Kid Ethnic: Mixed-Race Adventures in Japan

The Ha that Made the Young Boy Sing · 8 days ago

ha?

I did not know the “ha” to which the young boy referred.

His English was great. It seemed odd that he would say such an incomprehensible thing in a basic conversation.

But what was this “ha”, and how did it earn his love?

He tried to explain. “You know, like ‘Take on Me?’”

It took me a second. Of course.

It was I who was mistaken, unnecessarily hunting high and low.

May I never again underestimate the persistent glory of mid 80’s Norwegian rock.
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BONUS:
I have, in response to world-wide demand, recreated Kumamoto’s Jeff’s World Bar on the Mattel Brand Etch-A-Sketch ™ Drawing Device:

Cameraphone photo taken after sketching on device at aforementioned establishment. I take requests.

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Happy Father's Delay: Hip hop! Puppets! Procrastination! · 19 days ago

Happy Father’s Delay: Hip hop! Puppets! Procrastination! from Kid Ethnic (aka Saleem) on Vimeo.

My brother’s in NC, I’m in Japan, and lil’ Yasmin is in Brooklyn.

So, I started a little recording, and sent it around.

We each got one audio track. Saj and I had webcams, but Yazzy didn’t. So I did the best I could to visually represent her. Er, the best I could without, um, leaving my apartment or doing anything difficult.

Sorry, Dad. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would. We’re still goofball kids who like doing silly weird warbly things while we sing, and we still get carried away with projects and fail to finish then on time sometimes.

But we love ya.

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SIDE PROJECT: A Brief Meditation on Overcoming our Pronounced Excess of Imaginary Hot Women · 23 days ago

Wrote a goofball article for The-Fu.com, you can find it here.

BONUS: They let me draw pictures.

DOUBLE BONUS: And design the header for the site.

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PHOTO: And May the Sun Shine Down On Fanta · 34 days ago

In Orange Rust We Trust.
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Spotted in the Suizenji area of Kumamoto, Japan.

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A Brief Introduction to the Way We Party: The Stick Dance · 38 days ago

My, how we throw down.

Oh, yes we throw down.

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All videos and photos from a Mamon wedding in Bombay (my cousin’s). Live band in the house (the upstairs loft, specifically), ah the goodtime silliness. A full set of this trips photos here.

And yes, I’m in Japan now, but chronology’s all silly, right?

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Indian Signs I Have Loved · 52 days ago

Indian sign painters, I love you quite dearly!

The Hands-on paint! The crush of color! Our peeling world!

For there is no party on the Upside! Join me, my people!

The Dolphin Restaurant! The Reshmi Guest House!

Enough with your woodwinds! Silence your car honkings!

In Steely Proclamation of our Finest Juice Location!

In Humble declarations of Occupations!

In Eponymous Hair Salons!

The Paint that Guides the Placing of the Shoe!

The magnifying glass and or mini-stickman in hand, awaiting inspection! The multiple scripts! The weakening Light!

The Unfettered Confidence in Modernity!

The Law Enforcement Papers! The Hip Hop Roots!

The Baba! School! Of Music!

And so!

The GangaFuji Home! The Nrmala Restaurant! The German Bakery! The Yoga (in It’s Homeland)!

The Tigers Most Loquacious and Polite!

The Dropping of the Gerund ‘G’!

The No Kidding!

May your brushes never cease and your stencils never tatter! May your infrequent bursts of plastic usage retain the witty charms of old! May you never ever ever die!
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All spotted on the recent India trip: Mumbai, Varanasi, and on and on…

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Open Letter from A Bombay Gas Tank: Please, Dear Goodness, Look at Me Now · 58 days ago

Dear Goods-Loving Peoples of the World,

I know, I know. You got the Facebook, you got the e-mail, you got the Twitter, you got the NYT online and you got the kottke.org. The occasional viewing of the rusty MySpace account.

Heck, maybe you have still have the friendster going (hi Phillipines!).

But please, please, I implore you, do not forget us!

We keep you moving and well supplied with all manner of goods, including mangos and Amar Chitra Kathra comics. (Yes, without me you cannot receive your latest Kahlia the Crow !)

All I ask is that you….

Do it for the children.

Your humble servant,
The Gas Tank/Engine Cover
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Spotted in a Mumbai side street near Bindi Bazaar.

IN RELATED NEWS I have returned to the internet, much flavor to follow in the coming week._

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The Man Who Feared No Monkey · 94 days ago

DISCLAIMER: A late-night, slightly garbled, recollection follows.

The man of indeterminate accent worked beside me in the club.

When asked, I had just told him I was part-Indian.

“India is a kind of, I don’t know how to say, mysticism. But it is not just a mysticism. It is a kind of spirituality. I want to go there. I want to see the, you know, streets and the monkeys.’

ME: Yeah, there are lots of monkeys there. Sometimes they’re even dangerous.

MAN: I want to fight the monkeys.

ME: What?

MAN: I want to, you know, fight them.

ME: Oh. Um, like I said, some of them are kind of dangerous.

MAN: Yeah, I would carry, you know, a tube. [pretends to swing a big stick] You know, a, I don’t know the word [makes walking stick motions]

ME: Like a cane?

MAN: Yeah, like a cane. I just want to fight them.

UNRELATED BONUS PHOTO:
Give you one guess how old my cousin Sara is:

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VIDEO: Chinese Checkers, Chanting Cheater · 106 days ago

How’s the Bombay family react to a suspected cheat move in a family game?

Chinese Checkers Chanting Cheater (flicker in version) from Kid Ethnic (aka Saleem) on Vimeo.

… and if you have another 45 seconds, take a look at this alternate cut and let me know which you prefer.

Chinese Checkers, Chanting ‘Cheater’ (Switch version) (for comparison) from Kid Ethnic (aka Saleem) on Vimeo.

…because dancing chanting extended family=The Good Stuff.

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100JapaneseThings.com: A New Kid Ethnic and Friends Project · 115 days ago

Just a quick heads up that I have a new side project going on:
100JapaneseThings.com

The concept:
Write about 100 fun Japanese things (i.e. not textbooks) for the benefit of people learning Japanese. And provide some key phrases and hints to help folks out.

FOR EXAMPLE:
This week fellow 100japanesethings writer EatABug introduces an authentic (but not serious) Japanese web page that helps you predict the future of your poop.

And I introduce plenty of ways to take revenge on your husband through his lunchbox.

Load up your Japanese fonts, and you might learn how to say, well, um, lots of weird stuff.

IN OTHER NEWS: Worry not, kidethnic.com lives on! Back in Japan now, but still bringing the India stories…

UP NEXT: A briefing on how to properly imply that a Mumbai-resident has been cheating at a friendly game.

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