inside my head by Umene

what I found after this AE2 class

            This is my last post for this semester, and there will be no photographs this time. Instead, I want tell about my own experiences, experience of my friend, and thoughts I had these days.

            I was always interested in Africa. Actually I didn’t write about it in this blog, because I feel so lost about it. I don't know where to start. I don’t know in what field I want to be specialized. I don’t know what I exactly want to do. I even don’t know why I’m interested and attracted for this country. But today, I want to try to explain my thoughts, and I want you guys to know about the situation going on there.

            When I was in elementary school, I had a neighbor form Sudan. Since I lost their contact many years ago when they left to America, I will not use their real name here. They were three siblings, older sister, younger brother, who was my own age, and the youngest sister, who was only a baby. The older sister was 3 or 4 years older than me, and I was probably in the first year in elementary school, but it was too long time ago that I don’t remember well. As I already said, they came from Sudan. Actually they escaped from Sudan’s civil war. Since I was really small, I didn’t understand what does it mean, and don’t remember a lot about these stories. There are two things I remember really well; my mam told me to not ask them about the war, especially to the older sister, whom remembers about the civil war. The other thing remains so deep in my heart is a story the older sister and younger brother told me. We used to play together every day. Once we (their family and my family) went to Shiga prefecture to see the fireworks. There are big fireworks every year around the Biwako-lake (琵琶湖). When the first firework exploded, and a big flower covered the sky in many colors, sister and brother told me with a smile on their face about the first time they saw these fireworks. They told me that in that moment the fireworks exploded, they automatically laid down on the ground. Why? Because the fear for bombs was inside their blood. It was the first thing they learned during the civil war to lay down to protect their own lives while there were bomb explosions. In that moment they heard the sound of fireworks explosion, it remind the, the fear for the bomb explosion. They told me this funny story smiling and expecting me to say them, “how stupid you were! Hahahaha”. Probably, I did react like that in the moment. However, rethinking now, after I know more about meaning of the word war means, this story made me to think a lot of things.

            These days, I was making a research about the Rwanda Genocide in 1994, where one million Tutsis people were killed.[i] I saw two movies about this Genocide to get an idea about how the situation was there. These movies are hotel Rwanda and shooting dogs. The first movie was taken more form the Rwanda people’s point of view, and the second one was from the point of view of European’s who combatted there for the Tutsis people. Of course, in the movie it is impossible to express every real thing happened. But, can you imagine? The streets are full of your neighbor’s corpse. Most of them, with the head and body separated. Catted in pieces. Can you really imagine it? I can’t. I can’t imagine things I never saw. I can’t feel the pain I never explained. That’s only an imagination, nothing more. However, when I saw these movies, I always thought about my old time friends. Did also them, more or less had these experiences? Did they felt all these fears? Did they saw people dyeing in front of their eyes?

            How many of you, actually feel, in deep of your heart, when you see those movies or TV news about Africa, that these black people are pathetic people? How many of you, in deep of your heart, thought they are black people, and the Africa is so distant, almost in a different planet? I am asking these questions, because during the Rwanda Genocides, the UN army couldn’t help these people. Actually, they run away from this country, because some of the UN solider killed by a rebel army. The UN decided to not make more victims in this country. How did the world act if this Genocide occurred in Europe, instead of Africa? How did the world act if this people were not black? Can we really say there was no discrimination to them?

            To say the truth, I don’t have any answer to these questions yet. I want know more. I have to understand more about these things happening in the world. But more over, we have to know more about these things happening in the earth. Through this class, while I was trying to write a blog, or when professor Stan told us the attitude to learn something, I was keep thinking what will be my own research field. What is a topic I can really focus and be truly interested that I can put up with all these pretty hard steps professor Stan told us. This is my answer for now. Still lost, but I wanted to share my thoughts, and my memory of my friend form Sudan. I wanted you to know, these things happening in the world, is not something in the other side of the world. However, sometime happens in your neighbor’s life. The issue is, if you realized it or not.

---

[i] Wikipedia, ルワンダ虐殺, available; http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ルワンダ虐殺

by umene

                There are photographs that remain in the people’s mind. There are photographs that change the world somehow. And there are photographs that let people being aware about what is happening in the other side of the world. The photographs I am going to introduce today are these kind of photographs. Both pictures were taken during the Vietnam War.

First of all, a brief introduction about the Vietnam War. This war occurred during the Cold War, and it is called a proxy war of the Soviet Union and America. The start of this war was the First Indochina War (1946 to 1954). After this conflict, France supported to build the State of Vietnam to persuade Vietnam people for the agreement to the French Indochina. However, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam did not accept this and the First Indochina War started. The People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union supported the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. America, which was confronting the Soviet Union, supported France. After the Geneva Accords was decided and the defeat of France became crucial, the land of Vietnam was divided in two; the North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and the South Vietnam (the Republic of Vietnam which was supported by America). In this accord, it was decided a "general election" to be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state.[i] However this election was not held, and the National Liberation Front (NLF)[ii] started to combat with the South Vietnam Government. Also the North Vietnam, which longed the Vietnam to be united again, start to attack the South Vietnam and America, which was supporting the South Vietnam Government, intervened in the war and the Vietnam War started. During this war, America used many bombs to combat and win the guerilla attacks of NLF and the North Vietnam.  America used a napalm bomb, defoliant and many other weapons to cross out them.

                This is a picture taken by Vietnams photographer, Nick Ut (Huynh Cong Út) in 1972. He is a photographer for the Associated Press (AP) who works out of Los Angeles. His best know photo is the Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of Phan Thị Kim Phúc, who was photographed as a naked 9-year-old girl running toward the camera to flee a South Vietnamese napalm attach on invading North Vietnamese at the Trảng Bàng village during the Vietnam War.[iii] Kim Phúc, the naked girl in the center of this picture, talks about her experience in the book written by Craig and Marc Kielburger, “Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World”. She was running the highway to escape from the napalm bomb dropped in the village she was living in. While running, she saw airplanes flying really law and dropping other bombs. Something strong pushed her and felt down. Feeling burning, she took off her shirts and saw her left arm, which was covered by fire. It was then, when Nick Ut took the photo.

                This photograph won the Pulitzer Prize, too. This is a picture taken by Eddie Adams, an American photographer working for AP in this time. The man with a gun is the chief police General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém. This photograph was taken on 1968 during the Vietnam War. However, this is not taken in Vietnam, but in the street of Saigon. This is because NLF and the North Vietnam Government was using a Ho Chi Minh trail, which is a way to bring food and military to the South Vietnam, through Laos and Cambodia to bring food and weapons, America started to attack also these neutral countries. This is how Laos, Cambodia, Hanoi and Saigon were involved in this war and still suffering for the defoliant aftereffects.

These two photographs brought people to think again about the necessity of the war. In America, students, artists, and many other youth started demo for the peace in Vietnam and in the world. In the American presidential election, people chose Richard Milhous Nixon who committed to withdraw American military from Vietnam. It was because of him that the Vietnam War ended. And it was because these, and many other photographs taken during the world that changed people mind from the war to peace.

---

[i] Wikipedia, Geneva Conference (1954), Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conference_(1954)

[ii] They were also called “Viet Cong”.

[iii] Wikipedia, Nick Ut, Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Ut

References

Wikipedia, ベトナム戦争, Available: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ベトナム戦争

Wikipedia, Geneva Conference (1954), Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conference_(1954)

Wikipedia, Nick Ut, Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Ut

Craig Kielburger, Marc Kielburger,(2008), Sekai wo kaeru! Minna no chikara. Me to We--- “Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World”, Touchstone.

MyMediaFeed, Binary Moon, Available:http://mymediafeed.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/forty-year-anniversary-for-photo-that-changed-the-vietnam-war/

about Academic style by Umene

The first moment professor Stan entered the discussion room he had a
lot of books in his arm and for a moment I thought we had to read all
those books in the class, but what the professor did was pick one
student per book and had them read one paragraph out loud to the
class. He said that it is ridiculous that most of the students believe
there is an academic style that we have to, and must, follow making
the essay more difficult to write and difficult to express in our own
thoughts, well, at least for me. It was a surprise for me to listen to
the paragraphs my classmates read out loud because they were like
novels in that they were really beautifully expressed  which made it
easier for me to follow and imagine the situation and the visions of
the book.  I learned in the that there isn’t one formal academic
writing style to express one’s own thoughts, but what we call academic
writing is only one example of the many styles people use which can
make it easier for students to write an essay for the first time.
These academic writings we were forced to follow was a style which was
laid down in the entrance of the academic world, and it is up to us if
we want to stop there, or choose to go more interior to find our own
style.

Can advertisements change the world?

Can fashion advertisements really change the world? This question came onto my mind when I first saw an advertisement from Benetton (United colors of Benetton). Benetton is an Italian fashion brand, which was founded in 1965, and is a supporter of campaigns that brings out the idea of peace, unity and equality around the world. However, today, I would like to talk about their advertisements and particularly a photographer who inspires me.

Have you hear about an Italian photographer named Oliviero Toscani, known for designing controversial advertisements? He worked for Benetton from 1982 to 2000 and published a lot of interesting publicity. However, pictures taken by him are really difficult to distinguish at a glance. This is because his works are not to do with Benetton’s clothing fashion but about racism, war or religion. The Benetton logo is the only hint that it is an advertisement for a fashion brand.

"ship" (February, 1992)

Oliviero Toscani was born in Milan in 1942 and studied about photography and graphics in Belle Arti di Zurigo University from 1961 to 1965. Then, since 1982, he collaborated and mustered the image and identity of United colors of Benetton. Oliviero later won the premium of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Art Director Club, and many others. He and his work attracted me inmensly because it was the first time to see these kinds of advertisements. These pictures made me wonder about Oliviero’s way of thinking towards photography and advertisements. What made him take these kinds of pictures, and how would people react to these controversial and in some way aggressive photographic images? To understand these, I started to look at some fairly recent interviews and discovered an epiphany. In a CNN’s interview, done in August 18^th 2010, he said that there are people who get angry when they look at his pictures. However, he said, “These people should get angry at themselves for not having the courage to look into the problem”. This brought me to think about what photography is in nature.

Personally speaking, I believe photographs are something that has a power to change a person’s life completely. Nowadays, taking a picture has become an easy feat, and because of the development of social networking and Internet, people can publish their own works whether they are professionals or not. Additionally, many applications or developed camera allow people to process pictures without any particular skills. It is easy to find beauty in these kinds of photographs. However, looking back, when only a limited number of people could travel the world, photographs were the only, and the most accurate way to letting people know about the side of the world. In a simple picture, it portrayed another part of the world where people were not familiar with. Sometime, a single picture can have a surprising amount of influence. For example, pictures about wars could allow people to become more aware about the gravity of the situation and would then encourage pro-actionist movements in attempt to even stop the conflict.

"heart" (March, 1996)

Oliviero’s work are these kinds of photographs. They are direct and simple but carry a strong message. At first glance, these pictures would probably make you uncomfortable, or embarrassed. After a while, however, these pictures will bring people’s mind to think deeply about current affairs. As he mentioned in the interview by CNN, people can be angry because they know that there are such problems or reality, but sometimes it’s easier to ignore them. One of his answers in this interview impressed me the most, he states, “There isn’t such thing as a shocking picture, there is only shocking reality that is being reproduced through photography to the people who aren’t there”. For him, photography is the most accurate way to force people to confront reality. Images are the simplest and most accurate way to make people aware, and to then encourage them to do something about it. As he said in another interview on the 3^rd of June 2012, a good picture is something that will stay as a document of something that happened to the humanity. And fashion picture, too, is a document of human behavior.

"UNHATE" 2011

Oliviero’s retired in 2000, yet keeps publishing controversial advertisements for Benetton. 11 years later, on November 17^th 2011, on the top page of yahoo.it, interesting news was posted. It mentioned about Benetton’s advertisement publication being replaced after only 24 hours because of the strong protests. This advertisement was titled UNHATE, which were photographs of world leaders kissing each other. For example, the Supreme Leader of North Korea and South Korea. The most highlighted photograph was Pope Benedict XVI kissing Imam of Azhar due to the Vatican being position within Rome. The pope announced that he was willing to take legal action against Benetton. It concluded with Benetton agreeing to replace all these kissing advertisements and promising to not use the Pope’s picture anymore. These photographs were one of the advertisements for the foundation of the campaign UNHATE, supported by Benetton who was promoting dialogue and acceptance of diversity. What did you feel about these advertisements? Do you believe these advertisements could change the world?

Umene  Shikata

Reference

Web sites:

http://www.droppingknowledge.org/bin/user/profile/6476.page

http://www.olivierotoscani.com/biografia.html

http://unhate.benetton.com/

http://www.benetton.jp/company/history/

http://edition.cnn.com/201ther0/WORLD/europe/08/13/oliviero.toscani/index.html

http://www.styleclicker.net/2012/06/03/bloggers-are-lazy-interview-with-oliviero-toscani/

The Way of Looking at the World by Umene Shikata

For the first class of Academic English we were all asked to draw a world map. The reason we were asked this was not obvious at first. After drawing it, we were asked to have a look at other students’ work. We then slowly understood the meaning of this exercise. Every student had indeed drawn the map in a different way, showing that everyone has its own perception of the world. Furthermore, another drawing was requested. Most of us drew it in a different way.

 

Drawing a map of the world was not an easy task. At first the details didn’t come up. Having been raised in Japan, I instinctively drew Japan in the middle of the map and detailed it. In fact most of the students drew their own country or the location of their country in the middle and like me detailed what they were familiar with. In addition some of us exaggerated the dimension of their native country. However the more distant the location was, the more difficulties student experimented to draw accurately the shape of each countries and even main lands. Because most students were familiar with Japan, the shape of the country was detailed. However, the shape o f Eurasia, America and Africa were drawn as squares or circles. Since I am half Italian, I am more familiar with Italy and Europe in general. My map of Europe was therefore more accurately drawn. On most of the students’ map, including mine, poles were not displayed. Others did not even draw Italy within Europe. Another difference I noticed among students’ drawing was the style. Indeed, some of them were in two dimensions while others were in three dimensions. After finishing the exercise we were asked to take a look at others works and requested to repeat the exercise. I was amazed on how people’s perception of the world changed after this. Most of them acknowledged that three dimension was more appropriated and thus started to copy this style. Most of them did include the poles and rescaled their country to the rest of the world. Also, after checking others map, most of us were able to draw the world map more effectively.  This shows how people’s perception is usually influenced by their environment, culture and education. For instance, people from the south hemisphere are more likely to draw it upside down, even if they probably think that our way is the upside down one. I unfortunately got extremely confused after viewing my classmates’ work. The huge amount of differences overwhelmed me and I suddenly could not picture the world map anymore. As a result I was unable to complete the exercise and started to feel embarrassed. I also started to question myself over the reasons that put me in this situation.

 

Not only did we learn that everyone has its own perception of the world, but also that we can easily get influenced by others. Our own perception of the world had indeed changed after having a look at others work. As a conclusion, we can then assume that every social topic can be controversial because of everyone’s different perception, different background and religion. 

Umene Shikata