#ikukokoko

[omoi-no-hoka]

What is your favorite thing about Hokkaido?

Thank you for your ask! I’m a huge nature person, always have been. And what I love most about Hokkaido is that it isn’t as crowded as Honshu. I could ride my bike for 10 minutes and be surrounded by forest if I so desired. 

Also, something that surprised me is that much of the flora and fauna aren’t all that different from that of Midwest America, which is where I’m from. So when I get really homesick, sometimes I just go for a bikeride along river and into the forests and just recenter myself.

Also, it’s just so beautiful here. Allow me to shamelessly share my terrible photography of various places in Hokkaido I’ve been to. (No filters on any pics)

What is Hokkaido without snow? (Asahikawa, Hokkaido, 2019)

Hatsumode is meant to be cold and snowy. (Asahikawa, Hokkaido, 2018)

You just become one with the winter at a certain point. (Hyobaku Matsuri, Sounkyo, Hokkaido, 2018?)

But summer is beautiful too. Mild. These country roads with dilapidated sheds make me think of my hometown. (Somewhere near Kitami, Hokkaido, 2018)

Hokkaido is where I can see my favorite color of green in the summer. Biei or Furano, Hokkaido, 2014)

Ah, the Blue Lake (Ao Ike), colored this incredible shade of blue due to naturally occurring minerals. One of my favorite places to go. The blue is truly mesmerizing.

And the flowers! So very beautiful. My dad ran a flower business, but due to extreme motion sickness could never go on vacations with us. From the age of 6, I vowed to take pictures of all the flowers I saw for him, and I still do that to this day. (Sunflower fields at Hokuryuu, Hokkaido, 2018)

Sometimes if you are lucky, you can travel on one-man trains that are just one little car and you can stand right beside the conductor (out of frame to my left) and capture some beautiful scenery. (Somewhere between Furano and Asahikawa, 2019)

Ah, and who can forget the beauty of the fall leaves? I took a little trip to a small town called Kembuchi, which has a lovely lake surrounded by forest. There I stumbled upon this curious young fox who got so close to me I could NEARLY pet him. I have a strange affinity to them and tend to see them most everywhere I go, even in the city I live in. This is why I always bow and give a prayer of thanks to Inari-sama when I pass one of His shrines.

And let’s not forget the ocean scenery. This is Shakotan, a cape that is known for its waters’ unique blue color, as well as the fact that women were not allowed to enter the cape for centuries due to the danger. Now there is a nice walking path and anyone can travel to the very tip, which looks like this:

Sure do wish I was a better photographer haha.

There are lots of little interesting towns hidden in Hokkaido. One such is called “Koufuku,” which means “Good fortune.” This used to be the train station for it, but the trains stopped running here decades ago. Still, many people travel to it, buy commemorative tickets, write their wishes on them, and stick them to the station. The inside is absolutely covered with them as well. Only 30 minutes away from Koufuku is Aikoku 愛国, the country of love. Many people buy tickets that say “from Aikoku to Koufuku” as souvenirs. 

As I established, Hokkaido is cold. It is common practice to garb jizo statues with scarves and hats to keep them warm in winter, and I think this is just the most wholesome thing ever.

This practice can be extended to other statues as well haha.

Lastly, something I especially love about Hokkaido is the Ainu people. They are an indigenous people of Japan who speak and entirely different language from Japanese and are thought have descended from the area of Russia many, many centuries ago. The embroidered patterns on their traditional garments distinguish which region they are from. Absolutely fascinating. I’d love to do an entire post on them at some point, but I frankly do not know enough and feel that I couldn’t do the people and the subject justice.

The Ainu were subject to much prejudice, and even to this day it lingers in subtle ways. My host mom told me that when she was a girl (60 years ago), Ainu people changed their names and did everything they could to hide their heritage, because they could not marry Japanese people and could not find many jobs if they were found out to be non-Japanese. 

Now the Ainu people can show their pride for their culture and heritage, and there are festivals in which they carry out traditional celebrations. However, it is a shadow of what it once was. Here is a video of some traditional Ainu songs and dances.

And oh man, don’t even get me STARTED on how good the food is here.

BEST SUSHI EVER.

[hawkeyedflame]

So you're upset at Keyhollow for being incredibly selfish with their response from those suffering from lockdowns but then go around to write "it's not my fault if vulnerable people or people who regularly have contact with vulnerable people choose to be out and about in community settings"? Families of vulnerable people still need to do their daily chores, including those who have to work, and not all families are well off. You're both selfish people.

I'm not upset with her, I don't care about her. I find it disturbing that she's using her platform to say such disgusting and patently, scientifically false things, but that's about it.

There's nothing selfish about expecting people to take responsibility for their own safety instead of demanding the government do it for them. It's not selfish to advocate for civil liberty over authoritarianism. If vulnerable people wish to wear masks and socially distance themselves, that is 100% their prerogative and I'm not judging them. However it is not the government's right to force that on all citizens or even some citizens, and it is everyone's right to choose not to wear a mask. Full stop.

Seems to me like you had enough time to read me expressing my distaste for her opinions but not enough time to read my explanation why covid isn't worthy of all this fearmongering in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sapphicconservative]

Wishing for revenge may be understandable – but is it also the right thing to do?

I believe that's circumstantial rather than a concrete "yes or no". It depends more so on what you are seeking revenge for and how you are going about to achieve revenge. Rule of thumb - if your revenge exceeds what was handled towards you, then you lost any righteous justification in the matter. Revenge should also only be towards the person who wronged you and not pull in other parties.

[alamuts-lair-of-madness]

I'll never understand why people not even of the culture believe that their opinions are important enough on discussions not about them? Tony isn't talking about the representation of cultural appropriation, they are talking about the representation and portrayal of Japanese Imperialism in Ghost of Tsushima.

Hm, I did indeed come off kinda as an asshole and should have probably worded it better.

The experiences of both groups are quite different and the past has a mighty impact on the way they think. It doesn’t mean that the opinions of people living in a Diaspora outside of their cultural cradle are invalid, or any less valid. I didn’t mean, that we should mute anyone.

And yet it also doesn’t mean, that their voices are in any way more valid.

I admit, I’m not Asian-American myself, not even American, but because of my education and jobs I’ve spent the past decade living longer time periods abroad, in three countries other than that of my birth. Because of that, I sometimes no longer feel at home in my own country as my own worldview has become slightly “broader” or “warped”, depending who you ask.

 In the time abroad I’ve met a lot of people from my own cultural Diaspora. Some of them were descendants of immigrants who left the “old country” over a century or at least many decades ago, other were quite new arrivals. And I’ve seen all possible aspects, one could find in such groups, with all of their positives and negatives. There were cosmopolitans, nationalists and patriots among them. Some of them were practically fully assimilated, others were “more Catholic than the Pope” as the old proverb goes. And everyone had their own opinions. About pop-culture, about representation abroad, about home-politics etc.

So yeah, some things are kinda universal between different cultures.

And I get it, discussions are important. Humans are social animals, only talking brings us further!

  So please tell me: what have the Ghost of Tsushima to do with Japanese Imperialism?

I am a PC-gamer myself, so I’ve only read or seen the reviews of the game, but from what I’m aware the story of Ghosts takes place in 1274, during the Mongol invasion on Japan. No matter how you look that’s more than 300 years before Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion on Korea and more than 600 years before the Meiji Restoration. The most extreme (or best known) form of Japanese Imperialism, the philosophy of Hakkō ichiu officially started 1940.

So how is an action-stealth game set in the 13th related to that?

Because for now it sounds to me as if someone said, that Assassin’s Creed III, a game set in the late 1700s and during the American Revolution, was a positive depiction of US Interventionalism in the 20th and 21st century, because the MC’s killing British soldiers.

Is it about the portrayal of Bushidō and samurai culture (which I know had a LOT of problems on its own) or something?

Or is it because the term “kamikaze”, used to describe the suicidal attacks by Imperial pilots during World War II, originated as a name for the typhoons, that destroyed the two Mongol fleets in 1274 and 1281?

That’s honestly the only common thing between the failed invasions and Imperial Japan, that comes to my mind right now...  

[luxaofhesperides]

Who is your favorite person to watch on YouTube?

Jacob Geller - he has a bunch of really good video essays on things, usually involving video games (i adore his haunted houses video, i rewatch it constantly)

Liziqi - her videos are very calming and beautiful. seeing all the work put into her videos is super inspiring tbh

Snapcube - penny’s hilarious and i love watching her gameplay. plus she does the real time fan dubs, so how can someone not like her lol

Tasting History - i love history and i love food, this is a great channel for both of those! a large chunk of his videos are talking about the history of the food, but he does show how to cook it and gives his thoughts on the tastes.

Wong Fu Productions - really good short films and tv all focused on asian americans! they do more casual crew chats as well, and in general it’s really nice to see people like me in media like this.

Bernadette Banner - fashion/sewing, but historical. she knows her stuff and is very passionate about it, and i love listening to her talk about how clothes worked in different time periods.

Jubilee - they do a lot of popular stuff, like Odd Man Out or Middle Ground. i actually got into them years ago when they only posted short films (i have strong memories of weeping to Prodigal Son when i was in middle school lol). very interesting/fun videos from them!

Tina Guo - cello, but to the extreme. i found her through journey, where she played the main cello that you hear in the opening theme, and she goes hard when she plays. i adore her.

while these are my fave people to watch on youtube (because i couldn’t choose between them lol) they’re also like. the only people i watch. i use youtube mostly for music along with spotify, and i dont watch much honestly. but these people i stick with bc their content is always good.

(i also added links to their channels if you wanted to check them out!)

[werewolf-cuddles]

The only way to know if he is actually saying anything comprehensible is if a fluent speaker translates it. Google Translate unfortunately isn't perfect, even its Japanese translations are often very funny sounding to native speakers. But thought you would like to know since you have an interest in Japanese culture.

i mean, tbh, my interest in japanese culture is kinda shallow. i’m pretty much just into anime and visual novels. sometimes jpop and jrock, but usually if it’s tied to either of the previous two.

[etto-etto]

Do you ever wish you were raised with a different native language or in a different country?

I think a lot about how it might be to learn english as a second language and I don’t know that I would like it very much! so I’m glad to be a native speaker, although I have often wished that I could speak norwegian or swedish. a large portion of my family immigrated from scandinavia, and bits of the culture and food they brought over with them are still practiced while the languages died further down the family line. sometimes I wish they hadn’t and that I could have been raised in those languages rather than in ‘just english.’

I was also born, raised, and currently live in the states, but sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I’d been raised in norway, sweden, or germany (:

[aintnolionpridelands]

Do you know much about the Allegiance musical (in Japan)? I have some simple yet burning questions about it.

Hi!

For now I’m not actively tracking this show’s info (because I’m busy enough with If/Then Japanese prod oops), so I don’t know much more than what’s written on the official site and Twitter.

Feel free to send me messages (via ask or DM) if you want to talk about it (I’m not sure how much I can answer your questions, though. Also I’m kinda forgetting how to properly write in English so my replies might be short :| )