Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Japanese Artistry



Adam and I both have Japanese Language Tutors. Adam has one meet him at work, and Yoko meets me at home. I get to have more fun than just learning the language. Along with teaching me about the culture differences here, I have learned how to make a crane bird Origami as well as traditional cloth wrapping for gift giving. The Origami is taught in grade school to the children. It is tradition to make cranes for people as a get well symbol. Yoko says it is common to see 1000 of them hanging by a string around an ill person in a hospital bed. Wrapping a gift in a big beautiful square cloth, instead of non-reusable paper can be wrapped in several ways depending on the gift. I have gathered supplies to continue making the Japanese Bookmarks. Also, Jaclyn taught me how to use the beautiful paper to cover a plain picture frame. It is very popular here to cover Tea Boxes of varying sizes in the beautiful paper as well. I would like to have one, but I don't think I have the patience to do one myself. I am planning to learn Bento box food art as well. I met a mother at school who makes her 3 yr old adorable rice cakes with veggies looking like pigs, etc to entice him to eat the nutritious food.

3 comments:

  1. I love the cranes! I was told they mean peace, too. I guess bringing peace to the ill. You're learning so much cool stuff. You will have to teach us when you return. :)
    Missed you even more this week. It's a challenging time for me. I'm very glad to have Bonnie to talk to now. She talked to a rolfer about my pain and he said I needed good trigger point massage and maybe chiropractor (Need to check back with her). My sister gave me a gift certificate for a massage out of the blue and said, "this woman is really good at trigger point." I had not even told her what Bonnie said. :) Saw that woman yesterday. Yep, she is very good. Much relief today. She showed me a great stretch to do too. HOpe to soak in hot tub with Bonnie tonight. :)

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  2. Catalog that info baby! ...so you can teach us when you get back. I love that you are finding such interesting things to do and to learn about...what an adventure of all aspects. Lilly and Lucas are loving their karate lessons. We learned this weekend during Lilly's belt test that they are learning Japanese Wado Ryu Style Karate. Have you seen any karate schools there? Lets make a plan for xmas.

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  3. I will teach the bookmarks and crane origami to anyone interested, it is such fun. I have not heard of Wado Ryu Style Karate. I have noticed Kung Fu classes right by my home. We watched Karate Kid 3 last week, it was funny to see Hannah imitating the moves!

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