Hunkabutta Archives
02.21.02

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I'm in Osaka now. Today's pictures chronicle my trip here, beginning with the Bullet train (shinkansen) in Tokyo station and culminating in my new office in the National Tower, Osaka.

For the next couple of weeks I'll be working on the new website of Matsushita Corporation, which is the enormous parent company of other large companies such as Panasonic/National, Victor, and a whole slew of others that you probably wouldn't recognize the names of. A truly giant corporation, kind of like a Japanese Pepsico -- has its finger in many pies and owns more things than you care to think about.

The pace of the project is amazingly hectic. They're way behind schedule and that's why the main contractor (Accenture, a division of Arthur Anderson Consulting) is calling in people from other companies like myself to help out. They pretty much expect me to work from 9:00 am to midnight, seven days a week for the next two weeks. It's crazy, I know, but that's what these guys have already been doing for the past month or two.

Matsushita is a VERY traditional, old-school Japanese company -- really stereotypical. Everyone is male and wears blue suits and smokes constantly. They all seem to be counting on lifetime employment as they drone through their jobs. There are calisthenics played on the TV in the morning. At exactly 5:00 p.m. the company song is played over the loudspeakers (imagine a national anthem written for Disneyland) and everyone has to drop what they're doing, stand and face the East window, which looks out over the production plants, and observe a moment of silence and respect for the workers in the factory. When the song finishes everyone goes back about their business.

Doesn't it just make you really appreciate good 'ole, self-centered, full-of-myself-but-I-don't-care American individualism?

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02.19.02

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I always thought that photographers made interesting candid photo subjects. It's kind of like catching them at there own game. When you look though the lens of a camera sometimes you feel detached from the scene in which, in reality, you are participating. It's a false sense of objectivity.

Interestingly, photographers, unlike most candid subjects, rarely suspect that they are being secretly photographed. Most people will glance your way if you have a camera in your hand and wonder whether or not you took their picture. No such problem with fellow photographers. They're in a world of their own, and they never suspect that someone else might be interested in photographing them.

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It looks like I may be going to Osaka again, but this time for real. I should know for sure by this afternoon. However, unlike last month's false alarm, this trip is only supposed to be for two weeks.

Actually, it's a perfect time for me to go away because Karen and Jack are going to visit Melody, Brett, Otis and Sylvie in New Zealand this Friday. They'll be gone for two and half weeks.

It should be fun for Jack to see a bit of nature. He's almost seven months old and he hasn't ever seen grass yet, let alone a warm, sandy beach. I'm kind of sad that I'm not going to be there for his first trip to the beach.

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02.17.02

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Umbrellas are everywhere in Japan. People use them to keep the rain off, they use them to keep the snow off, and they also use them in the summer to shade themselves from the intense sun.

Personally, I hate them, and I hate how they use them here. It's just too crowded and they get in the way. I'm taller than most people in Tokyo so I'm always getting poked in face by people's umbrellas. I don't mind it so much if it's really pouring down, but people will whip out an umbrella here if the sky looks even a little bit gray. In general, they just can't stand to be rained on.

I used to think that it was a vanity thing, that they didn't want to ruin their hairdos, but now I'm not sure. One of my coworkers told me that it's because people are worried about pollution in the rain. Dirty rain. Who knows if it's true or not.

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02.15.02

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As you might have noticed, I've been on a bit of a theme kick as of late.

Today's theme -- bathroom fixtures. You may think it's banal, but lets face it, all of us spend a part of every day in the proverbial 'can.'

I like to approach my Hunkabutta picture taking process in a documentary manner, meaning that I aim to record the details of contemporary Tokyo life, both for my own personal use and for posterity.

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