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KANGNAM STYLE
The kimchi and pickles are presented in neat Celadon dishes carefully arranged on the small table. The meat sizzles on the iron dome resting above the bucket of orange hot coals set into the table littered with half empty and fully drained bottles of Hite beer and thimble glasses of Soju. The waitress snips the…
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SEOUL
Thursday night, and Planet Hollywood in Seoul is dead, more smiling staff than diners, the bar a well polished wasteland, no lines in the gift shop, the Penguin mask staring out over the almost empty dining room. As we leave, having consumed half a bottle of soju between us to the blare of the endless videos,…
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PADDIES
At first it is a checkerboard of ponds neatly arrayed, reflecting the sun, the work of man, for God so rarely plays geometrician with creation, less often still using right angles. Soon enough green blades reach up through the shirred surface, random, reaching for a sun they can never touch. Later, it is a field,…
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NEON
Tokyo floats on a sea of lights washing to the horizons, whitecaps of neon break the placid surface, golden arches bob like fishing boats awaiting the dawn and the rebirth of life. The urban sea is manned by sailors each in his uniform, some scampering up the rigging, hoisting the sails of steel, concrete and…
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TOKYO MEMORIES
1. An older, silver-haired woman in neon green pants, a brown blouse and black shop apron stoops and carefully scrubs the alleyway outside her small shop. 2. Salarymen fill the tunnels of Kokkai-gijidomae station at 6 P.M., 7, 8, and in fewer numbers, 9, shuffling down the long corridors to the Chiyoda or Marunouchi Line trains,…
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LEILA
At the left click of the mouse my granddaughter appears barely a week old and with a right-click she is frozen into the hard drive. I remember sitting outside the Buddha Hall of Todai-Ji Temple in the mid-morning August sun the smiling at a baby waiting in her stroller for her mother to bow to…
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THROUGH GAIJIN EYES
1. From the window of the hotel bus the small, squared fields are a green that only painters achieve, deep, intense, unreal. As the bus inches forward along the Narita–Tokyo expressway the green forms neat rows set off by a shimmer of the gray sky mirror that bathes the young plants. 2. Tokyo is a…
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UNTIL DEATH
They sit placidly on two small chairs placed by the steps of the Great Shrine each in the wedding clothes their families have worn for generations too many to count. I stand, out of the picture, leaning on the gate, telephoto lens extended and gently push down until I hear the click. They smile as their fingers…
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RIDE
There is a man standing at a bus stop. He waits at this bus stop each day, regardless of the weather. He is waiting patiently for a bus that will not come, the bus line was discontinued many months ago. He has a cast on his leg, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. It…
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NIGHTWAY TOKYO
It is well into the Season When Thunder Sleeps and the crowds no longer snaked through Shinjuku Park where even the stones were in quiet hibernation. The sun fell quickly sucking away the light bringing the sleep of dreams and nightmares, of love and terror and despair. The night chant began for yet another night…
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an old writer and his words 