Classified users

If you post classified ads, please double check your email address before submitting your ads. Several ads have received a lot of interest recently, but replies are bouncing. I have tried to forward these replies, but some of these are bouncing too.

The good news is that one of the most used parts of GetHiroshima is going to get a long overdue overhaul. If you have any requests for support of particular functions, please let us know. Either post a comment here or reach us through the feedback link at the bottom of any page on GetHiroshima. We can't promise to meet all requests, but we will do our best.

Thanks for your patience in using a somewhat quirky, and often frustrating, system for the past 8 years!

Animation Festival Saturday and Sunday with Kids

It is always a bit of a challenge as a parent to find fun things to do with kids in Hiroshima on the weekend, but the animation festival this year didn't let us down.

I met a few families with kids who were enjoying the festival everyday from morning to the end of the competition program, but for my kids the daytime programs were more than enough- I would have loved to have been there enjoying the programs all day and if your kids have the late night stamina, there is a viewing room in the back of the medium and grand hall if you have babies (it is equipped with a cot, big window for viewing and a bit softer sound).
Unfortunately, I am pretty sure I would have been struggling with two sleep deprived, hungry kids who had no patience to sit and watch a bunch of short films- bugging me every minute to go home. But if your kids are sound sleepers or film buffs, take them by all means. Kids under elementary school age are free.

We started on Saturday with Animation for Children and I might venture a guess that the selection committee is not made of parents because some of the featured films did NOT belong in this animation for children section. If the festival organizers want to make this more family friendly- which it seems that they do- it is imperative that they attach ratings to all of the films- especially those which are obviously aimed at a younger audience. My 2 year old was scared witless by a pirate and a friend's 4 year old had nightmares about the woman who dissected a cow and cut off its head (and these were only in the first few films featured). Come on, G/PG/PG-1３/R, lets get some ratings in the book and schedule next time please!!

The fellow parents and I seemed to agree that there is a distinct difference between the European type of children's story- scare the heck out of them because the world is scary and they should be prepared. And the North American dogs and pigtails type of nothing bad ever happens that can't be overcome and the good guys always prevail type of story for kids.

As a mother of two kids under 7 I would definitely opt for the less violent and less full of harsh reality type- they are only children after all and their understanding of violence and problems that cannot be solved is very different from ours.

After getting our kids out of the theatre with their eyes and ears covered, we headed to the 4th floor for the kids to try their hand at making animation themselves.
It was a success as they were patiently led through the process of making animation with shapes and lines moving on a MAC computer by the friendly and helpful staff. It does help if you (parents) sit with them and try to encourage them to try new things otherwise you will end up with a page full of squares as happened with a friend's little boy who wasn't quite encouraged to try new things.

Then we moved across the hall to the drawing and clay/nendo animation making room. They had a few different stations of activity. Along the wall there was space for designing a fan that you looked through in a mirror to see it animated when spun. They also had lighted drawing boards for kids to draw pictures and put layers on top to draw the same picture with a bit of movement each time, then each page was filmed and made into a short animated film right in front of y0u. At the most popular table, kids were working hard on their playdo (nendo) creations to use for a short animation debut. Even blobs of nonsensical mess can be made into a moving, fun animated sequence as we found out with our little film "magic gate" by felix (6) and jolon (3). The staff here were great, very patient and even excited about helping all the kids with their little projects.

On Sunday we enjoyed the many short clips from "Children Around the World". I think watching this in coordination with making the same type of animation upstairs gives kids a real understanding of the process and helps them appreciate (as do we) the amount of time and hard work that needs to go into even the smallest of projects.

Animation Festival - Day 3

Not quite as busy as So Solid Crew but I literally have, like, 41 minutes to go so this will be a fairly concise account focusing on my personal little happys during the day.

Only managed to catch Finding Nemo of the features today. Any good film is a special treat on the big screen, and so was this. A joy. And although Japan has dibs on cute, I think Nemo has to be the cutest goddamn creature ever thought up by man or beast.

Today's highlight, however, was the press conference where some of the creators of last night's competition films had a chance to talk about their work, or not talk about it, as was also the case. Of course each artist is different, but it is interesting how some are very happy to wax lyrical about inspiration, creation and intention, whereas others prefer not to talk at all. I used to think that if you have to explain it, it is no good in the first place but I don't think so anymore.

The right person can add many dimensions to their work by commenting on it, some prefer not to. Simple as that. If we take examples from the live action film world, which I am more familiar with, Nagisa Oshima represents the former, David Lynch the latter. They are both great artists. One is also a great critic and analyst, one is not.

At the press conference, especially Ariel Belinco of Israel made an impression. His entry film Beton (co-made with Michael Faust) tells the story of a platoon commander who decides to blot out a kite by painting a huge simile of the sky and concrete wall and moving the painting to cover up the kite. He eventually fails. Belinco explained that he was himself drawn to animation by watching colourful and happy films like those from Pixar, and he said that he would love to make films like that himself. However, he felt a moral imperative to tell of his experiences in the Israeli army (where the draft is three years). While he was serving in Gaza, he had an extremely right-wing platoon commander who actually ordered a sniper out to kill the father of some children who were throwing stones. Belinco choked up as he was recalling this, and although the command ended up not being carried out, his talk certainly helped me appreciate his film much more - it added a context that might be obvious to many Israelis, but certainly wasn't to me.

I also very much enjoyed hearing Yasmeen Ismail speak about her intentions behind her lovely short film Love Triangle. It concerns a young woman who stays with her Indian family and is fed so many samosas that when she returns back to the UK, she has turned into the triangular treat herself. Ismail, who is from Ireland but whose father is Indian South African, explained that the inspiration came from when she went to see her family there and was indeed fed a ton of the stuff. On the phone to her boyfriend, he warned her that she might turn into a samosa herself, which kindled the idea. However, she maintains, "he wants the credit for this film but he can't have it." Too right. Although the main idea is strong, it is its style and heart that really make the film stand out. At only three minutes, it still has a clear, strong story and a wonderful dark ending, which, along with its use of simple black lines put me in mind of the early short films of Paul Driessen that I'd seen earlier yesterday. It is, as Ismail further explained, a meditation on long-term relationships and how you have to accept changes in your partner because you love them. As she put it, "If I get a bit squishy around the edges, I don't want him to say anything!" Too right, sister. But if you stop making films, I hope he does.

And... oops, 51 minutes have gone so



EDIT: This might be my last blog post from the festival, as I am leaving for Tokyo tomorrow evening. Watch out, though, for my final round-up of the festival on GetHiroshima.com in 1-2 weeks.

Animation Festival - Day 2 Part 2

First of all, happy Olympics! In celebration of the event and animation I decided to sport my precious original 1980 Misha pin all day.


While taking a break in a cafe, my badge was noticed by someone who turned out to be none other than Otto Alder, who has an exhibition on (for free, cheapskates!) on the 5th floor for the duration of the festival. "Are you Finnish?" might sound like a random question, but at a festival that so thoroughly covers Finnish animation (including another exhibition on the 5th floor) it is not so strange. See someone vaguely Nordic? They're probably Finnish. I am of course Danish but I bear no grudge. I went to see the exhibition, and it was small and rather atmospheric, aided by colours, ligthing and the use of incense. But kids, don't smoke!

Second of all, Joy already put up a comprehensive account so I will only add little here. I didn't, in fact, go to the Disney show but I did go to the upstart younger brother (AKA Pixar) one.

Doug Sweetland is the director of their latest short film Presto and has worked as an animator on every feature film the company has put out bar last year's Ratatouille (I made a mistake in my Hype article. I am sorry).

He came to preside over nothing less than the Asia premiere of said short and to give an hour-long seminar in which he revealed some of the voodoo that they do with their computers and stuff. It turns out that the main focus of his (wonderfully funny) powerpoint presentation was not on the technical magic but on the nitty-oldfashioned-gritty of crafting a good story. For a storytelling nutty like myself, it was a wonderful insight into the creative process. "Story isn't building, it's searching," explained Doug, a lesson he came to learn the hard way as idea after idea was considered, then tossed. He also showed some clips from classic cartoons that Presto pays homage to, and he will forever have a special place in my heart for the following three reasons:

1. He greeted us in Hiroshima-ben, hollering a "Nani shiorun?" at a crowd that didn't know what'd hit them before it was too late.

2. He provided his own improvised sound effects for the drawing board animated sequences he showed us, sounding like nothing so much as an episode of Road Runner on speed.

3. He used the phrase "cat-dog fight cloud" (which is inventive; seriously, I did the Google search) to summarise something we all know, namely this.

That's it for now. I went to see Competition 2 too, but since I am hoping to attend tomorrow's press conference I am withholding comment in order to do a more comprehensive post later.

Still, how about that Misha, eh? Don't think there's ever been a better Olympic mascot, and this year's offering is certainly no match. On the subject of animation and the Olympics though, I will leave you with this truly scrumptious snippet from Gorillaz team Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. It was made for the BBC's Olympic coverage.




Somewhat cooler than Shingo-kun, I can't help but feel.

Animation Festival Day 2:

So pleased to read Sofie's fantastic review of day 1 of the festival below, here are some of my highlights from today (friday) day 2.

Press conference with some of the directors from last night's competition:

• Benoit Feroumont- Djivouveuvolti
  You can read about his work and activities on his blog, or either of his websites above. His film Dji Vou Veu Volti is a real mouthful but the man himself didn't have much to say at first at the press conference (too polite I think). Luckily some nice reporter (me) gave him another chance by asking all the directors there to talk about their current and future projects. He then talked about his feature film "Macrales" which is due out in October (produced by La Parti) and he is busy writing comics for the magazine "Spirou". He is also narrating a TV series called "Bud and Stan". On his blog he has some pictures from his trip so far in Hiroshima and he even caught a picture of us reporters during the press conference I see- touche.
• Robin King "Ten Thousand Pictures of You" This is his first animated film as he has been working as a professional actor in the UK. He produced it independently and hopes to win the lottery so he can build on the same concept to make a feature length animated film called "26,000 pictures of Daniel" but before having the time to take on that project (it would take a full year to do one of the shots he says) he will "need to win the lottery" (good luck!). Until he has time to do more independent films, it is back to acting- he will be in a Vampire film called "The Lonely Life of Tom Campbell" as "a vampire trying to live a normal life on the fringe of society". He was considered for the Steven Spielberg reality show On the Lot with a film he "designed, shot and edited in a week- a dark comedy about time travel", called "Unpossible" the website shows the documentary of making the film.
• Steve May "X and Y" Had a chance to chat with Steve May later in the day, very friendly chap making an effort to learn and speak Japanese while travelling around Japan with a friend. Gave me some postcards he made in exchange for the superb GetHiroshima map I gave him :-) His movie X and Y is a "homage t6o fictional ideas and characters that have been stored up (in his mind) since childhood" about superheroes and how a "ridiculous hysteria can occur over the smallest thing." His next project- he is working on a TV series with a writer. His main work is as a book illustrator and he is also writing a children's book on his own. He also trumped Robin King saying he made a film for a TV show in only 72 hours! You can see some of his amazing and fun shorts on his great website. He also mentioned that he loved the floating lanterns at the Peace Memorial ceremony, it is nice that the animation festival was held just after the ceremony this year- maybe we will see some of their depictions of the ceremony in a future festival.
  
• Koji Yamamura "Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor" Yamamura is Japan's modern prince of animation. He was the last Hiroshima animation festival's popular and prize winner- as the director of "Mt.Head" which was up for an Academy Award in 2003, Yamamura has come to this festival with a film sponsored by a theatre company in Japan and has been racking up the awards around the globe as it tours the animation festivals. This is bound to be a favorite in this competition too. He has rekindled a project he started 5 years ago with the film board of Canada.

Paul Driessen Screening and Seminar This talk and perspective was impressive. Driessen has a huge body of work including "The Yellow Submarine" Beatles animated film. I remember being riveted but confused by that when I was a kid, as I now realise, Driessen's animation was never meant for children. The messages are honest, hard hitting and unsympathetic, violent, revengeful and without apology or regret. His work seems to have softened as he got older and more comfortable or relaxed- a bit similar to reading books by Roald Dahl, but a bit heavy on harsh reality. He says he spent a lot of time alone as a kid and it sounds like he grew up in a very violent time, but he was able to use his art and drawing as a way to work through the isolation. He has a very unique drawing style which is not flattering to any of its subjects, but is effective in relaying the emotion and message of the stories and characters.

Disney's Latest Short: Glago's Guest - Screening and Seminar
Art Director Andy Harkness walked us through the process of getting a short film like Glago's Guest made. I think Sofie was here for this one too, so I won't go into too much detail. Harkness was so kid-brother cute & likeable and a knowledgeable guide to the process that leaves you dumbfounded by the amount of time and effort people like him put into making these short films so amazing. Although their marketing director who was there said "Shorts don't make money" we have to think of that comment in context to the vast number of independent animators doing their work without pay and without a huge billion dollar company to back and promote their work. That said, the stuff they come out with at Disney/Pixar are amazingly cool and beautiful- wouldn't it be nice if they could somehow better support independent animators somehow too (maybe show their work for free on the disney channel sometime?).

The 2008-9 GetHiroshima Map in Action

As many of you may know, the new (green) GetHiroshima maps are out now. I spent July 21st with some Japanese students handing out our map to English speaking visitors coming into the main station for a couple of hours and it was a real eye-opening experience for me and for my students.

It made me realize that a lot of people who really want to use the GetHiroshima map are not getting it from the station or information centers where they have them available- so we should reassess how best to get our map to people who want to use it. (If you want GHmaps for any reason, please get in touch with us and we will try to get them to you).

It also reminded me that although many people are friendly, courteous and easygoing- there are also a few irritated, angry and frustrated people who want nothing to do with anyone else. For every ten positive encounters there was at least 1 negative one- that was a surprise to me.

Maybe because I assume that most visitors to Hiroshima have a plan to visit the Peace park and be reminded of the necessity for peace in our world which to me means you start working toward Peace in your day to day life. If you follow that chain of logic, you wouldn't say "get away from me" to a young, female Japanese student offering you an English map with a smile!

Here is what one of the students who helped out wrote:

On Monday I was in the station to give many maps about Hiroshima to foreigners. Many friends of mine told me this assignment was tough, but I was looking forward to doing it because I loved to speak to foreigners and I wanted to use English because I didn’t have any chance to speak English except classes after I came back to Japan.

In fact, many foreigners had different reaction from what I guessed. When I spoke to the first couple, they stopped to talk and they walked away from me without looking at me. The second couple just looked at me and seemed so disgusted on me and they walked away. When I tried to give the map to two guys, they just said, “No” and walked fast to stay away from me. Usually many foreigners just walked away without looking at me.

I had never had these kind of reactions from people from different countries, that’s why I was little disappointed. I even thought that they had discrimination on Asian because I had many stories from my Japanese friends about discrimination on Asian, Japanese such as hit Japanese by stones.

However, while I was looking for foreigners at the station, I found so kind foreigners. When I spoke to one elder man, he smiled at me and he listened to my English carefully. He was so sincere for my talking. Actually he asked me some questions but I couldn’t answer them, so I regretted that I didn’t study about Hiroshima because I really wanted to help him.

The last people, two black men and women, were so great. When I spoke them, they already got a map but one of them got extra map from me because he got it to help me. I was not glad that he took a map from me but I was really delighted because of his kindness and generous thinking. In addition, that woman told me that she was so happy to see kind and helpful people who lived in Hiroshima like me.

While I was in the station, I thought that their reaction was not evil because so many salespeople try to catch people in many countries, so even if they rejected me, it was simple and natural. Not all of them were bad and rude people. They just tried to avoid troubles in foreign country. If I had been them, I don’t know that I could have braved to answer to strangers in the strange country. It was too difficult to judge that I was trouble on them.

Finally, I could notice that I was also not always a generous and kind person to strangers. When a stranger try to give me a tissue, I didn’t take it and I didn’t try to be sincere and nice. This assignment was just speaking to strangers and helping them with the map, but I could see and understand so different experiences I had through foreigners. I could learn such delightful and sallow unavoidable parts of human nature.

Asako. S.

I had so many great encounters with people that day and of the rude people we encountered, they have no idea what they missed out on. If offered, I will take that flyer or tissue with a smile next time I am on the Hondori.

Here are some of the most common questions I was asked (and my answers):
** What is a nice route to walk into the city from the station
I would walk along Johoku dori (heading right past the post office) and turn left over the bridge once you see the Hotel New Hiroden on the right side. Walk straight past and turn right after the Junior High School on the right (Noborimachi) and go into Shukkein Gardens. After the gardens, continue on the same road and pop into the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. Then continue across the street, past the government buildings (tax offices, courts and immigration) straight to Hiroshima castle. From the castle, head through Chuo koen to the Otagawa river. Turn left on the Otagawa river path and follow it until you reach the A-bomb dome.

** What is the Mazda Museum like?
According to the Mazda Museum website (Japanese) you need to make a reservation to go to the museum. I have heard it is pretty cool (if you like cars) and I am going for the first time next week, so you can expect a review on GH soon.

** Where is a good place to eat?
What a perfect question for the map- All the places on the map are foreigner friendly- these are all places that we recommend and the owners wanted to be on our English map so you can expect a warm welcome and good food.

** Where is a fun place to go with kids?
On the map, we list our top 5 things to do with kids:
1. Children's Museum
2. Family Pool, Chichiyasu or the Youth Hostel pool in summer and Big Wave ice skating in winter.
3. The Transport Museum and their crazy bikes.
4. Aza zoo especially in summer during for the night safari.
5. Big Arch for football/soccer or the Carp Baseball stadium for a baseball game.

A downloadable PDF of the first map (still useful) can be found here.

New GetHiroshima Places

Tsubomi cafe:dining
Fashionable dining and fun for kids too.







Gyrotonic Personal Training - Fitness Studio
Improve your posture and health like dancers do.

Peace Camping Available at Shiritsu City University

Free Camping Available from August 3rd to the 7th to 300 people who apply by July 31st (thursday) to the organization at Shiritsu (city) University.
See more details on the Gethiroshima Event listing here.

Sue Kawashima - GetHiroshima PEOPLE

We had the opportunity to host a series of presentations by Professor Sue Kawashima about her wartime experiences as a child and how it related to her experiences in New York during 9-11.
Read the full report in the Gethiroshima People section here.

GH on Twitter

GetHiroshima is now on life streaming site Twitter. Don't worry, it's not all about when we go to the toilet or have a cup of coffee (that's over here), but we'll tweet stuff going on that we don't have time to post to the main website or this blog.

Follow us from here.

Link: http://twitter.com/gethiroshima

Recently revealed photos show horror of Hiroshima bombing

Last month I attended a very interesting UNITAR roundtable discussion on World Heritage Sites and Conservation For Peace (pdf). Outside, the sun was shining and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Peace Memorial Park was full of people enjoying the blossoms, beer and bbqs. During the Q&A an A-bomb surivor stood up and expressed her distress at such scenes on what she considered the site of a mass grave. On my way home I was full of mixed emotions about both pleasant days enjoyed in Peace Park and the role that GetHiroshima plays in tourism promotion. Later when relating the story to Joy I was taken by surprise when I became choked with tears.

When we look at the park, so peaceful and open, today, it's difficult to imagine that day and those that followed it in 1945. Until the few seconds after the bomb exploded, the site of the park, the museum and the area around the A-Bomb Dome were packed with houses. Most hitherto known pictures of the city after the bombing convey the scale of material destruction, but not the human. However, 10 recently released pictures taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima a U.S. serviceman show the true horror of the toll on the populace.

I'm not going to embed any of the picturs in this post, but you can see all 10 with more background on their discovery and release here (be warned, they are very disturbing images).

I do still feel that Peace Park as a public space does have a multi-faceted role, but I have a new appreciation of the feelings of those who had to witness crowded bustling neighborhoods razed and carpeted with charred corpses as far as the eye can see.

Link to the pictures

UPDATE: As Keith points out in the comments below, as of May 13, the pictures have been removed. Sean Malloy has added this note

Since making these photographs publicly available, I have received reliable proof that at least two of these photos are actually of the 1923 Kanto earthquake. While I cannot speak for the entire collection, this evidence raises doubts about all of the photos and raises the strong possibility that the identification provided by the Hoover Archives is incorrect. I take full responsibility for my own failure to take additional steps to verify that the original archival designation was correct. I have removed the photographs until and unless their source can be verified by further research.

UPADTE 5/14 More on the photos in the International Herald Tribune

Spoken word night is not on Friday!

A glitch in the usually highly efficient machine - manned staffed by robots - that isn't GetHiroshima reulted in the Spoken Word Night at Cloud 5 being advertised as happening on May 9. It's not, it's on May 29. Thanks for the heads up and apologies for any inconvenience that may have or may still be caused.

Golden Week hasn't been canceled!

We're offline during our move from mountain top to mountain bottom so we haven't been able to update GetHiroshima for a while. Over lunch I've managed to update Classified ads and put up a few of the great club events happening in the city next week. Hope to get some more stuff up this afternoon.

Normally slow service should be resumed next week assuming I can find the computer power cable in one of the many identical boxes in our new old house.

Oh well...

I guess we won't be doing that again. So much for crowd sourcing.

Internet break

Joy and I are going offline for a week or so. This blog and classified ads, events etc on GetHiroshima most likely won't be updated until around Feb 24. Apologies for any inconvenience!

Interview with Nassrine Azimi- Director of UNITAR

After having an opportunity to hear her speak on International Human Right's Day at Jogakuin University, we had a chance to go to the UNITAR office next to the Peace Park and interview her about what UNITAR does and how people living and working in Hiroshima can get more involved.

Interview with Director Nassrine Azimi

GH Facebook group reaches 100

Thanks to the Facebookers who took the GetHiroshima group to over 100. I don't know if it was in response to the Classified as I posted, but the group now stands at 103. This means that even if we don't count Joy and I, we still over the "magic" ton. Of course, we are more than happy to have more people join, so feel free and join here.

If you have any ways you'd like the group to be used feel free to post them in the comments below or on the group page.

Oops!

Adam just mailed me to say I screwed up a bunch of the links in the Blogging From Hiroshima list. They are now fixed. Thousand apologies!

Happy New Year !!

All the best from GH for 2008.

Calling Hiroshima bloggers

Adam Beck has offered to put together a kind of directory of Hiroshima based blogs. If you'd like yours to be included click here for more details.