がいたら是非言ってくれ。」と普段から友人たちに言っているらしく、その言葉に甘えて僕もサインを欲しい旨をその友人の方に伝えたのだが・・・。

本当に二日も経たないうちにサインが送られて来ました。しかも生写真付きで（笑）。実際に頂いてみると改めて芸能人の方にサインをもらったという実感が湧いてきました。またファンになりたい人が増えました（笑）。

Gina Hiraizumi

The first time I saw Jason Scott Lee's "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" was about 10 years ago when I was a high school student, and since then, I've been supporting him as a fan. The Bruce Lee Story still is one of my top favorite movies, and it encouraged me a lot when I was a straight up FOB in Michigan with no other Japanese people to talk to around me.

Anyways, I was just looking at some of his movies on youtube last week, and realized that I had not even checked out his movie from '05, which is called Only the Brave. The movie is about the Japanese American people's struggle during the World War II, and as I checked out a couple of videos about this movie on the internet, I got to know of an actress named Gina Hiraizumi. She is a multi talented Japanese American person who is in my age, and it is just very exciting to see my people that are showing their talent to the world medias.

It seems like she will be the next most successful Asian American person in acting (maybe she is already?), and I think I'm ready to be her fan now.

Look how well she sings! She so talented ain't she???


ジェーソン・スコット・リー主演の映画“ブルース・リー物語”を初めて観たのは今から約10年前、僕がまだ高校生の時だった。それ以来僕は彼のファンである。この映画は未だに僕の中では最も好きな映画の中の一つで、当時ミシガン州に留学に来て間もない頃、周りに日本人が全くいない環境で色々と辛い思いをした時にこの映画には非常に励まされた。（上記の“FOB”とは、Fresh off the Boatの略で、アジアを中心とした世界各国からアメリカに移民して来た人々に対する蔑称であり、このFOBには強いアクセントやアメリカの感覚からすると“ダサい”ファッションセンスを持っている留学生なども含まれる。）

先週、何気に彼の映画をYoutubeで閲覧していたところ、2005年の彼の作品“Only the Brave”という映画をまだ観ていないことに気がついた。この映画では第二次世界大戦中に日系アメリカ人が直面した数々の試練が描かれているのだが、予告編などを観ていると出演者の一人、“平泉ジーナ”という女優に目が留まった。色々調べてみると彼女はマルチタレントな日系アメリカ人四世の女優・歌手であるらしく、今後最も成功したアジア系アメリカ人の女優になるのではと予想している。

上のビデオはニューヨークで開催された日系アメリカ人のお祭りを記念してNBAの試合前に彼女が国歌独唱をしたものである。っていうか、歌も上手すぎでしょ！

The Beginning

So here I am starting up my career of "bloggin'". The main reasons why I decided to open this page is as below.

1. To keep myself close to the English language - It's been almost 3 years since I came back to Japan from North America, and now I really feel like I'm losing my English skill both for speaking and writing. Hopefully I will motivate myself for the skill up by updating this blog as much as possible.

2. To show the world the real Tokyo - I am not originally from this city, but now my whole family lives here, and it is just amazing how special this city is in many ways. I would like to introduce the readers of this blog whatever I find interesting in my everday life.

3. To share the real music with all the heads out there - I have been in love with music ever since I was a little child, and I would like to write about any music that makes me dig it.

I'll try to write things on this page both in English and Japanese since those are the two languages that I am familiar with. Alright, hope you will enjoy this blog!!

Jam of the day - "Imagine" by Kiwi


さてさて、既に長々と英語で書きましたが、本日よりブログを始めたいと思います。このブログを書いていく主な理由は下記の通りです。

1． なるべく英語に触れていたい - 高校・大学と約8年北アメリカに住んでいましたが、大学卒業と共に日本に本帰国してもうすぐ3年になります。最近、自分の英語力が会話力・作文力共に衰えているのが手に取るように分かります。できるだけ頻繁にこのブログを更新していくことにより、英語力アップの動機付けになればと思っています。

2． 本当の東京を世界に紹介したい - 生まれも育ちも東京ではありませんが、現在は家族全員でこちらに住んでおり、普段何気なく住んでいるこの東京という町がいかに色々な意味で特異性に満ちているかということをこのブログを読んで下さる世界中の読者の方々に伝えて行きたいと思っています。そして毎日の生活の中で“面白い！”と感じたことをどんどんここで紹介していけたらと思っています。

3． 音楽をとことん語りたい - 幼い頃からとにかく“音”が大好きで、新旧問わず素敵な音楽についてどんどん書いていきたいと思っています。

このブログは英語と日本語両方で更新していきますので宜しくお願い致します！