マイマイ's Contemporary Art Blog

現代美術業界で働き、今はネット系スタートアップを始めています!主に現代アート、たまに映画や本、日々の事について、気軽に書くブログです。

Mindfulness Meditation

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Recently, I am interested in mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is a psychological process which pays attention to the present moment. While meditating, you need to focus on your breathing and not thing about anything. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan.. many high profile people do this in  their daily life.

 

It is actually very hard to not think about anything as you are always thinking about and remembering  something all the time. It is difficult to rest your brain while you are awake. I tried a mindfulness workshop 2 years ago, but did not like it at all as I felt just sitting on the floor for 20mines was unproductive.

 

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In Japanese Kanji, “breathing” is described “” . This Kanji consist of “ (heart, mind) ” on the bottom and “自 (yourself)” on the top. It means that you are existing based on your mind. It could be said that breathing is the way to stablize your mind and build yourself on top of it.

 

Although I can’t do mindfulness meditation more than 10minutes everyday as I am still not used to it, I think it’s important to just keep doing it. I started this practice only 4days ago, but I realized that I gradually started feeling happier about my current life.

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Eating healthy

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How to live healthy for our entire lives? This is probably a permanent question for most people.

There are many methods to keep ourselves healthy. In regard to food, we say eating traditional Japanese foods such as Miso, To-fu, soy sauce, pickles, a small portion of brown rice, would be the best way to be healthy.

 

However, I hear a lot of opposite recommendations recently. For example, drinking 1 cup of milk and eating 3 eggs for one day would be good for health as most of the modern people lack animal protein and calcium. On the other hand, we have thought that drinking soy milk and eating eggs 2-3times a week is the best as Japanese people are not used to digesting dairy products and eggs. I’m really confusing how to eat everyday…

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I am trying a variety of eating methods recently, such as eating brown rice instead of white rice and eating raw vegetables every morning (which I’m not sure if it’s good as there is a theory that raw vegetables make the body cold…). I’m still not sure what’s the best eating method for me!

 

I think the best way of eating method is depends on each person. The important thing is choosing high quality foods and making clear what your health goals are.

I might try low sugar, high protein, fermented foods based on Japanese foods (e.g. natto, amazake, miso etc) for now as I feel I need energy but also need to treat my body well.

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Women’s careers

Recently, I am thinking about women’s careers. What’s the best way to build one?

Of course, each person has a different way of thinking. There isn’t a single answer. However, I can’t stop thinking about it as some of my mother’s friends feel inadequate after returning to work. It seems their companies don’t consider mothers as full time workers.

 

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There are many types of mothers: those who want to be part-time workers, those who are energetic to work for career advancement, those who prefer to keep balance between childcare and work.

 

I was a person who wanted to work hard, but after I started my own company with my family, I began thinking about it differently. Even though I work flexibly,  I can sill be responsible for important decisions. It’s also fun to realize new ideas with our service. It might be difficult to realize these things if I worked for a big company. On the other hand, I sometimes miss a large office and fancy lunch with colleagues.

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Once a woman gives birth, it is common to take maternity leave. New born babies require 24-hours care, thus it’s necessary for mothers to concentrate on the baby’s care for a few months. In addition, many unpredictable things can happen to babies such as having fever, getting injured, vomiting, etc. The maternity leave is still very important for all working mothers.

 

I think women have various life stages and it would be good to find suitable working styles for each stage. It may feel bad to step back or take a rest while an maternity leave. It would be good to think that the baby’s care is a precious time in the entire life!

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Anpan-man!

One of the beloved characters in Japan is “Anpan-man”.
”Anpan-man” was created by manga artist, Takashi Yamase in 1970s. The main character is an anthropomorphic bread super hero. “Anpan” is a Japanese popular bread filled with sweet red bean paste. Many other bread characters appeared throughout the series of stories such as Melonpan-man, shokupan-man, currypan-man, etc. They are all traditional Japanese breads so everyone likes to eat them!

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The characters cute looks attract children around 1-3years old. It is also said Anpanman’s circle face is looks like the mother’s breast, that is why babies like it a lot. Apparently, my daughter is a fan of Anapan-man just like other children. She doesn’t speak yet, but she recognizes Anapan-man’s face and she takes Anapan-man’s stuffed toy everywhere.

 

I wonder why anpan-man hasn’t become popular globally. It might be An (red bean paste) is not familiar with foreigners. In addition, when Anapan-man helps someone, he gives his part of the body to eat them. It means he gives his energy to someone. I guess it looks weird for foreigners that super-hero sacrifices himself to support someone. I’m wondering he hasn’t been accepted in other counties because of these facts.

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I think every country has long running hit characters, such as Sesame Street in U.S. (It’s popular in Japan as the animation is used for children to study English.)

Now I feel I would like to know more about Anpan-man because it’s a good way to learn about Japanese-culture and their way of thinking.

Chiharu Shiota’s exhibition at Mori Art Museum

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I went to Chiharu Shiota’s solo exhibition at Mori Art Museum this weekend. It was the best show I ‘ve seen in a while. I didn’t know much about her works, but I became interested in them so much.

 

The exhibition shows her representative works, such as large installations, video archives of her performances, drawings, photographs etc.

 

Chiharu’s works are related to her memories, body and soul. As the show is subtitled “The Soul Trembles”, she really expressed her internal emotion this time.

 

I was especially impressed with “Uncertain Journey "(2016), which is a large installation that used red threads. The threads cover the whole room like a spider web. This describes the relationships between people. The black Ships on the floor symbolize the uncertain journey of our life.

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"Uncertain Journey "(2016)

According to her interview, when she was offered this exhibition 2years ago, she was about to get cancer treatment. She also experienced a miscarriage and a stillbirth. These experiences influenced her art.

 

She said she can’t stop creating works. I think her enthusiasm shows she is truly an artist.

Practicing Yoga

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I started practicing Yoga 4years ago. It was because of health problems. In that time, (I guess) I was stressed out of from working all day long in front of my computer in my tiny room. We started a new business and moved to a new place, it wasn’t proceeding smoothly. After a while, I had a hormonal imbalance and it made me sick. I decided to do something good for my health.

 

I actually prefer intense exercise such as dancing, riding a bicycle etc. However, I heard Yoga is not only good for the body, but also for your mind. I used to go to the gym once a week. I attended a Yoga class there but didn’t like it at all as the movements were too slow. I felt cold after finishing the class.

 

Later on, I attended other types of Yoga classes; Hahta Yoga, Hot yoga, Bikuram Yoga… I finally met Ashtanga Yoga that made me feel good after the lessons. Ashtanga Yoga is a traditional yoga which Sri K. Pattabho Join started at Mysore in India. It does the same sequence every time, keep moving the whole lesson. After finishing the classes, everybody is sweating and looks tired but also feels good.

There are several stages from beginner to advance, but no one has achieved the final stage as it really difficult to master each movement. If you can’t master one movement, you won’t be able to go further.

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I attended the morning classes which starts from 7am in Ginza, once or twice a week for half a year. It was great to clear my head and made me positive. After a while, I became pregnant and couldn’t keep doing it as it’s dangerous for fetus. Now my daughter has become 1 year old, although I can’t go to the morning class, I am happy to start Ashtanga Yoga from the beginner class again.

Baracca (novel by Natsuo Kirino)

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I’ve just finished reading the novel “Baracca” written by Natsuo Kirino. Natsuo Kirino is famous for her novels “Out” and “Grotesque”. Most of her books are focused on unhappy people, like a poor housewife, an ugly girl, a mother who lost her child by abduction, etc.

バラカ

バラカ

 

Baracca” is based on the 3.11 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in 2011. The girl named Baracca survived this disaster. She got thyroid cancer caused by  the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. She was symbolized as the danger of nuclear power by people against it, but anonymous groups (it could be the Japanese government) tried to catch and kill her to hide the fact of the damage.

 

One of the key messages of this story is “cutting off the cause of your failure cycle”, which means if you were in trouble now, you need find the root cause and stop it. For example, if too much drinking is the cause of your family breakdown, you need to stop drinking. It is difficult to admit your own weakness and overcome it. In this story, even if people could get over their weakness, most of them heartlessly died in the end…

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Baracca just wanted to survive and live with her family. She was betrayed by adults over and over again but didn’t become evil. On the other hand, most of the adults were cunning.

A woman who wanted to have a baby, bought a baby girl at the black market in Dubai. She abandoned the baby later because the baby never got used to her.

Her closest friend kindly introduced this black market, but her purpose was filming this fact. She tried to make a documentary film about this black market as a TV producer.

A man married to the woman who bought a baby at the market did not love her. His aim was to obtain her assets…

All adults in the story were selfish and calculating.

 

I am not sure why most of them are dead, but perhaps the story had an unhappy ending because of these calculating behaviors. But who can blame them? At least these people had some ego. The whole story was just heartless and cold. I questioned whether we would be able to be happy once we act with selfish motives?

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