A Ray of Light

So here's a news flash for you all - the world isn't ending yet, no matter how much it feels like it.

This morning I got up late for my walk.  I went to bed with a headache last night and hadn't quite kicked it, so I hit the snooze button a few more times than I should have and eventually I made it out under the tempestuous skies.  I was in my ninth lap around the track when it started raining, and as I rounded the far side of the soccer field, the end of a rainbow appeared, right over the back end of Zaisan hill.  It literally stopped me in my tracks.

One reason why I like to be alone when I take my morning walks is that this is my time to talk to my Heavenly Father.  This helps me to get my head and heart straight for the coming day, get the things that are bothering me off my chest, and renew my determination for the things I gotta do (like stop eating so many frickin' sweets).  The state of the world in general has been weighing me down a lot lately, and specifically the events that are playing out in the US, and this is the subject I was warming up to as I was on my ninth lap.

Whether you're religious or not, you've gotta be asking yourself what on earth is up with this year, but if you're familiar with scripture at all, you should be trembling in your boots.  Horde of locusts: check.  Flood: check.  Famine: in the forecast.  Plague: checkity check-check.  And last week left me feeling like civil war was on the horizon as well.  This is a fucking scary, shitty ass year.*  But there's this relatively obscure** doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that in the year preceding The End there will be no rainbows.  One of my many LDS Facebook friends made a joke sometime since this year started, asking if someone was keeping track of rainbows, and as I stood in the rain, watching the full arc of the rainbow shimmer into existence over the valley where I live, I thought, okay.  So not this year.  Not yet.

Since the world's apparently not going to end just yet, that brings me to point B.  This goes out specifically to all of you who call yourselves after the name of Christ.  I don't know any other religious group who is as intolerant and hypocritical as y'all are being right now.  I've seen a lot of straight, white, cisgender people whose words and actions are not in line with the teachings of Christianity.  I'm trying not to turn this into a rant, so I'll just remind my fellow believers that Christ himself said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."  You may be thinking to yourself, "I've never ___ed*** anyone, and I'm not racist," but it's not enough just not to cause harm to each other.  Specifically I'd like to ask my fellow Saints, for whom part of our baptismal covenants is to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort if they can say that their thoughts and actions are in line with this principle.

To be fair, I'm probably not the best person to write this post.  I'm cranky and I kind of hate people - for the most part I've loved social isolation because there are far fewer people to annoy me.  But the thing is, we have to take action.  This morning I felt moved to start taking action by writing this post.  If you're wondering what you can do, one colleague suggested donating to an organization that fights against injustice - he specifically linked the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Another friend posted screenshots of a 2014 article about how to protest without going out.  Whatever you can do, do it.  My American readers, we come from a nation that rose from revolution.  If you were educated in the American school system, chances are you learned about the Boston Tea Party, and how this act of destruction helped to forge our country.  Remember that.  And ask yourself if the last line of our pledge of allegiance - with liberty and justice for all - is a fact or a myth.  Because the struggle toward that ideal is what has made our nation great, and the fight is still not won.


*I was going to write this without any obscenity because it's one of my rare churchy posts, but sometimes you just can't express things properly without swearing.
**That happens when you've had ongoing revelation for the past 200 years.
***Insert hurtful action here

The Otaku Report: Wonder Land

Hanako-san, Hanako-san, I want a nendoroid!

Round trip airfare to Narita:
$538.10

3 nights' stay at the APA Hotel and Resort:
$231.45

Admission to the world's largest hobby figure trade show:
¥2500.

Being one of the first people in the world to see your current anime obsession take 3D form:
Priceless.

Since the school closure started time has gotten a little wonky, kind of like it does on vacation.  There's little to differentiate one day from the next.  A day and half into this strange state, it occurred to me that if I was ever going to rectify the lapse in judgement on which I based my decision NOT to go to WonderFest the last two years, there was no time like the present.  Although my school is still working, we're only in the building a few hours each day, since our classes take place online, thus I figured there was no reason why my admin would say no.

Well, it wasn't quite as simple as that, but it's amazing what you can claim as professional development when you teach art.  Since I am not above using such flimsy excuses for my own evil means,* bright and early Friday, February 7th saw me cursing humanity on an early flight to Tokyo.  There are all sorts of things written that tell you what WonFest is all about, so I'm going to skip the in-depth explanation of the figure industry and garage kits in favor of telling you about my experience.

I didn't go early.  I considered it, but there wasn't anything I felt like I'd die if I didn't get, and I knew I was going to torture my feet enough as it was.  So instead I walked across from the hotel at 10 and got in line...eventually.  It was a little tricky figuring out where to start.  There's a system of elevated walkways around Makuhari Messe , and after crossing over the street I could see the mob trudging forward, but wasn't sure how to join in.  I ended up walking through the top part of the exhibition hall (a sukoshi bit jealous of the people who were already inside) and out next to hall 5, where I took the escalator down to buy my "ticket," a 2kg book of all the exhibitors, from whence I joined the horde.

I'd seen photos on Twitter of the diehards standing in a line wrapped all the way around the building and it gave me pause, but I really wasn't standing around long.  I didn't slow down til I got to the back of the building, and by the time I'd read one page of the homework I'd been putting off for two weeks, my wait was over.  I was being shuffled into the industry side, which was halls 1-3, and it only took a moment for me to spot GoodSmile's banner, way in the back, and start my beeline there.  The cat was out of the bag  as far as discovering Hanako-kun was going to be a nendo, thanks to social media, but I had to see him IRL.  Before I could track him down, though, I found another treasure - a 1/7 scale figure of Hyakkimaru.  I'd seen images of this sculpt last year on Twitter and mourned the fact that he wasn't for sale, so this was a big shock - so much that for a minute I thought he was the sample Figma.

Have you ever thought about what you  would do if you could commit one crime without any consequences?  Well, I figured out my answer that day.  I'm not sure if I would have stolen Hanako-kun's prototype or Hyakkimaru's, but I definitely would've walked away with one of them.  Sadly there was no way I could've pulled it off, so I'll be waiting another six months (if not longer...thanks, coronavirus), but I guess that's better than prison.  Probably.**

There were other interesting announcements - mostly things I knew the Kawaii Kingpin would be glad to hear about.  Inuyasha's nenoroid prototype was there, but I was more interested in the noodle stop FuRyu's releasing as a prize in September.  At first I thought it was a scale, that's how badass it looked.  They finally had a prototype of Hyakkimaru from ther f:Nex line as well, but that was such an utter disappointment, especially since GoodSmile's was of such a high quality.  MegaHouse had their Kimetsu no Yaiba prototypes on display, including some very kawaii little chibi Hashiras, but I was bitter that they hadn't painted Tomioka-san in the two and a half months since I caught my first glimpse of him online.

I also felt a strange mix of indignation and satisfaction over two of GoodSmile's displays.  The first greeted me at the entrance to their area: their range of Fate series figures arranged like a Hina matsuri display.  As you might remember I did that with MY nendoroids last March.  THEN I came across FOUR new Bungou Stray Dogs nendoroids...the same four they've already made, but dressed up like their key visual for the Narita Anime Deck promotion that begins next month.  What you may not realize is that when they announced the rerelease of Dazai and Chuuya I was a little cranky.  Dazai was my one valuable nendoroid, and by flooding the market with more of him my net worth plummeted.  So I commented on the announcement that instead they should have released him in a different format, suggesting the Black era, so my investment portfolio wouldn't suffer, but they'd still make money hand over fist.  Well, here they are.  With all these ideas of mine they're using, they really ought to be paying ME, not the other way around.

After making my way around the industry area (giving the +18 caves a side-eye and a wide berth...my curiosity wasn't worth standing in line and then being stuck in an enclosed space with a bunch of hentai dudes), I began my trek through the jungle of garage kits.  The exhibition floor is a teeming mass of humanity, strewn with islands of amateur figures self-produced in small quantities,*** and most mortals have no hope of discerning whether they are passing the same big-breasted, scantily clad anime girl for the third time.  Once upon a time my friend Raycie taught me the survivial skills necessary for such life or death situations in the bead-encrusted corridors of Dongdaemun's fabric market.  A plan of attack is crucial if you want to make it out alive.  But even knowing this, I almost got sucked in and lost my way.  Doubting even my own mind, I somehow found myself at the furthest corner and began circling each table.  After making it the width of halls 7 and 8 I became confident enough to adjust my tactic, bobbing back and forth between the two sides of the aisle in order to cover more ground.  It.  Was.  Madness.  I loved every second of it, even if my feet hated me by the time it was over.

Still, it was not an endless parade of bishies and ikemen.  I'd been following #wf2020w for two weeks on Twitter, hoping to discover what I would blow all my yen on, but I'm sad to say the industry still caters primarily to men.  Most of the really nice garage kits were of female figures.  Most of the male ones depicted OP, repulsively muscular dudes.  And of course, a bunch of these - in my humble opinion - really tacky plastic monster things that for some reason Japanese guys dig.****  And that's sad because there was a definite female presence - both shopping and selling.

For example, my must-buy Twitter find was sculpted by a female artist.  She made alternate hair parts for Hyakkimaru's nendoroid, to depict the bandage he wears around his head after he gets his hearing back.  She was admiring my Boku no Hero skirt and when she realized I was buying her work, got excited and shook my hand, coronavirus be damned!  Her neighbor stall, also run by a woman, was selling custom nendoroid legs.  That probably sounds a bit weird, but there aren't enough sitting nendoroid parts, and since I'm delving deeper and deeper into the black hole of customizing, I figured I'd find a use for them at some point.  There were clothes for a whole range of ball-jointed dolls, although these I resisted, my previous purchase of two nendoroid dolls notwithstanding.  Finally, just as my strength was about to give out, I came across a guy selling - I shit you not - a small kit of Wotakoi's Hirotaka in his online game avatar.  For only 300 yen.  So I snagged that, too.

One thing I shouldn't have worried about was not having enough cash.  When I left the hotel I didn't know what I was going to find, and wasn't sure the ¥10,000 I had would be enough.  Makuhari Messe has ATMs but not currency exchange machines, so I exchanged another hundred dollars to be safe before heading over.  And then when I made my first purchase I realized that they took credit cards - a fact that would have been helpful to know beforehand.  So there's my "WonFest for Noobs" exclusive.

Apart from the industry announcement and the possibility of buying anything it was personally worth it to me as a creator.  At some point during the day I decided that someday I'm going there to sell my plushies.  There were very few stalls selling anything soft and cuddly, and none were as adorable as mine (maybe I'm not the most impartial judge of such things, but since impartiality is apparently out of fashion this year, I guess I'll have to live with that).  At any rate, I've got a willing assistant lined up for when that day comes, so now all I have to do is learn to use a sewing machine.  Because at some point in the last few years I realized that I'll never be able to sell my fuzzy friends commercially unless I mech out.

*Will I use it in class?  I give it a 50/50 chance, mostly dependent on how much time I get to spend messing around before fall.  Will I give a workshop for our next PD day, as said admin suggested?  Yes, but not about WonFest...but that's a subject for a different blog.
**Remember my last post?  About rules??  Well, some rules are made to be broken.  For the record, I feel like I can justify breaking this rule because I don't technically have my nendoroid yet.
***Apparently I am going to tell you what a garage kit is...blame it on my coursework.  I kept getting pissed off because one author kept using a word without defining it, so I'll do you the favor of learning from his fail.
****Or so I assume - I can't imagine girls of any nationality digging these things.

This Hina's Ningyo

It's been almost four years since I started making hand-sewn plushies.  They show up in my blog every once in a while, but I haven't dedicated an entire post to them since 2016, back in my tender youth when I hadn't even won a plush prize yet.  Well, a lot's changed since then, and since yesterday was Hina Matsuri whether it's celebrated here or not, I decided it was time to do an update.

I thought the other day about all of the ideas I've had over the years, and the tricks I tried to make them work.  They range from giving Aizawa hair that flips up when he uses his quirk to accessories (shoes, hats, goggles, swords, etc) to different kinds of ears and facial features.  I wrote about the Cricut that a friend gave me last year, but it wasn't until my sister-in-law suggested it that I decided to try using iron-on vinyl for my plushies' clothes.  I happened to be in the middle of Tsukishima at the time, which was perfect.  Originally I was only going to paint on his number, but when I realized I could get every element of his uniform cut out perfectly and ironed on together, I went all in.  It was so easy I realized I could make up the uniforms of all the Karasuno boys, and if I ever get to the point where I sell at a con, it would make stocking that much easier....instead of bringing x-number of each design, I could just bring the number of bodies I hoped to sell, and assemble the uniforms and hairpieces as they sold.

AnimeIowa gets a shout-out every year around July, so you six faithful readers probably know that I've won prizes the last three years, for Sesshoumaru, Kuriyama Mirai, and last year Sugimoto and Asirpa.  But last year while I was waiting for news about AI 2019 I discovered a "craftalong" for Desert Bus for Hope (a fundraiser for Child's Play - a charity that improves the lives of kids undergoing medical treatment or living in domestic violence shelters).  I decided I wanted to participate, and ended up donating Link and Zelda plushies I'd made.  I thought they would be auctioned off and might raise a couple hundred dollars at most, but instead, they were used for a "raffle" kind of prize.  During one hour of the fundraiser, each donation of a certain amount (and multiples thereof) resulted in an entry, and at the end of the hour a winner was drawn.  I couldn't believe that Link and Zelda raised just over $2200, but I was really happy that my hobby - which, let's face it, is kind of silly - was able to contribute in a pretty tangible way.

Giving might as well be my theme for this year in plush.  Back at Christmas I decided to surprise The Evil One by showing up in California during her home leave, in spite of telling her I just wouldn't be able to make it.  My dastardly scheme involved a phantom package with gifts that I was supposedly sending to her parents' house, one of which was a plushie for her spawn, who loves Darth Vader.  I haven't made that many of these guys specifically to give away, but there's just something about this kid who loves Lord Vader that warmed the cockleburrs of my heart, so I spent the first week or so of vacation posting pictures of the progress on Instagram and apologizing that the package wouldn't be there when they first got there (part of my deception, you see).  And then I showed up at their layover in Denver and went on to celebrate with them in sunny California.  Which was all the better, because it meant I got to see her reaction to Little Lord Vader - she kept turning to me in the car and talking about his features, and saying, "I like him.  I love him!"  And when Evil sent me this photo of her daughter snuggled up with the Sith lord, I swear my heart grew three sizes.

One of the ironic things about the fact that I'm pretty much stuck at home with nothing to do while Covid-19 rages on is that there have been times when I wished for nothing but time to watch anime and sew.  As the weeks have dragged on, it's kind of gotten old.  However, it has given me the ability to focus long enough to solve some design issues I'd been grappling with.  About a year ago I decided to try making a sitting plush, but gave up when I couldn't figure out how to make Kitaro's shorts fit.  Since I threw away the body when I left Japan, I had to re-engineer his pattern before getting to the shorts, but during our Tsagaan Sar (but-not-really-because-the-government-said-No) break, I worked most of it out.  It's a design I want to play with a little more, because he doesn't quite sit up on his own, but at this point I'm more concerned with finishing his hair and drilling the holes for his geta, because he may become an entry for this year's Mini-Festival.

So what's next?  Well, first I have to finish my waifu, Hinawa (the other contender for this year's Mini-Festival entry), and then we'll see.  I have an outfit for a plush that I've been tinkering with for at least two years, but when I lost interest in the character my motivation also waned.  However, now I'm thinking that he might end up being my first ever art abandonment project - I could leave him in Ikebukuro somewhere and I'm sure someone would find him and appreciate him.  Like I said, this year's plushie theme is apparently giving.

The Otaku Report: Rules for Collecting

We're three and a half weeks into the government mandated school shut-down, and just found out that we've got another month after this.  I'm struggling.  I miss my kids, I miss my routine - I have nothing to do!  For some reason when I have all the time in the world I just don't feel like I need to do anything.  All the sewing and sketching and (ahem) cleaning that I'd want to do while I was at work on a normal day just doesn't feel that urgent.  Besides that, all public gatherings up to and including church have been cancelled - they've even called off one of Mongolia's two big celebrations, Tsagaan Sar.  So don't blame me for a bit of a puff piece, because I don't really have anything else to write about.  As you'll learn in my next post, I recently went through the looking-not-touching-glass (because, you know.  Quarantine.) on a magical shopping adventure.  But here's the thing: coming back to Mongolia may have brought me a return to disposable income, but I am WAAAY too happy funneling it into the figure industry.  The claustrophobic aisles leading between tightly packed shelves are an easy place to lose your way, and a girl needs guideposts to keep from getting lost in the mists of darkness.  These are mine.

Rule #1:  One character, one figure
This is my most important rule, and some people might disagree strongly with it.  It started as a rule of necessity - back when I was leaving Japan I asked myself if I needed BOTH the Roy Mustangs I had, and that made packing easier, if not the actual deciding.  Even if I wasn't nomadic, I think I'd stick with this one - the collections I've seen of endless Hatsune Mikus and Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blades are a little creepy.  Of course the otome perspective makes this a little easier to live by: rarely do we get more than one or two versions of the male characters we love (if that).  I’ve stuck pretty well with this rule, and currently only have two duplicates: my Eraserheads (there was no way I was giving up the Pop my little brother gave me when I got his prize figure.  Hell, do Pops even count???) and Levis, but I'm planning on selling his nendoroid when I get the chance.  Still, the temptation does come up from time to time, and I've had to make some tough decisions.

Kamado Tanjiro, Deluxe Version.  By Aniplex

Rule #2:  It's okay to splash out on male figures...
I don't want to talk to you about how much I spent ordering the yet-to-be-released deluxe version of Aniplex's Tanjirou figure.  Suffice it to say it didn't come cheap (and it hasn't gotten any cheaper, thank fuck).  However, I've seen male figures go for absolutely ridiculous sums of money in the aftermarket - the only reason I was able to find my Yato figure for less than $300 was because he has damage to one of his swords.  So I say that if you're buying new, go for it.  For used figures, I try to use my best judgement.  Sometimes figures get rereleased - GoodSmile does this a lot with their nendoroids - but that seems to depend a lot on how hot the anime is.  If it's been several years and there's no whisper of a new season, it might not happen.

Rule #3: ...But don't buy characters you don't know
If I've never read the manga, watched the anime, or played the game, do I really need a figure of that character?  That's another question I ask myself.  This meant that when I got back from Kyoto last fall and finally did watch Psychopass that I was kicking myself a little for not buying Ko-chan's nendoroid, but it's also helped me to resist buying Ootengu from Onmyoji and Kaworu from Evangelion because I can't be bothered to play/watch their franchises.  Both figures are really cool, but in the end they're just a pretty piece of plastic unless I'm invested in their characters.

Ootengu, China exclusive. By Hobby Max

Rule #4:  Don't pay more than $70 for a nendoroid.
Half of my collection is these little bastards.  I love them, they're hellacute.  But their original prices range around 4500-6000 yen.  For me, when the price climbs above $70, they just become too expensive.  This is one rule that I haven't been tempted to break, although I've owned nendos that were worth more - Hoozuki, who I ended up selling, can go for around $110, and Dazai even more than that, although since he got a rerelease I'm pretty sure his worth has plummeted...and that's why you don't want to sink too much into them.  As mentioned above, they do get rereleased pretty often, so their value can be fairly volatile.

Ranma Q-Posket, for old times' sake.  Bought, not won.

Rule #5:  Don't win your prizes - Buy them
I'm ashamed of how long this rule took me to figure out.  Prize figures are among the hardest goods to get out of UFO catchers.  Don't be surprised if after plugging the machine full of 100 yen coins you still don't have that damn Rimuru.  If you're in it for the thrill of victory and you actually want to waste a small fortune, well, by all means - dozo.  But if you're more interested in the figure, do yourself a favor and see if you can buy it instead.  If you're not in Akiba, just find your nearest Bookoff+ and see if they have it.  The one in Kawasaki was a great source for prizes, but even my small neighborhood Bookoff had a decent range of figures.

Mika and Yuu, by Mens Hdge.

Rule #6:  (almost) Never Order In
I've only learned this rule this fall.  Once I had disposable income again I didn’t care if shipping was expensive, especially since that Kogami Shinya DX nendoroid I passed on in Kyoto was only 3500 yen online.  But I've come to realize that any deals you might be getting are countered by that shipping cost, so I no longer let myself order old figures for delivery.  This also helps to ensure the joy of the hunt for the next time I'm in Japan.  There is an exception to this one:  rare figures.  I wholeheartedly believe if you can get a great deal on the Owari no Seraph boys you should 10 million percent go for it.

Straight Outta Wuhan

Unless you've been living under a rock, you may have heard that we're having a pandemic this year, the coronavirus now known as Covid-19.  This has been an interesting experience for me.  In past years, I've somehow missed the exciting new flavors of panic, having been in the wrong place each time - and that was just fine with me.  However, when I first read about the new plague in China before I came back from winter vacation, I did find myself thinking, "Oh.  China.  That's, like, next door, eh?"

Funnily enough, my flight back on January 17 went through Beijing.  At the time, that didn't seem as risky as it does now.  I didn't wear a mask, and simply went about life as usual - eating at Pizza Hut (the only good restaurant in the international terminal) and trying to kill time while waiting for my flight.  I was irritated when I got back to Mongolia because they made us wait on the plane for health inspectors to come collect the health declaration, but although I've never been in the epicenter of an outbreak before, I've traveled in the time of everything from mad cow to swine flu, so I really didn't think much about it.

Now dinner comes with a moist towelette AND hand sanitizer...

It was about a week later that I realized this was going to be a biohazard of a completely different color.  After dinner with Engrish and Blondie, I got into a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the school.  Immediately he started trying to tell me something, but I wasn't exactly sure what.  The next morning one of my colleagues enlightened me: the government had ordered schools to close UNTIL MARCH 3.  In school terms, that's approximately forever.  I didn't believe it - I had to message Engrish and ask her about it in order to consider that this was happening.  And that was three weeks ago.  Now fortunately for us and our students, we live in the digital era, and this means that learning can still take place.  Sort of.  It's kind of hard to teach art online - I've had to do a lot with art journaling and reviewing fundamentals, but I'm hoping that when they get started for real that their work will benefit from what we're discussing.  But apart from that, the quarantine order has basically made it impossible for me to establish any sort of routine in my life.  We teachers go into work three hours a day, and while the first week I thought, "Hey, I could get used to this!" I quickly got bored.  I should probably be using that time to do all sorts of wild and crazy things, but...well...I'm just not feeling it.  I think I need the stress from the 5.5 hours of work I don't have to do each day to feel motivated to do things like work on my art, or do my homework.

There is one wild and crazy thing that I've done, though, enabled by the short work days.  A certain event takes place twice a year in Chiba, which for some inexplicable reason I missed every time during the two years I lived in Japan.  Now on a normal weekend there's no way you could make it to Japan and back, but I managed to convince the school to let me off my leash in exchange for working a couple of long days, and off I went.  Three weeks had made a helluva lot of difference in travel.  Pretty much everyone wore a mask on the plane, and even in the airport.  I also noticed a LOT of hand sanitizer dispensers.  They might have been there before and I only noticed them because the fact that Incheon was still running flights to China sketched me out a little, but still.  The flight back to Mongolia was only about 1/3 full, and in addition to having our health declarations collected before we left the flight, the inspectors came on the plane in full hazmat suits and scanned our foreheads to check for fever.

It was kind of crazy.  In two weeks we are supposed to be back at school on a normal schedule.  Since Mongolia has yet to report a single confirmed case of Covid-19, it seems reasonable to think this isn't just a pipe dream, that we'll actually be teaching again.  However, in the last week the government officially cancelled Tsagaan Sar, one of Mongolia's two big holidays - no wrestling matches, no big formal celebrations - so who knows how it will actually play out.  Although it annoys the heck out of me, I kind of get where the government is coming from - Mongolia doesn't exactly have the medical facilities to deal with the Big Nasty.  Still, I'll definitely have a celebratory coke when things get back to normal.

The Water's Fine

So let me hit you with an Absolute Truth: I am lazy as fuck.  Returning to Mongolia was a strategic move that I needed to make in order to have both the time and money to finish grad school...but it came with the added benefit of enabling my laziness.  I live at school.  I can afford to take taxis again.  I can order in food again, because I can afford both to eat out and to order delivery.  When the weather was still what counts as "nice" here, I made at least a token attempt to fight my laziness, but those days are gone, along with any sort of sensation in my thighs if I walk outside more than 5 minutes.

That said, I'm self-aware enough that I know these are not sustainable life choices.  Coming home from school each day to order Songo and watch anime in the dark for several hours...

...speaking of which, yeah, instead of my usual photography you're getting (mostly) anime swimming gifs today instead.  You're welcome...

...before falling asleep way too early is pretty much guaranteed to wreck both my body and my mind.  So as my November payday crept closer, I resolved that I would join a nearby health club that had a pool.  The pool is important because we're coming up on the 10 year anniversary of my feet being shit, and even though I spend less time on them on any given day here than I did at any point in Japan, they can still be a bitch.

via GIPHY

Back to being lazy as fuck, one of the ways in which Mongolia beats Japan most days is that things are relatively simple.  For example, rather than a long winded bureaucratical nightmare if you need a phone in Mongolia, you just drop in on Mobicom with your passport and you can walk away with a SIM card.  However, I knew from previous experience that joining a gym - or at least, one with a pool - involved a doctor's clearance...less for my own sake than for the fact that I might bring something communicable into the water.  However, this damn doctor's clearance was what kept me from joining a pool in the five years I was here before, because it required a pap smear, and on general principle I refused to do it.  Since you can't get an STD from a swimming pool, I failed to see how the state of my vagina was any of their business. 

Well, I still object, but since I haven't had a proper checkup since I lived in Shanghai I wrote it off as killing two birds with one stone, and went and got it done.  And then waited around for two weeks for payday so that I could afford the membership fee.  And then promptly got sick, so it was almost three weeks before I finally got into the pool.  I’ve never really thought of swimming as hard work, so it said a lot to me that in my first lap I could already tell that my muscles, such as they are, were getting beat up.  I kind of thought I was going to be swimming for like an hour every day, but after that first excruciating lap, I knew I’d struggle to finish 30 minutes.  The upshot to this is that I slept like the dead those first two nights.

via GIPHY

There are other challenges beyond the shape I’m in (ie, round).  A big one is the fact that I live by Songo delivery, and I often skip lunch.  It was tough waiting til I got home to eat, and involved a balancing act of ordering in advance and hoping that the driver shows up when they’re supposed to.  If they get there too early, I’m not home yet.  If they arrive late, I’m so hungry that I actually want to bite the driver, I’m that angry as well as that hungry.  I've been better about cooking since winter break, though, especially since the quarantine...which is a topic for another blog.  A logistical nightmare of a different stripe is getting home with wet hair.  Before I started actually going this was my biggest fear; that on the 5 minute walk home my hair would freeze and break off (I may need to get it cut, but not like that!).  This has been a ridiculously warm winter, so I've gotten away with just bundling it up, which is good because I didn't particularly want to torture my hair with a blow dryer, only to turn around and shower as soon as I get home.

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However, after my first night swimming I had to upgrade my biggest fear.  About halfway through my swim two middle school boys got in.  They were speaking English, and though I was trying to pretend they didn’t exist, I made eye contact long enough that I’m pretty sure I recognized one of them as an eighth grader from my school.  I was kind of prepared for the fact that I’d run into students there at some point, but when I got out of the pool fifteen minutes later I realized someone had left the doors of the women’s locker room open.  I obviously closed them, but I’ve been terrified ever since that some dumbass will leave them open when I’m changing.  I don’t know who would be more traumatized, but considering how awkward it was when a female former student came in while I was getting dressed, I’m going to say everyone.

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So my (more or less) nightly swim's not perfect.  But the water is warm and with my earplugs in I can't hear the shrieks of the little monsters whose parents send them there without any supervision.  As I glide through the water, I do feel a little more peaceful, like my worries are floating away in my wake.  Walking back to the apartment, the moon greets me in a light, night sky, limning the hills in white and transporting me to a different place.  And I have to admit that this has at least been one new experience for me in Mongolia.

Art Nomad: S. Shurentsetseg and G. Gerelkhuu

It's been three weeks since I got back from Japan.  I mentioned last time that I made at least a passing attempt at resisting its pull, and it's possible that I should have tried harder, shouldn't have given in.  It's not that I didn't enjoy every second; in fact, it's exactly that.  Going back showed me what I was missing, and it's been a hard adjustment going back into the daily grind.  After all, back in August I was overwhelmed with the homecoming vibe, but now we're over it. 

And that's leaving aside the fact that I had just gotten used to saying Mongolian things, and now I'm stuck on "sumimasen" again.  Had gotten used to putting toilet paper in the bin and now I keep forgetting and flushing it.  I'd kind of accepted Mongolia's lawless laissez-faire and now I want people to follow the damn rules.  I never had Mongolian Days when I lived here before, but then, China was my last watermark.  After a refresher course in Japanese etiquette, my temper is short, and I don't really like acting like a pain-in-the-ass foreigner.  That said, I'm sure I'll get over it, if I give myself time.

Mongol Queens series, by S. Shurentsetseg

The art I'm writing about today has actually been off the walls for a long, long time; I just couldn't get around to finishing this post.  The day I went I was trying to make it to Naran Tuul to find some supplies before going to Blondie's for dinner, and my brain wasn't as into art analysis as it probably should have been when I made my first stop, at Altan Khaan gallery.  Their current show was S. Shurentsetseg's "In Search of Origin," a body of work focusing on the female perspective on Mongolian cultural and social life.  Like a lot of Mongolian artists Shuren uses the image of Mongolian women in traditional clothing and hairstyles, but rather than the icy perfection that you often see portrayed her figures seem to have more going on beneath the surface.  Troubled expressions mar their faces, inviting the viewer to contemplate the causes of their discontent.  As I stared at her "Mongol Queens" series, the gallery owner came over and suggested to me that these women may have been queens, but it was not entirely by choice, and often involved leaving behind their own families and cultures.

Mother and Daughter, by S. Shurentsetseg

Her compositions are, by and large, relatively simple; the figures are positioned in the middle of the canvas against a simple or abstract background.  Shuren's color palette brings a certain amount of life to these figures, but also helps to set the tone of each piece.  Some are much more somber, while others have an undeniable warmth.

Daughter-in-Law Coming From Afar, by S. Shurentsetseg

What struck me more than anything else about her paintings was her use of pattern.  Lines freely twine over clothing and background, helping to establish a sense of visual cohesiveness regardless of Shuren's color scheme or use of space.  This also reinforces the "Mongolian-ness" of the women, referencing the patterns often found on the silk used for deel (the Mongolian national dress).  Overall I think she made a good start of subverting the idealized female in Mongolian art, and I'd be interested to see the direction Shuren goes in from here.

Eternal Tale III (left) and I (right), G. Gerelkhuu

That said, "In Search of the Origin" isn't the art I've been hoping to find since that trip back in March, 2018, but it was just down the street.  The 976 Gallery was my second stop, where the current exhibition was "The Demon's Egg," by G. Gerelkhuu.  THIS was exactly what I'd been looking for in Mongolian art ever since beginning my master's with that painting course.  Here was mixed media, pattern, life, motion, cultural references that are both accessible and yet, somehow not overplayed.  At first glance, they appear to be monumental abstractions.  Each piece is several feet long, stretching up toward the ceiling.  As you look closer, you realize that these are not abstract pieces, not canvases, but rather works on paper, using collage, printmaking, and other processes to recreate chaotic scenes of Mongolia.

Eternal Tale I, detail, G. Gerelkhuu

These reminded me, to a great extent, of the Mongol zurag paintings of Naadam and other daily scenes, but there was a sense of historic importance given to these pieces.  Hordes of mounted warriors in traditional armor swarm across the paper, attacking everything from faceless foes to colossal dragons, gunmen to monks.  In some cases the cavalry swirls their way through the composition, but more often it's absolute chaos, a battle royale between anyone unwise enough to stand against the Mongols.

Over There, detail, G. Gerelkhuu

Gerelkhuu's work feels almost monochromatic in nature, so that when he uses more color it really draws in your eye.  But possibly what I loved most about these works is the way he uses printmaking to create repetition.  Although I'm a long way from my bachelor's degree, back then the media I loved most was printmaking - intaglio, woodcut, anything really.  While I haven't done as much of it personally since then, that passion haunts me, and my biggest teaching regret is that somehow I've never managed to pass it on to any of my students - the way each printing matrix holds infinite possibilities, and can make as many pieces as you want.  Gerelkhuu's art struck a chord in me, made me feel challenged to try it myself, see if I can develop an image I can work into my studies of Japanese art and experiment with making something that would fill the height of a wall.   It hasn't happened yet, because, you know, grad school.  Taking two courses is even harder than I thought it would be, especially when they both involve a lot of reading, but I've only got about a month yet, so I suppose I'll manage somehow.  Most likely with a lot of coke.