Shofuso Assignment- due by Mon. April 24

It's my first time to sit on a tamami mat. Completely different from the softness of sitting on a carpet, the tatami mat makes me want to sit straight when people are around and lie down comfortably when I am alone. This dual feeling may come from the rice straws as the main material for making tamami mats. Rice straws give off that fresh scent which reminds me of my childhood in the countryside of China. Sitting on the mat lowers my vision and draws me down to earth, making me feel like I am part of the nature, as the traditional wooden house makes a maximum exposure to the beautiful scenery outside. I like that feeling. I like to be inside the house. I also like to be outside and gaze at the moss on its roof.

Pictures to be submitted for the contest:

Sontag Assignment for Tuesday, April 18th

1.  What is your main takeaway from Sontag’s essay?

We cannot truly understand or imagine how terrifying wars are. Photographers know that, so they take pictures of people's suffering, making it into an art that aims at shocking people. The media use these pictures to justify wars or calling for revenge, but sometimes these cruel pictures make people indifferent, not empathetic. To stop the war, showing cruel images is not enough. Compassion needs to be translated into action.

2.  Give at least two smaller takeaways from the essay.  Things that you found 

to be of particular interest.  This can include things that surprised you or provoked 

some thoughts.

1) It is a shame and shock to look at pictures of people suffering in war. The author is saying that maybe only people who can alleviate the pain have the right to look at those images. That gives me an excuse of avoiding looking at these cruel images. I have to admit that I feel empathetic and terrified at the same time when looking at these images. I just want to cry when even thinking of their sufferings. 

2) Media like to use shocking and dramatic images as a source of value, as a lost art. That reminds me of Beato who usually rearranged bodies before he took a picture. These pictures turn people into things that can be possessed, without any dignity. 

3.  Upload an image of pain/suffering to your blog and discuss it.  You can be 

straightforward about this, or you can take a well-known image that you may 

look at differently after reading Sontag.  

I cannot look at any cruel pictures. This picture is my limit. Like many people, I was empathetic when seeing a little kid lying dead on beach, wondering what happened to him. It is because of wars that people become refugees and have to flee their country. There have been heated debates about how to deal with these refugees, but few questions are asked about how to stop wars. Images like this seem unreal, and people cannot imagine other people's pain by simply looking at these cruel images. But at least compassion is part of the human being and also the seed for action. 

Fashion- Assignment for Tuesday, April 10

In the Sakura Festival in Philadelphia last Sunday, I saw some American girls dressed as Ama-Loli, so I took some pictures of them. Their costumes are mostly white, and they behave like innocent and elegant Victorian children, sitting very straight on embroidered white and red blankets, enjoying their food and talk. I used to think that Ama-Lolis only exist in manga or amine, but it turns out that people like to wear them in their daily life (these girls were just having fun wearing the exaggerated clothes). Maybe they sometimes just want to live in their own pure and elegant noble world.


Several years ago I saw an anime whose name I cannot recall. In that anime, there are three plain-looking skinny girls (who are not important characters at all) wearing black dresses like the one in the above picture. Every time they appear or disappear, they would say the same words in their witch-like voices: "ゴスゴス, ロリロリ, ゴスゴス, ロリロリ". I thought the anime was just making fun of Gothic Loli. After reading the texts, I realized that there are real people who dress themselves like that because they simply want to be visible in public and get a sense of belonging, instead of expressing some political ideology.

Cuteness- Assignment for Tuesday, April 4

Part I:  After you read the texts and reflect on what the two authors had to say about the cute in Japan, please think about the place of the cute in your current life.  (I would assume that there were tons of "cute" things in your childhood, so as in the articles, I'd like you to focus on you as you are today--an adult, if you like.)  Choose one thing to reflect on, and post a relevant image.  Think about corresponds to or differs from the meaning/significance/implications of "cute" as presented in the articles.  Choose anything, including a cat video if you swing that way. 
I am always attracted by cute foods, foods that are made into animal shapes. Whenever I walk into a bakery, I would either buy one of those cute cakes or take pictures of them. I guess they do provide a childhood nostalgia that allows me to escape temporarily from the fast-paced and stressful adult society, as indicated in the articles. 

Part II: Find something cute (kawaii) from Japanese culture, and discuss it in terms of the ideas presented in the articles and our discussions in class.  For this assignment, please try to go for something that seems to be intended to be truly cute, and not something that, like most of Nara's images, has a more complicated (and possibly subversive) relationship with the cute.  Be sure to post an image (or short video) of what you will be discussing.  Do not do Hello Kitty.  (If you really really want to post something on Hello Kitty, you can do that in Part I, or you can add it to the two parts of the assignment.

This black bear is called Kumamon, a mascot created in 2010 to draw tourists by the government of a Japanese prefecture named Kumamoto. I have seen a lot of mascots for different places, but I think Kumamon is probably one of the most successful and most impressive among them. The idea of using real person to play the role of Kumamon, combining manga, official website and videos, makes it more vivid and have personality. The word "government" gives people the feeling of seriousness and responsibility, but by using a cute character to represent a government is novel, constructing a completely different image. People like cute things because they find comfort and nostalgia in them. Cute things help people escape real life and feel to be in childhood again, which they are not able to do or do not dare to do in strict society in Japan.