Hey y'all! Happy December! I enjoyed hearing about your musical endeavors--Blackfooted Bobcat, I love that you're writing your own cadenza for piece! What's the concerto? I got to do something similar for La Folia--since it's based on a very simple chord progression it's easy to make up a short variation, which my teacher let me do and insert somewhere in the piece. Anyway, good luck on the concerto competition (if it hasn't happened already)! I'm sure you'll do great.
Peregrine, I think we're probably going to do a lot of hiking in Japan, but we don't really have any solid plans yet. I also really want to go to the Ghibli museum if we can.
Have you all been reading anything good lately? I just finished The Fault in Our Stars for my book club, which was a romance & really sad (two categories which I don't usually enjoy) but the writing was so amazing that I actually did like it. I was up until 2 am sobbing about the ending...so I guess that proves it was good (or something).
I'm going to keep this short because I got on the computer to start a new story, but I'll talk to y'all soon!
The piece is JC Bach/Casadesus viola concerto, third movement. I’m still working on the cadenza but my teacher seems to like it so?????
My favorite costume i’ve dressed up in is probably the last one. I will try to remember to post a picture of the shoes and the Jellycat pin :D I’ve actually worn the shoes with the wings since then it’s cool.
My best suggestion for Japan is to eat all the food you can :D unfortunately if we did go to Japan again it would be really hard because of allergies *sobs* soy sauce has gluten and it’s in everything. If you’re learning Japanese you should also try to get some books in Japanese. Even if they’re above your level, they’re something to work towards. Oh, and check out the stationery stores! They’re amazing. Also Daiso (Japanese dollar store). But there are so many stationery stores and it’s AMAZING.
I guess since we’re talking about writing i might as well just say this because i’ve been way too obsessed with it lately and it’s not even that funny. So for reference Hideto is fully Japanese with more of a strict connection to Japan, and Reshinerr is Japanese/Hawaiian/white/Black and is more Japanese-Hawaiian than Japan-Japanese. So:
Hideto: *makes manju* (probably for his sibling, they love adzuki beans with all their heart XD)
XDDD this makes no senes without context I’m sure but basically in Hawai’i manju is usually baked and really flaky and in Japan it’s usually steamed. i actually found a manju recipe and allergy friendly-ified it and either i didn’t remember manju well or i didn’t realize how steaming worked. but anyway my dad was just like *shock* because it wasn’t baked XD ahhhh good times good times. how curious.
I’m (kind of) reading The Spirit Glass by Roshani Chokshi and so far it’s actually really good. I haven’t gotten too far, but I’m liking it. I’m really bad at actually reading because a.) i have vision issues and b.) i have no focus and can’t sit still, so i haven’t actually been able to read much *sobs* but a book i’ve been wanting to read and seems really cool is Voyage of the Frostheart by Jamie Littler. It also has illustrations that seem pretty cool. But i haven’t actually read it even though i’ve checked it out several times and wanted to read it so it might be really bad idk XD
Okay so we’re out of town to see Hilary Hahn play (!) and anyway, we actually found a boba shop that had dairy free options and thankfully cross contamination isn’t a huge issue for me (it’s not great but it’s not going to kill me or anything) and they seemed pretty good with allergy stuff too so I got one!!!!! The funny thing is, outside of Hawai’i, a Japanese marketplace I’ve been to, and my own kitchen, I have never had a boba tea that had properly cooked boba. They’re always not fully cooked. This one was much better than normal; it was usually fully but unevenly cooked.
Also Hilary Hahn!!! I’m not going to pretend she’s my favorite violinist, but she’s still really good. I’m pretty excited. I’m annoyed that we’re out of town because I know i’m going to get super inspired to practice and we won’t be home yet *sobs* i’m kind of surprised we’re actually doing this but it’s amazing and i love it.
My favorite violinist would by all means be Shunsuke Sato, and my other favorite violinist is Melissa White, who I actually saw in person at my local orchestra and she was just unbelievably amazing. I could go on and on but her tone and her technique and just everything was just amazing. My dad was with me that time and we’re big fans now XD We actually went to another concert with her at the same orchestra (for a relatively small city, we have two shockingly good orchestras) and we actually got to talk to her!!! And then we talked to the violist, Jaime Amador, as well (we actually talked more to him because with a violist you can kind of just be like “I play viola!” and you’re suddenly like best friends), and he was so nice too. Anyway. All that aside, go find something played by Melissa White. Also Shunsuke Sato. Maybe his Chaconne from the 2nd violin partita (find the newer versionby Netherlands Bach Society, which has blue lights for the background). But yes.
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submitted by Blackfooted Bobcat (December 7, 2023 - 4:03 pm)
Ahh, I saw that The Spirit Glass was coming out and I'm very excited to read it because Aru Shah was one of my favorite series :0 I also did not know that Roshani Chokshi is half Filipina but that is very epic. It looks great.
You got to see Hilary Hahn??? That's so cool! I admit that I don't know of many soloists, but she's probably my favorite of the *four* that I know of. I will have to look up the ones you recommended. The only famous soloist I've ever seen live was Rachel Barton-Pine, who played with my local philharmonic once. She was great. It was the birthday of one of the violists on the day of the performance, and at the end she played a super dramatic and soloistic "Happy Birthday" for him. So I could tell she was really nice.
I have never had manju before but it looks delicious! I will have to sniff some out when we're in Japan. I went to a Daiso in Vancouver, and it was very fun. I liked that it was more of useful stuff instead of all the cutesy tourist junk that most Japanese stores have (though admittedly I like that stuff too). They had a lot of washi tape =D
Does your family celebrate Japanese New Year? We do occasionally, though nothing beyond eating food. This year we're going to have a sort of party for it, which we've never done before, and have our friends pop in and out and eat snacks with us. It should be fun. If you know of any traditions besides stuffing your face with seaweed salad I would love to hear them, though. I need more ideas for what to do.
The story I was starting kind of shriveled up--I wanted to do a Victorian-era historical fiction, but I get so bogged down in the research that I always just end up giving up on the story. I checked out like 5 books on Victorian England, Ireland, and India and then just left them to get dusty on my desk (I'm bad at actually reading nonfiction). I do really like the characters, though, so I want it to go somewhere. The protagonist is named Hilda, and she's a half-Indian, half-British girl whose family is *somehow* very rich, and she likes to romp around on her estate. Her best friend is named Oliver, and he's an Irish immigrant whose family had to move due to the Ireland-England colonization, etc. Since Ireland and India both got colonized by Britain I thought it would be really interesting to have both of those characters living in Britain with their own perspectives. But I'm not really an expert on that subject so I'm having a hard time getting started.
I'd love to hear more about your story, though! Was that little dialogue you included from it?
Rachel Barton-Pine has soloed several times with our community orchestra, and I've heard her do that ultra fancy version of Happy Birthday. She is amazing!
i'm working on more responses but tbh the main thing with oshogatsu (as far as we do) is food XD a lot of it is based on the specific food. last year i made a bunch of more traditional Japanese dishes (usually it'd be more Hawaiian stuff) and some of them were good and some of them were not. I'm definitely making toshikoshi soba again - that was really good. and then there's mochi, of course. we also do little mandarin orange things I think, but idk if that's Japanese or something else. you could look into sending cards! i think that's a big-ish thing. but yeah, the main thing you can do without a temple or a shrine nearby is food XD toshikoshi soba is a newer thing i've added, but there's also ozoni, a mochi soup, that we did on occaision i think. it's really good. You do toshikoshi soba at night on New Years Eve and ozoni in the morning (or whenever you get up XD) there are a lot of different styles of ozoni (probably soba too); it depends where your family is from in Japan. if you remember something from, like visiting someone or something (like i remember a clear broth) you could work that in if you don't know where you're from (we don't). but i know you've said your family hasn't kept a lot of Japanese traditions if i'm remembering right so if not just do what sounds good :P Just a tip, carrots are really really good in miso soup, and i think they're good in ozoni too if i'm correct. they add a bit of sweetness. though i don't actually like eating carrots. (i hate food more than i used to though XD) Also some wakame (a specific type of seaweed) in it is superb (don't rehydrate it in the broth, though). i also hope to make gyoza this year (i made some a long time ago but i also don't know where i got the recipe (which really matters because i can't have gluten so i need to make a good wrapping), but that's not really traditional as far as I know. I also want to do sekihan again (mochi rice with adzuki beans). and you can make mochi in a stand mixer (you should be able to find a recipe if you look it up), and honeslty it works with regular rice too if you don't have mochi rice (i think the kind i mean is like short grain sticky rice? but i'm not certain that's the right word).
okay so i'm kind of lying about it mostly being food now that i think about it. another major thing is cleaning the house. Like, the entire house. until it's sparkling. but uhhhh my dad did away with that one and I'm glad XD that's kind of a Shinto thing I guess (in roots).
oh, and i looked up traditions and yeah, most of them need a shrine or temple... i really wish there was a shrine nearby where i could get omamori and stuff, but there isn't :(
we also always make butter mochi and usually something like haupia, but that's not really a standard thing. oh, but you can have mochi with kinako (just mix it with some sugar, it's really good), azuki bean paste, or you can wrap it in nori and dip it in soy sauce. all of the ways are really good. (in case you're thinking of daifuku, sweet mochi, New Years mochi tends to be the unsweetened kind unless i'm wrong. but you can totally have daifuku too! but it might not go well with the suggestions is what i'm saying)
Do you do anything for tanabata? i actually never have, but it sounds really cool. (i know it's in a long time but i always miss it since it's not a normal thing we do and i forget it exists)
also if i can rant, since you might get this: even though our family has kept a lot of cultural stuff, i still sometimes feel like i'm disconnected from Japan. Like, from the actual place, sure, but the culture we do have is so mixed with Hawaiian and other Asian/Pacific Islander cultures that it's hard to say what's from what. also there's just appearance - i don't know what race i look, especially because i don't talk to people very often. and i really wish i spoke Japanese natively sometimes. and like, i could have relatively easily - my family worked on sugar cane (?) plantations with a lot of other Japanese people and didn't really need to learn English as much, and also they didn't really have the time or money I'm sure. like, my grandma is much more fluent in English now, but I think she said her first language was Japanese. so yeah. just random rants. feel free to add on if you want. maybe the issue is more that I just feel "watered down" in a way, and as much as I would never want to get rid of the Hawaiian culture, I can't claim to be Hawaiian either, really. anyway.
have a good new years! honestly, even if you don't do things that are completely traditional that's fine. i mean, culture isn't set in stone, and there's a big difference between a white person coming in and doing non-traditional things and a Japanese person celebrating with the things that they love. so pick up some newer traditions if you want, but don't forget the old ones if you have them, or the things that you just want to do :D also just a disclaimer that as i said, i'm much more Japanese-Hawaiian than Japanese-Japanese and could have gottens something wrong. and sorry if i assumed you didn't know a lot/explained too much, i just didn't want to confuse you and i don't know how much you know. Have a good party!
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submitted by Blackfooted Bobcat (December 27, 2023 - 5:40 pm)
Thank you for all the food talk! Honestly I got hungry just reading that post, LOL. We don't know how to make a lot of things so we just made spam and tofu musubi, sushi rolls, inarizushi, and a strange mochi cake thing that was kind if in between cake and mochi (it was good). There was a lot of rice. I think there's still a bunch of rice in our freezer. We also got natto for the first time, which I'd never tried before. It was...interesting. I think it might be the kind of thing that you have to grow up eating to like. The flavor wasn't bad, but the texture kind of put me off. I can see why people like it though.
I definitely get what you mean about feeling "watered down" Japanese. I wish that I could speak Japanese with my family members, but no one speaks it except my grandma, who has forgotten a lot since she hasn't used it in decades (also she has hearing loss and dementia so it's impossible to have a conversation with her). I also don't see a lot of representation for Asians like us in the media--most people you see are the children of immigrants (most of the Asians at my school are too), so it kind of makes you feel like that's the only real way to be Asian.
I liked what you said about how traditions aren't set in stone, and as long as you have some kind of connection to that culture it's kind of okay to do whatever. That's kind of how I've been thinking about it, especially with holidays and stuff. I've never done anything for Tanabata festival, though. What is it exactly?
I think in your last post you said you had trouble reading because of vision issues, etc.? Have you tried audiobooks? I'm really bad at listening to them because I always zone out and lose track of what's happening, and they don't work for everyone, but they are a great way of reading outside of traditional books. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i'll respond more later but use the rice for fried rice :D It's really good with rice that's been chilled. I don't have a good recipe because it depends on how much rice there is and I just do it by throwing stuff together, but the way I do it is basically:
-Thinly slice green onions (do more than you think you'll want probably, you want them to be visible in the end mixture), cut up SPAM, whisk together an egg or 2 (you can add some soy sauce or sesame oil if you want), get anything else you want (like carrots or frozen corn) ready. (Frozen corn is really good in it btw, it gets sweet). Also put equal parts soy sauce and mirin in a bowl (i'd suggest a bit heavier on the mirin; the soy sauce i use is low sodium so you might need less if yours isn't) with a pinch of dashi powder (you could probably put in actual dashi too but i haven't tested that) and a little bit of sesame oil. It will evaporate a lot; maybe1/4 cup for like 4 cups of rice with all the stuff in it? but i haven't measured; you'll want to test it with less first and see if it needs more
-fry SPAM it in the pan (maybe medium high? also it'll make enough oil so you don't need to add any. don't let it sit on one side or it'll burn)
-Put SPAM in a bowl, add sesame and/or olive/avocado/vegetable oil to pan if there's not enough oil from the SPAM, and slowly pour in the eggs while stirring roughly and constantly until they're cooked. Then kind of "chop up" the eggs with the spoon so they're pretty small
-Add corn (if using), SPAM, green onions, and rice. Break up the rice and pour in the mixture with soy sauce and mirin. Stir the mixture until it's dry. And then it's ready.
It's not a great recipe but that's how i make it *shrugs* you can probably look up a recipe, but people have A LOT of varying ideas on fried rice. Fried rice is almost (almost) as personal as choosing an instrument :P
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submitted by Blackfooted Bobcat (January 10, 2024 - 8:33 pm)
My concerto competition is in about 5 days and i’m kind of terrified. Not to mention that I just got new strings because one broke (while I was playing, after getting new strings like 30 minutes prior. I don't know what happened but i am SO GLAD that i'm renting a mediocre viola for once because the play covers repairs and string changes *sobs*). Ahhhh this isn’t fun. Except i’m also really excited because i’ll be playing with an accompanist. Have either of you done this before? Do you have any advice if you have? I think I have pretty good energy though. Hopefully. I'm pretty certain I'm not going to win, but I'm trying to just think of it as a performance.
I’m even worse at listening to audiobooks than reading XD Both because of not understanding the words and focus. Thanks for the idea, though.
Also I totally get what you mean with not seeing as many non-immigrant Asians in the media! And it’s incredibly important to represent immigrants, but I totally know what you mean. I kind of don’t even feel that Japanese in a way, too. I feel more… Japanese-Hawaiian? Idk. but it’s just so much more confusing, and I often wish I was mixed with more things (Hawaiian in particular) because I’m kind of something i’m not and not something i almost am. i also keep wishing I was anything other than Japanese (usually Korean or Chinese, but sometimes Filipino) because there are so many fun books about Chinese and Korean culture (like The Last Fallen Star, Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit, Spirit Hunters, so many) but not as many with Japan... and i guess there's manga/anime but it's not really... the same. Maybe there are more and it's just my library not having any, idk. The few I've found (like Just be Cool, Jenna Sakai) are both realistic and not very fun... and also in this case a straight/non-queer (because multi-spec (bi, pan, omni, etc) people exist) romance, which isn't inherently bad but i didn't like this one. although if i'm correct that one was also partly about journalism which was fun. anway. it's not directly connected but i think that's why i keep wishing that. also that wouldnt' have the connection to anime... and i saw one recently but was too scared to actually read it because actually there was another but it was so painfully bad. so bad. SO BAD.
Also i don’t even know what I look like. Asian? White? I legitimately don’t know. I almost wish I talked to people more so I could gauge it better. But i’m also scared that I just look white. I know it’s not bad, but if I look white why have people singled me out for being Asian??????? But then again once I was getting a haircut from someone who didn’t know me and they were surprised my dad was Japanese… it doesn’t make sense and I can’t even remember anything well enough. And there’s a pretty good amount of (East and South, but I’m talking more about E/SE in this case) Asians in my orchestra so it might not come in as much. It certainly does make you feel like you should just not talk about that sort of thing, though, especially because so much stuff about being mixed online is just “so the most important thing is that monoracial people matter more than you but sure we can talk about this too I guess” (and like it doesn’t even always account for the fact that even mixed people who are mixed with white can look way more visibly (race) than people who are fully (race)). Idk. i also feel like racism against Asians is often kind of dismissed, for lack of a better word (maybe ignored is a better word), and like I’ve seen “introductions to race” things that don’t mention Asians at all (except for saying they are POC). Anyway it’s just a constant feeling of not Asian enough while also feeling too Asian. Like how I kind of hate my skin because it’s too light but also because it’s too dark/not completely white looking (it varies with lighting). How I can try to dissect my features in the mirror and figure out how I look and just… not have any idea.
Also being trans complicates this in so many ways (like racial traits being “gendered” in gross ways) but also because of names and stuff… If I could change my name irl, would it change how people saw me??? Idk and there’s no discussions of this online (frankly trans spaces often ignore POC but that’s a different rant. Granted, they can also be much less racist because most trans people are less conservative because it’s hard to be conservative when conservatives quite literally would rather you be dead than queer)
Also i’m sorry about your grandma *optional hugs*
You tried natto? That’s hilarious XD i actually didn’t have it until i was… 10-ish??? But overall it probably is an acquired taste. I didn’t try umeboshi (pickled plums, admins, it’s just the name of the food) until later, but I liked it because the flavors remind me of li hing powder (i’m not sure my dad would agree though XD) My dad didn’t used to like umeboshi because his mom only got really sour ones usually so i hadn’t tried them XD We have some ones brined in honey that are soooo good. I hope the Asian store keeps carrying them but it might not - we don’t have too many Japanese people around here so it’s not the best place to get Japanese stuff.
I don’t know enough about tanabata off the top of my head to say more than what’ll come up when you look it up, to be honest.
I’ve been super obsessed with ballet lately. I’m actually listening to Coppelia right now (the Czardas from movement one; it's in a playlist I was making for a thing). If you look it up, see if you can find one by Barry Wordsworth. That’s who conducts it in the Royal Opera House version I like. I also love all the Tchaikovsky ballets and Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella by Prokofiev (though I’ve only listened to the music for the Prokofiev ones, and only parts of Cinderella). I really want to see Don Quixote and Sylvia and probably Giselle too.
So at the Hilary Hahn concert someone was wearing a super strong perfume/hairspray (I think it was hairspray) and i ended up having an asthma attack and having to go early ToT of course it was at the fanciest concert I’ve ever been to… also i would have talked about it more but I thought we were joking about going XD
Also have you had boba Lupine? I have complicated feelings about it (it’s delicious, but the anime-fan-y-ness of it makes me not want to like it because anime fans are scary) but i’ve seen a lot of people who don’t like it on here. As I said though, most places I’ve been to do not cook the boba well and usually don’t always use the best tea *shrugs* I’m pretty particular about my tea, though - I do lowkey (emphasis on the lowkey, it can get so complex, which is really cool but i don’t have the supplies or training for that) tea ceremony matcha on occasion and usually steep my teas in very particular ways and all that. Do you like regular tea?
sorry this is so long admins. also thank you admins!
Best wishes for your concerto competition. What piece are you playing? You play violin, is that right? So do I!
Admin
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submitted by Blackfooted Bobcat, age Franz, Coppelia! (January 10, 2024 - 9:25 pm)
Thank you admin!! You're right, I do play violin, but I'm playing viola in the competition because I'm a viola in the orchestra that the competition is hosted by. I'm doing the third movement of Viola Concerto in C Minor in the style of JC Bach by Casadesus with my own cadenza (which is harder than the actual piece I think XD) It's a really fun piece, especially because of the pretty dramatic cadenza. I have the final rehearsal tonight but I'm still sick... I've been sick for a month at least, basically as long as I've needed to intensively focus on the piece. so I still have a lot more techincal issues than I'd like. my teacher said they were all pretty minor things, at least, but I would really like to fix them. If I only hadn't been sick -!
also reading back through this, by "i think I have pretty good energy" i mean musically. physically NO. Which is really not good. i've been trying to only practice when I have the energy to actually do good practice but that's hard...
Also i am super excited to practice more with the accompanist tonight! it feels less different than I thought, to be honest. We'll see how it goes
i'm kind of excited for this to be over so I can start working on some violin solos from Swan Lake and maybe Coppelia though. They're so beautiful and really expressive. Although the Swan Lake one is in 6 flats O_o
Well, since it's your own cadenza, I'd say you're free to adjust it however you wish, simplify or slow it down or ?? A good accompanist should be able to follow you. The soloist should set the tempo. Let us know how it goes. I'm sorry you've been sick! I hope you're better soon.
Admin
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submitted by Blackfooted Bobcat (January 11, 2024 - 6:25 pm)
Good luck with your concerto competition!! No matter how you do, it's a big step and very exciting! Like the admin said, a good accompanist should be able to follow you, so you shouldn't have to do much besides giving a breathing cue to start and staying at a relatively steady tempo (and acknowledging the accompanist at the beginning and end--I've forgotten to do that before).
It's true that there aren't a lot of Japanese Americans in books, but a couple that I really like & think you'll enjoy are Anne of Greenville by Mariko Tamaki and Where the Lost Ones Go by Akemi Dawn Bowman. Anne is a queer YA retelling of Anne of Green Gables and Lost Ones is about ghosts in an old house. Both have sapphic half-Japanese half-white protagonists. I'm kind of obsessed with them so I may have mentioned them here before.
I'm sorry the trans Asian community is so hard to find. I don't know anything about that experience but I hope you find others who can identify with you. The intersection of multiple marginalized identities always comes with a whole package of complications. :/
Racism against Asian Americans is definitely a tricky subject. Asians are given a proximity to whiteness which allows us to exist fairly comfortably in white spaces, but that proximity then lets white people claim that Asians are just as privileged as them and that anti-Asian hate isn't real. And that proximity originated in anti-Blackness. After WWII, white politicians spread the model minority myth to combat the Civil Rights Movement. Basically they were like "look, we locked up the Japanese people but they're out now and they're thriving! Black people should be more like that." Which is so completely messed up in so many ways. Another detriment of the proximity/model minority myth is that other Brown people sometimes disassociate from Asians. It's true that Black and Indigenous people have faced worse in this country than Asians, but oppression isn't a competition and it's just another way the model minority myth works to disempower POC as a group. (I wrote an essay about this for school so I'm kind of obsessed with the topic. Also if I've ranted about this before, I'm sorry) Rant over. Thank you for coming to my TED talk xD
For real though I love being able to talk to you about these kinds of things. All of my other friends are monoracial (except one part-Japanese friend who moved across the country and I never talk to anymore T_T). It feels good to get it all out around someone who understands.
Moving on...I've never really listened to ballet music (outside of the Nutcracker, which I have watched like a dozen times because my aunt plays in the orchestra for it). But I think it's cool that it tells a specific story with a plot and everything. I guess all music kind of does that, but ballet is more specific.
I love boba! It has gotten very whitewashed in the past few years but I still love it. It's exciting to have a drink that also has an eating component xD I tend to take my tea pretty sweet. I honestly don't know what "good" boba tastes like but most of the boba I've had tastes good to me. I'm not very picky about it. I got a boba-making kit from the Asian market so I'm hoping to try that out soon.
That's all I have for today. Thanks again to the admins for reading my long rant, lol.
(November 30, 2023 - 5:29 pm)
Yay, is there still interest in this?!?! I hope so :D
(November 30, 2023 - 7:23 pm)
Hey y'all! Happy December! I enjoyed hearing about your musical endeavors--Blackfooted Bobcat, I love that you're writing your own cadenza for piece! What's the concerto? I got to do something similar for La Folia--since it's based on a very simple chord progression it's easy to make up a short variation, which my teacher let me do and insert somewhere in the piece. Anyway, good luck on the concerto competition (if it hasn't happened already)! I'm sure you'll do great.
Peregrine, I think we're probably going to do a lot of hiking in Japan, but we don't really have any solid plans yet. I also really want to go to the Ghibli museum if we can.
Have you all been reading anything good lately? I just finished The Fault in Our Stars for my book club, which was a romance & really sad (two categories which I don't usually enjoy) but the writing was so amazing that I actually did like it. I was up until 2 am sobbing about the ending...so I guess that proves it was good (or something).
I'm going to keep this short because I got on the computer to start a new story, but I'll talk to y'all soon!
(December 3, 2023 - 9:19 pm)
also do you want to talk about the story?!
(December 7, 2023 - 4:32 pm)
The piece is JC Bach/Casadesus viola concerto, third movement. I’m still working on the cadenza but my teacher seems to like it so?????
My favorite costume i’ve dressed up in is probably the last one. I will try to remember to post a picture of the shoes and the Jellycat pin :D I’ve actually worn the shoes with the wings since then it’s cool.
My best suggestion for Japan is to eat all the food you can :D unfortunately if we did go to Japan again it would be really hard because of allergies *sobs* soy sauce has gluten and it’s in everything. If you’re learning Japanese you should also try to get some books in Japanese. Even if they’re above your level, they’re something to work towards. Oh, and check out the stationery stores! They’re amazing. Also Daiso (Japanese dollar store). But there are so many stationery stores and it’s AMAZING.
I guess since we’re talking about writing i might as well just say this because i’ve been way too obsessed with it lately and it’s not even that funny. So for reference Hideto is fully Japanese with more of a strict connection to Japan, and Reshinerr is Japanese/Hawaiian/white/Black and is more Japanese-Hawaiian than Japan-Japanese. So:
Hideto: *makes manju* (probably for his sibling, they love adzuki beans with all their heart XD)
Reshinerr: *comes over* *hears Hideto made manju* MANJU!!! - wait it’s steamed?!?!?!
*SHOCK* yes that deserves its own line
Hideto: *deep confusion* …yes????
XDDD this makes no senes without context I’m sure but basically in Hawai’i manju is usually baked and really flaky and in Japan it’s usually steamed. i actually found a manju recipe and allergy friendly-ified it and either i didn’t remember manju well or i didn’t realize how steaming worked. but anyway my dad was just like *shock* because it wasn’t baked XD ahhhh good times good times. how curious.
I’m (kind of) reading The Spirit Glass by Roshani Chokshi and so far it’s actually really good. I haven’t gotten too far, but I’m liking it. I’m really bad at actually reading because a.) i have vision issues and b.) i have no focus and can’t sit still, so i haven’t actually been able to read much *sobs* but a book i’ve been wanting to read and seems really cool is Voyage of the Frostheart by Jamie Littler. It also has illustrations that seem pretty cool. But i haven’t actually read it even though i’ve checked it out several times and wanted to read it so it might be really bad idk XD
Okay so we’re out of town to see Hilary Hahn play (!) and anyway, we actually found a boba shop that had dairy free options and thankfully cross contamination isn’t a huge issue for me (it’s not great but it’s not going to kill me or anything) and they seemed pretty good with allergy stuff too so I got one!!!!! The funny thing is, outside of Hawai’i, a Japanese marketplace I’ve been to, and my own kitchen, I have never had a boba tea that had properly cooked boba. They’re always not fully cooked. This one was much better than normal; it was usually fully but unevenly cooked.
Also Hilary Hahn!!! I’m not going to pretend she’s my favorite violinist, but she’s still really good. I’m pretty excited. I’m annoyed that we’re out of town because I know i’m going to get super inspired to practice and we won’t be home yet *sobs* i’m kind of surprised we’re actually doing this but it’s amazing and i love it.
My favorite violinist would by all means be Shunsuke Sato, and my other favorite violinist is Melissa White, who I actually saw in person at my local orchestra and she was just unbelievably amazing. I could go on and on but her tone and her technique and just everything was just amazing. My dad was with me that time and we’re big fans now XD We actually went to another concert with her at the same orchestra (for a relatively small city, we have two shockingly good orchestras) and we actually got to talk to her!!! And then we talked to the violist, Jaime Amador, as well (we actually talked more to him because with a violist you can kind of just be like “I play viola!” and you’re suddenly like best friends), and he was so nice too. Anyway. All that aside, go find something played by Melissa White. Also Shunsuke Sato. Maybe his Chaconne from the 2nd violin partita (find the newer versionby Netherlands Bach Society, which has blue lights for the background). But yes.
(December 7, 2023 - 4:03 pm)
(December 11, 2023 - 12:21 am)
Ahh, I saw that The Spirit Glass was coming out and I'm very excited to read it because Aru Shah was one of my favorite series :0 I also did not know that Roshani Chokshi is half Filipina but that is very epic. It looks great.
You got to see Hilary Hahn??? That's so cool! I admit that I don't know of many soloists, but she's probably my favorite of the *four* that I know of. I will have to look up the ones you recommended. The only famous soloist I've ever seen live was Rachel Barton-Pine, who played with my local philharmonic once. She was great. It was the birthday of one of the violists on the day of the performance, and at the end she played a super dramatic and soloistic "Happy Birthday" for him. So I could tell she was really nice.
I have never had manju before but it looks delicious! I will have to sniff some out when we're in Japan. I went to a Daiso in Vancouver, and it was very fun. I liked that it was more of useful stuff instead of all the cutesy tourist junk that most Japanese stores have (though admittedly I like that stuff too). They had a lot of washi tape =D
Does your family celebrate Japanese New Year? We do occasionally, though nothing beyond eating food. This year we're going to have a sort of party for it, which we've never done before, and have our friends pop in and out and eat snacks with us. It should be fun. If you know of any traditions besides stuffing your face with seaweed salad I would love to hear them, though. I need more ideas for what to do.
The story I was starting kind of shriveled up--I wanted to do a Victorian-era historical fiction, but I get so bogged down in the research that I always just end up giving up on the story. I checked out like 5 books on Victorian England, Ireland, and India and then just left them to get dusty on my desk (I'm bad at actually reading nonfiction). I do really like the characters, though, so I want it to go somewhere. The protagonist is named Hilda, and she's a half-Indian, half-British girl whose family is *somehow* very rich, and she likes to romp around on her estate. Her best friend is named Oliver, and he's an Irish immigrant whose family had to move due to the Ireland-England colonization, etc. Since Ireland and India both got colonized by Britain I thought it would be really interesting to have both of those characters living in Britain with their own perspectives. But I'm not really an expert on that subject so I'm having a hard time getting started.
I'd love to hear more about your story, though! Was that little dialogue you included from it?
Rachel Barton-Pine has soloed several times with our community orchestra, and I've heard her do that ultra fancy version of Happy Birthday. She is amazing!
Admin
(December 22, 2023 - 7:56 pm)
i'm working on more responses but tbh the main thing with oshogatsu (as far as we do) is food XD a lot of it is based on the specific food. last year i made a bunch of more traditional Japanese dishes (usually it'd be more Hawaiian stuff) and some of them were good and some of them were not. I'm definitely making toshikoshi soba again - that was really good. and then there's mochi, of course. we also do little mandarin orange things I think, but idk if that's Japanese or something else. you could look into sending cards! i think that's a big-ish thing. but yeah, the main thing you can do without a temple or a shrine nearby is food XD toshikoshi soba is a newer thing i've added, but there's also ozoni, a mochi soup, that we did on occaision i think. it's really good. You do toshikoshi soba at night on New Years Eve and ozoni in the morning (or whenever you get up XD) there are a lot of different styles of ozoni (probably soba too); it depends where your family is from in Japan. if you remember something from, like visiting someone or something (like i remember a clear broth) you could work that in if you don't know where you're from (we don't). but i know you've said your family hasn't kept a lot of Japanese traditions if i'm remembering right so if not just do what sounds good :P Just a tip, carrots are really really good in miso soup, and i think they're good in ozoni too if i'm correct. they add a bit of sweetness. though i don't actually like eating carrots. (i hate food more than i used to though XD) Also some wakame (a specific type of seaweed) in it is superb (don't rehydrate it in the broth, though). i also hope to make gyoza this year (i made some a long time ago but i also don't know where i got the recipe (which really matters because i can't have gluten so i need to make a good wrapping), but that's not really traditional as far as I know. I also want to do sekihan again (mochi rice with adzuki beans). and you can make mochi in a stand mixer (you should be able to find a recipe if you look it up), and honeslty it works with regular rice too if you don't have mochi rice (i think the kind i mean is like short grain sticky rice? but i'm not certain that's the right word).
okay so i'm kind of lying about it mostly being food now that i think about it. another major thing is cleaning the house. Like, the entire house. until it's sparkling. but uhhhh my dad did away with that one and I'm glad XD that's kind of a Shinto thing I guess (in roots).
oh, and i looked up traditions and yeah, most of them need a shrine or temple... i really wish there was a shrine nearby where i could get omamori and stuff, but there isn't :(
we also always make butter mochi and usually something like haupia, but that's not really a standard thing. oh, but you can have mochi with kinako (just mix it with some sugar, it's really good), azuki bean paste, or you can wrap it in nori and dip it in soy sauce. all of the ways are really good. (in case you're thinking of daifuku, sweet mochi, New Years mochi tends to be the unsweetened kind unless i'm wrong. but you can totally have daifuku too! but it might not go well with the suggestions is what i'm saying)
Do you do anything for tanabata? i actually never have, but it sounds really cool. (i know it's in a long time but i always miss it since it's not a normal thing we do and i forget it exists)
also if i can rant, since you might get this: even though our family has kept a lot of cultural stuff, i still sometimes feel like i'm disconnected from Japan. Like, from the actual place, sure, but the culture we do have is so mixed with Hawaiian and other Asian/Pacific Islander cultures that it's hard to say what's from what. also there's just appearance - i don't know what race i look, especially because i don't talk to people very often. and i really wish i spoke Japanese natively sometimes. and like, i could have relatively easily - my family worked on sugar cane (?) plantations with a lot of other Japanese people and didn't really need to learn English as much, and also they didn't really have the time or money I'm sure. like, my grandma is much more fluent in English now, but I think she said her first language was Japanese. so yeah. just random rants. feel free to add on if you want. maybe the issue is more that I just feel "watered down" in a way, and as much as I would never want to get rid of the Hawaiian culture, I can't claim to be Hawaiian either, really. anyway.
have a good new years! honestly, even if you don't do things that are completely traditional that's fine. i mean, culture isn't set in stone, and there's a big difference between a white person coming in and doing non-traditional things and a Japanese person celebrating with the things that they love. so pick up some newer traditions if you want, but don't forget the old ones if you have them, or the things that you just want to do :D also just a disclaimer that as i said, i'm much more Japanese-Hawaiian than Japanese-Japanese and could have gottens something wrong. and sorry if i assumed you didn't know a lot/explained too much, i just didn't want to confuse you and i don't know how much you know. Have a good party!
(December 27, 2023 - 5:40 pm)
(December 23, 2023 - 3:24 pm)
oh, i didn't respond to the rest! I'll work on that :D
How did New Year go, Lupine?
(January 6, 2024 - 10:10 am)
Thank you for all the food talk! Honestly I got hungry just reading that post, LOL. We don't know how to make a lot of things so we just made spam and tofu musubi, sushi rolls, inarizushi, and a strange mochi cake thing that was kind if in between cake and mochi (it was good). There was a lot of rice. I think there's still a bunch of rice in our freezer. We also got natto for the first time, which I'd never tried before. It was...interesting. I think it might be the kind of thing that you have to grow up eating to like. The flavor wasn't bad, but the texture kind of put me off. I can see why people like it though.
I definitely get what you mean about feeling "watered down" Japanese. I wish that I could speak Japanese with my family members, but no one speaks it except my grandma, who has forgotten a lot since she hasn't used it in decades (also she has hearing loss and dementia so it's impossible to have a conversation with her). I also don't see a lot of representation for Asians like us in the media--most people you see are the children of immigrants (most of the Asians at my school are too), so it kind of makes you feel like that's the only real way to be Asian.
I liked what you said about how traditions aren't set in stone, and as long as you have some kind of connection to that culture it's kind of okay to do whatever. That's kind of how I've been thinking about it, especially with holidays and stuff. I've never done anything for Tanabata festival, though. What is it exactly?
I think in your last post you said you had trouble reading because of vision issues, etc.? Have you tried audiobooks? I'm really bad at listening to them because I always zone out and lose track of what's happening, and they don't work for everyone, but they are a great way of reading outside of traditional books. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(January 10, 2024 - 5:46 pm)
i'll respond more later but use the rice for fried rice :D It's really good with rice that's been chilled. I don't have a good recipe because it depends on how much rice there is and I just do it by throwing stuff together, but the way I do it is basically:
-Thinly slice green onions (do more than you think you'll want probably, you want them to be visible in the end mixture), cut up SPAM, whisk together an egg or 2 (you can add some soy sauce or sesame oil if you want), get anything else you want (like carrots or frozen corn) ready. (Frozen corn is really good in it btw, it gets sweet). Also put equal parts soy sauce and mirin in a bowl (i'd suggest a bit heavier on the mirin; the soy sauce i use is low sodium so you might need less if yours isn't) with a pinch of dashi powder (you could probably put in actual dashi too but i haven't tested that) and a little bit of sesame oil. It will evaporate a lot; maybe1/4 cup for like 4 cups of rice with all the stuff in it? but i haven't measured; you'll want to test it with less first and see if it needs more
-fry SPAM it in the pan (maybe medium high? also it'll make enough oil so you don't need to add any. don't let it sit on one side or it'll burn)
-Put SPAM in a bowl, add sesame and/or olive/avocado/vegetable oil to pan if there's not enough oil from the SPAM, and slowly pour in the eggs while stirring roughly and constantly until they're cooked. Then kind of "chop up" the eggs with the spoon so they're pretty small
-Add corn (if using), SPAM, green onions, and rice. Break up the rice and pour in the mixture with soy sauce and mirin. Stir the mixture until it's dry. And then it's ready.
It's not a great recipe but that's how i make it *shrugs* you can probably look up a recipe, but people have A LOT of varying ideas on fried rice. Fried rice is almost (almost) as personal as choosing an instrument :P
(January 10, 2024 - 8:33 pm)
My concerto competition is in about 5 days and i’m kind of terrified. Not to mention that I just got new strings because one broke (while I was playing, after getting new strings like 30 minutes prior. I don't know what happened but i am SO GLAD that i'm renting a mediocre viola for once because the play covers repairs and string changes *sobs*). Ahhhh this isn’t fun. Except i’m also really excited because i’ll be playing with an accompanist. Have either of you done this before? Do you have any advice if you have? I think I have pretty good energy though. Hopefully. I'm pretty certain I'm not going to win, but I'm trying to just think of it as a performance.
I’m even worse at listening to audiobooks than reading XD Both because of not understanding the words and focus. Thanks for the idea, though.
Also I totally get what you mean with not seeing as many non-immigrant Asians in the media! And it’s incredibly important to represent immigrants, but I totally know what you mean. I kind of don’t even feel that Japanese in a way, too. I feel more… Japanese-Hawaiian? Idk. but it’s just so much more confusing, and I often wish I was mixed with more things (Hawaiian in particular) because I’m kind of something i’m not and not something i almost am. i also keep wishing I was anything other than Japanese (usually Korean or Chinese, but sometimes Filipino) because there are so many fun books about Chinese and Korean culture (like The Last Fallen Star, Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit, Spirit Hunters, so many) but not as many with Japan... and i guess there's manga/anime but it's not really... the same. Maybe there are more and it's just my library not having any, idk. The few I've found (like Just be Cool, Jenna Sakai) are both realistic and not very fun... and also in this case a straight/non-queer (because multi-spec (bi, pan, omni, etc) people exist) romance, which isn't inherently bad but i didn't like this one. although if i'm correct that one was also partly about journalism which was fun. anway. it's not directly connected but i think that's why i keep wishing that. also that wouldnt' have the connection to anime... and i saw one recently but was too scared to actually read it because actually there was another but it was so painfully bad. so bad. SO BAD.
Also i don’t even know what I look like. Asian? White? I legitimately don’t know. I almost wish I talked to people more so I could gauge it better. But i’m also scared that I just look white. I know it’s not bad, but if I look white why have people singled me out for being Asian??????? But then again once I was getting a haircut from someone who didn’t know me and they were surprised my dad was Japanese… it doesn’t make sense and I can’t even remember anything well enough. And there’s a pretty good amount of (East and South, but I’m talking more about E/SE in this case) Asians in my orchestra so it might not come in as much. It certainly does make you feel like you should just not talk about that sort of thing, though, especially because so much stuff about being mixed online is just “so the most important thing is that monoracial people matter more than you but sure we can talk about this too I guess” (and like it doesn’t even always account for the fact that even mixed people who are mixed with white can look way more visibly (race) than people who are fully (race)). Idk. i also feel like racism against Asians is often kind of dismissed, for lack of a better word (maybe ignored is a better word), and like I’ve seen “introductions to race” things that don’t mention Asians at all (except for saying they are POC). Anyway it’s just a constant feeling of not Asian enough while also feeling too Asian. Like how I kind of hate my skin because it’s too light but also because it’s too dark/not completely white looking (it varies with lighting). How I can try to dissect my features in the mirror and figure out how I look and just… not have any idea.
Also being trans complicates this in so many ways (like racial traits being “gendered” in gross ways) but also because of names and stuff… If I could change my name irl, would it change how people saw me??? Idk and there’s no discussions of this online (frankly trans spaces often ignore POC but that’s a different rant. Granted, they can also be much less racist because most trans people are less conservative because it’s hard to be conservative when conservatives quite literally would rather you be dead than queer)
Also i’m sorry about your grandma *optional hugs*
You tried natto? That’s hilarious XD i actually didn’t have it until i was… 10-ish??? But overall it probably is an acquired taste. I didn’t try umeboshi (pickled plums, admins, it’s just the name of the food) until later, but I liked it because the flavors remind me of li hing powder (i’m not sure my dad would agree though XD) My dad didn’t used to like umeboshi because his mom only got really sour ones usually so i hadn’t tried them XD We have some ones brined in honey that are soooo good. I hope the Asian store keeps carrying them but it might not - we don’t have too many Japanese people around here so it’s not the best place to get Japanese stuff.
I don’t know enough about tanabata off the top of my head to say more than what’ll come up when you look it up, to be honest.
I’ve been super obsessed with ballet lately. I’m actually listening to Coppelia right now (the Czardas from movement one; it's in a playlist I was making for a thing). If you look it up, see if you can find one by Barry Wordsworth. That’s who conducts it in the Royal Opera House version I like. I also love all the Tchaikovsky ballets and Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella by Prokofiev (though I’ve only listened to the music for the Prokofiev ones, and only parts of Cinderella). I really want to see Don Quixote and Sylvia and probably Giselle too.
So at the Hilary Hahn concert someone was wearing a super strong perfume/hairspray (I think it was hairspray) and i ended up having an asthma attack and having to go early ToT of course it was at the fanciest concert I’ve ever been to… also i would have talked about it more but I thought we were joking about going XD
Also have you had boba Lupine? I have complicated feelings about it (it’s delicious, but the anime-fan-y-ness of it makes me not want to like it because anime fans are scary) but i’ve seen a lot of people who don’t like it on here. As I said though, most places I’ve been to do not cook the boba well and usually don’t always use the best tea *shrugs* I’m pretty particular about my tea, though - I do lowkey (emphasis on the lowkey, it can get so complex, which is really cool but i don’t have the supplies or training for that) tea ceremony matcha on occasion and usually steep my teas in very particular ways and all that. Do you like regular tea?
sorry this is so long admins. also thank you admins!
Best wishes for your concerto competition. What piece are you playing? You play violin, is that right? So do I!
Admin
(January 10, 2024 - 9:25 pm)
Thank you admin!! You're right, I do play violin, but I'm playing viola in the competition because I'm a viola in the orchestra that the competition is hosted by. I'm doing the third movement of Viola Concerto in C Minor in the style of JC Bach by Casadesus with my own cadenza (which is harder than the actual piece I think XD) It's a really fun piece, especially because of the pretty dramatic cadenza. I have the final rehearsal tonight but I'm still sick... I've been sick for a month at least, basically as long as I've needed to intensively focus on the piece. so I still have a lot more techincal issues than I'd like. my teacher said they were all pretty minor things, at least, but I would really like to fix them. If I only hadn't been sick -!
also reading back through this, by "i think I have pretty good energy" i mean musically. physically NO. Which is really not good. i've been trying to only practice when I have the energy to actually do good practice but that's hard...
Also i am super excited to practice more with the accompanist tonight! it feels less different than I thought, to be honest. We'll see how it goes
i'm kind of excited for this to be over so I can start working on some violin solos from Swan Lake and maybe Coppelia though. They're so beautiful and really expressive. Although the Swan Lake one is in 6 flats O_o
Well, since it's your own cadenza, I'd say you're free to adjust it however you wish, simplify or slow it down or ?? A good accompanist should be able to follow you. The soloist should set the tempo. Let us know how it goes. I'm sorry you've been sick! I hope you're better soon.
Admin
(January 11, 2024 - 6:25 pm)
Good luck with your concerto competition!! No matter how you do, it's a big step and very exciting! Like the admin said, a good accompanist should be able to follow you, so you shouldn't have to do much besides giving a breathing cue to start and staying at a relatively steady tempo (and acknowledging the accompanist at the beginning and end--I've forgotten to do that before).
It's true that there aren't a lot of Japanese Americans in books, but a couple that I really like & think you'll enjoy are Anne of Greenville by Mariko Tamaki and Where the Lost Ones Go by Akemi Dawn Bowman. Anne is a queer YA retelling of Anne of Green Gables and Lost Ones is about ghosts in an old house. Both have sapphic half-Japanese half-white protagonists. I'm kind of obsessed with them so I may have mentioned them here before.
I'm sorry the trans Asian community is so hard to find. I don't know anything about that experience but I hope you find others who can identify with you. The intersection of multiple marginalized identities always comes with a whole package of complications. :/
Racism against Asian Americans is definitely a tricky subject. Asians are given a proximity to whiteness which allows us to exist fairly comfortably in white spaces, but that proximity then lets white people claim that Asians are just as privileged as them and that anti-Asian hate isn't real. And that proximity originated in anti-Blackness. After WWII, white politicians spread the model minority myth to combat the Civil Rights Movement. Basically they were like "look, we locked up the Japanese people but they're out now and they're thriving! Black people should be more like that." Which is so completely messed up in so many ways. Another detriment of the proximity/model minority myth is that other Brown people sometimes disassociate from Asians. It's true that Black and Indigenous people have faced worse in this country than Asians, but oppression isn't a competition and it's just another way the model minority myth works to disempower POC as a group. (I wrote an essay about this for school so I'm kind of obsessed with the topic. Also if I've ranted about this before, I'm sorry) Rant over. Thank you for coming to my TED talk xD
For real though I love being able to talk to you about these kinds of things. All of my other friends are monoracial (except one part-Japanese friend who moved across the country and I never talk to anymore T_T). It feels good to get it all out around someone who understands.
Moving on...I've never really listened to ballet music (outside of the Nutcracker, which I have watched like a dozen times because my aunt plays in the orchestra for it). But I think it's cool that it tells a specific story with a plot and everything. I guess all music kind of does that, but ballet is more specific.
I love boba! It has gotten very whitewashed in the past few years but I still love it. It's exciting to have a drink that also has an eating component xD I tend to take my tea pretty sweet. I honestly don't know what "good" boba tastes like but most of the boba I've had tastes good to me. I'm not very picky about it. I got a boba-making kit from the Asian market so I'm hoping to try that out soon.
That's all I have for today. Thanks again to the admins for reading my long rant, lol.
(January 11, 2024 - 11:35 pm)