New York Photo Plus 1994 -

"Danchi" (public-housing complexes) in Osaka

These concrete housings are so-called "Danchi" (public-housing complexes) in the center of Osaka city, where my family once lived in the early '60s.

From the mid-50s, the "Danchi" began appearing throughout Japan. At the time, they represented dream-like progress for young families in post-war Japan with their 2DK (two rooms plus a dining/kitchen) style. Now they are considered way too old in style & equipment, and many cities are about to rebuild them into high-rise buildings.

In March 2011, I visited the "Danchi" first time since our family left. That was a little haunted experience. Luckily the complex where our family lived was still there. However, the front yards, once filled with children's lively voices, seemed silent like an abandoned place. Once beautifully painted concrete walls were covered with spotted dirt and rust. Window frames were rusty, and gardens were rank with weeds.

By 5 PM, I didn't see any live human but one lady. The little white-haired lady was quietly sitting on the stairs beside the entrance of her complex, smiling warmly like a spirit of a dead person or something. She told me that she moved here in the early '70s with her family. Now she, a widow, became one of the last tenants since all others already moved into the replaced high-rise housing (which is about to complete the construction)adjacent to "Danchi." She was not happy to move there since the new place would cost more in monthly maintenance for their high-tech security & elevator equipment.

The Osaka city already planned to demolish this "Danchi" all together this fall, and I was lucky to catch the last glimpse of them.

Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945 MAY 20–AUGUST 28, 2011

This show also just opened at small gallery in ICP. Since some area of Japan has been exposed to high levels of radioaction after the recent Fukushima plant meltdown, this exhibition couldn't be more timely for any people to look back how this country went though with nuclear power in the past. I just wish ICP had re-printed those pictures in much bigger size.

"After the United States detonated an atomic bomb at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the U.S. government restricted the circulation of images of the bomb's deadly effect. President Truman dispatched some 1,150 military personnel and civilians, including photographers, to record the destruction as part of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The goal of the Survey's Physical Damage Division was to photograph and analyze methodically the impact of the atomic bomb on various building materials surrounding the blast site, the first "Ground Zero." The haunting, once-classified images of absence and annihilation formed the basis for civil defense architecture in the United States. This exhibition includes approximately 60 contact prints drawn from a unique archive of more than 700 photographs in the collection of the International Center of Photography. The exhibition is organized Erin Barnett, Assistant Curator of Collections."

Elliott Erwitt: Personal Best at ICP MAY 20–AUGUST 28

--I got Mr. Elliott Erwitt's autograph at Icp today. I knew his show has just started, and Friday night was free admission at ICP. But I didn't expect that he was sitting there for a book signing event. I didn't have enough money to purchase his new photography book ($55), but I bought his notebook ($14.95), and he was nice enough to sign it for me. He was a cool guy. His show was about his personal best selected from his life-long works since 1948. His photographs are human, humorous, sophisticated, and precise that I am truly inspired.

"This major retrospective showcases the career of photographer and filmmaker Elliott Erwitt (1928 -), the recipient of this year's ICP Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement. Distinguished as both a documentary and commercial photographer, Erwitt has made some of the most memorable photographs of the twentieth century, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, and Che Guevara, as well as astonishing scenes of everyday life, filled with poetry, wit, and special sense of humor. Born in Paris in 1928 to Russian émigrés, Erwitt grew up in Italy and France and emigrated to America with his family in 1939. An active photographer since 1948, Erwitt sought out Edward Steichen, Robert Capa, and Roy Stryker in New York in the early 1950s, and they became his mentors. With Capa's encouragement, Erwitt joined Magnum Photos in 1953. Erwitt is both an eyewitness to history and a dreamer with a camera, whose images have been widely published in the international press and in more than twenty books. On view are over 100 of his favorite images from the past sixty years, as well as some previously unseen and unpublished prints from his early work.".

One month after the day, April 11th 2011

I left NYC on March 2nd to visit my mother in Osaka, Japan. I was planning to stay with her for a month. On Friday, March 11th, I went to the dentist's office, located in the suburban city of Osaka Prefecture.

At 2:30 PM, I sat on the dentist's reclining chair and opened my mouth wide so that the doctor could drilling out my bad cavity in my left upper mauler. The doctor was a gentle person in his 70's and used an extremely gentle treatment approach. So, I knew that I didn't need to scream for pain, but still, I was furious since I haven't visited any dentists for two decades (!).

When the doctor started drilling, I closed my eyes and just hoped the time would pass fast. Then about 15 minutes into the treatment, suddenly, he stopped drilling. "Did you feel earthquake?" He asked the nurse who was standing beside him for assistance. The nurse replied, "Yes, I did a little bit." Then the doctor asked me. "Did you feel that too?" I said, "No, I haven't. I didn't feel anything but being drilled." Then he smiled at me and returned to the treatment.

I left the office about an hour later and went to the nearby shopping mall. In the late afternoon, the supermarket in the mall was full of customers for grocery shopping. Most of them were women, some with babies or infants. Also, some elderly male shoppers were juggling shopping lists & coupons, dragging their shopping carts while the store workers were shouting at them about the day's best deal in a cheerful voice—just another ordinary day.

After the shopping, I took a bus and came home around 5 PM. As soon as I opened the door, my mother ran into me. She told me that the vast earthquake hit the northern Japan include Tokyo around three o'clock. The quake sent a massive Tsunami that crashed into the Pacific coast, wiping entire towns and villages. In Tokyo, many buildings were burning out of control. Hundreds of people died or went missing.

I hurried into the living room and watched the Tsunami scenes on TV, speechless with disbelief. Then I remember that I was scheduled to go to Tokyo the day after. The hotel was already booked for five nights. "You have to cancel the trip. Tokyo is too dangerous now." Mother insisted. Confused, I was not sure what to do. I was thinking of the people whom I was supposed to meet there. "I'll call them and decide tomorrow morning," I told mother so, and the two of us kept staring at TV monitor the rest of the evening. At that time, we didn't know what kind of crisis would be followed by this quake-tsunami disaster yet.