"Life is struggle and struggle is life" - Kim Jong Il

Blaine arrived home tonite at 7pm, and 10 minutes later, Arno asked, "Daddy, did you have a nice day in North Korea?"

This was my present from Pyongyang, purchased in the hotel gift shop.




Some women want diamonds, but how many women have the Dear Leader's delightful 329-page illumination, "On the Art of the Cinema"? Too few, alas.

To satisfy your intellectual curiosity, here's the title page."Workers of the Whole World, Unite!"



The first page (of three) in the table of contents. Click to see a closeup - it is so...deep. Like, "Life is struggle and struggle is life."



My favorite subhead from the table of contents (page 3), under the heading, "Art and Creative Endeavour," is: "Speed campaign is fundamental to the creation of revolutionary art and literature."

Every chapter begins with a quote from Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader. This is the treat on page 237.



Blaine said it was a totally weird place, with creepy artificiality. The traffic cops were gorgeous women wearing full makeup - but there were almost no cars. The journalists were brought to a huge library to see people "doing research," but when 50+ journalists walked into the room, none of these "researchers" looked up or stood up for the next hour and a half.

He's finishing his last DPRK story tonight, and I'll post it when it's on the Post's website.

Hillary vs. Obama

For the first time during the campaign, I was hanging around the house during last night's Democratic debate (that is, at 11 a.m. in Tokyo) and could watch the action - mostly live, with buffering delays - on msnbc.com.

My back-of-envelope analysis:

1. Obama is such a natural that HRC and her staff must be going nuts that her intense preparation and criticism don't rattle him. He has an innate ability to respond rhetorically when he's under pressure - and to know in advance how the audience will hear him. He's a rhetorical boxer, very light on his feet, and about 99 percent on message.

So he always sounds tough on big issues, i.e. when he criticizes her vote on the Iraq War. He's wonky enough - but not too wonky as to bore anyone - on policy stuff like health care. On bland subjects like the economy or veterans, he filibusters with long-winded, uncontroversial answers so she can't interrupt. And when he's asked about her criticism of him, he fends it off with a joke.

For example, in the debate tonite, he sort-of praised the "timing and delivery" of her sarcastic "choirs will sing" speech of last weekend. I think he wants to convey to the audience that he doesn't take anything personally; conversely, when HRC complained that she always gets the first tough question in debates - like the Saturday Night Live skit - it proved again that the Clintons do take everything personally.

But what I also think is so tactically smart is that Obama knows when to concede a lesser point - that is, to give in and get on with it, while Hillary is primed (like many powerful women) to argue every point because she always wants to look tough and in control and to make him look soft.

The best example was the question about Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of Obama. I thought Obama's original response was quite tepid - "I've denounced him many times, blah, blah, etc." Hillary saw an opening and feasted on it, saying sternly said that he should "reject" Farrakhan's endorsement. (Side note: I'm sure that at that moment, the NY Post's political editor said, "Hey, what about the time she kissed Suha Arafat after Suha trashed Israel?")

But Obama just slipped away. Instead of getting into a "mine is bigger" contest, he tossed off this quick line about, effectively, "reject or denounce - I'll do both if it makes you happy." End result: no headlines, nothing big, move on.

2. She's not going to win Texas. The Newshour tonite interviewed Texas reporters who said that early voting was, like 900 percent higher than last year - especially in big cities like Houston, which have large black populations, and in Austin, home of the Univ of Texas. There's nothing to suggest that HRC is inspiring or inciting people to flock to the polls.

3. Bill Clinton said she has to win both TX and OH, but I think if she wins one of two (i.e., Ohio), she'll move on to Pennsylvania and drag it out for a few more weeks.

4. McCain: I think the NYT's story about his alleged affair was half-baked, and the story was wedged uncomfortably into a "McCain's history with lobbyists" profile. I assume the NYT reporters knew more than they could print - but heck, even if he did sleep with her, they should have offered more than the "concerns" of two former aides and a corporate plane ride from Miami to DC.

5. But the brief, NYT-inspired love affair with McCain ended in the past 24 hrs, after McCain denounced a conservative radio talk show host's nasty speech about "Barack Hussein Obama." That's exactly what conservatives want to use in the general election, and they don't like it when McCain takes the high road.

Blaine in pictures

I've located a few shots of Blaine in the New York Philharmonic's web slideshows about the North Korea concert.

You have to wade thru several photos, but you can find Blaine twice if you click on the slideshow under "The Concert" entry on the Philharmonic's diary page.

In the photo showing the Philharmonic's chairman and his wife being escorted to their seats, Blaine is sitting in the front row, second from right. And, for a closeup, Blaine is standing behind former US Defense Secy William Perry. (Doesn't look like Perry is saying anything too riveting, though.)

Blaine's latest from N Korea

Here's Blaine's account of the NY Philharmonic's concert last night in Pyongyang. Sounds like a pretty amazing situation: playing the US national anthem and Gershwin to a bunch of old guys with Kim Il-sung pins on their chests!

The 16-hour time difference makes these stories a little odd, because the stories appear in the printed newspaper almost a day after the event itself.

Blaine's latest from North Korea

Here's Blaine's first story from Pyongyang, filed before the New York Philharmonic played its concert on Tuesday night in Asia (at 4 a.m. in NYC).

I haven't heard anything from him, but I've been reading all of the wire stories to figure out what he might have seen and heard, other than orchestra stuff: an English class, a big library, some young soldiers-in-training.

He'll be back in Seoul tomorrow afternoon/evening, so I'll post an update then.

Blaine's latest

Here's Blaine's orchestral preview story from Beijing.

Blaine in China

Blaine and I Skyped for a half hour tonite. He is hanging out with our friend Ed Gargan, who arranged our blind date in NYC 10 years ago. They ate an entire roast duck, walked around the Forbidden City, hung out with other journalists and generally enjoyed themselves.

He will fly to Pyongyang Monday afternoon, arriving 3pm for a news conference and bus trip in the city. Tuesday night is the concert; the master classes are Tues and Wednesday morning. They'll fly to Seoul on Wed afternoon. Sounds like fun: he'll be with journos from the NYT, LAT, Financial Times, BBC, among others.

He wasn't sure if he'd be able to call me but I hope he'll send a few emails. From his DPRK hotel, it will cost 7 Euros/minute to use the telephone and 3 Euros/minute for an internet connection. (Apparently the dollar has fallen so far that the DPRK will only take Euros!)

Adventures in parenting

I rarely think or say that an entire day sucked, but today really did.

First, there was the lingering problem of Lucinda's gymnastics class. This program, called "I Can Gymnastics," effectively owns gymnastics for expats in central Tokyo. The owner, who is well-known, conducts classes at the three major international schools in our neighborhood, including Nishimachi, and at the Tokyo American Club. His program is the only game in town unless you're willing to travel (without a car, in our case, which would probably take an hour) to another neighborhood for a one-hour class. Also, I think his classes are somewhat repetitive.

But Lucinda likes gymnastics; in Seattle, she went to weekly classes at a program called The Little Gym, and I could see that, for example, learning to walk on the balance beam did build her confidence to try other new things. I'm not planning an Olympic career - after all, she'll probably be about 6 feet tall - but I think gymnastics at this level can be fun.

But the owner of I Can Gymnastics and I do not get along, which is pretty unusual for me. He likes to philosophize with parents about how he, personally, convinces children to try new things in his classes. I'm not saying he's not effective, but in my experience, the activities are more important than any one teacher - and I've said as much.

What happened today is that I tried to get Arno to join Lucinda's class. Arno is old enough, he likes jumping and swinging and somersaulting - and Lucinda really wanted him to go along. He has resisted before, but this time, he took off his shoes and took a few steps toward the other kids... and then ran back and clung to my leg.

The owner, seeing this happen with Arno for the second time in the past few months, promptly lectured me that, in his program, the children must decide to participate - implying that I was a pushy parent. I objected and said that (1) if I waited for my children to want to put on their shoes in the morning, we might never leave the house, and (2) my children often resist new things, but almost always enjoy them if they give it a try - sometimes with a nudge from me.

The owner then said, with some disdain for my cruelty, that Arno "has only been on this earth for three years". And insulted that I would question his expertise, he asked, "How long have you been" a parent? Six years, I said. I tried to explain myself - and then he told me that I was a bad listener. He wondered aloud why I didn't seem to like him. When all I want is a simple program where my children can have fun - and if I can drop them off for an hour on a kid-intensive weekend, so much the better. (A few weeks ago, when Blaine took Lucinda to class and planned to read at Starbucks for an hour, the owner cornered Blaine to lecture him about his philosophy, too.)

The whole interaction was so absurd, and I fumed about this for much of the day.

Then later, after I'd taken the kids to the Tokyo American Club and we'd trekked back on the bus and stopped at a coffee shop, I couldn't find my house key. It was cold outside and very windy, which made me panic a little. I called TAC, but they couldn't find the key. I decided I would take the kids home to look for the key before I called the management company for help.

So where was the key? Sticking out of the lock in my front door, where I'd left it after rushing to go to the damn gym class. On the plus side, that's one benefit to Tokyo: Leave your key in the front door for six hours, and no one breaks into your house.

Crown princess

There's a new novel that might interest anyone who remembers Japanese Crown Princess Masako, the Harvard-educated diplomat's daughter who was convinced to marry into the royal family. Masako had one daughter, followed by several miscarriages and a nervous breakdown under pressure to bear a son to inherit the throne.

NPR interviews author Jonathan Burnham Schwartz about his novel, The Commoner, a not-so-fictional account of the lives of the modern-day Japanese empress and crown princess. He paints a troubling picture: two young women, both commoners, marry royalty only to be emotionally pulverized by a royal existence and entourage that turn them into symbols rather than sentient beings.

In recent years, the Japanese royal household was forced to consider allowing girls to inherit the throne, because Masako and her sister-in-law only had daughters. That possibility was shelved for at least another generation after Masako's sister-in-law gave birth to a son; it's no wonder that Masako has rarely been seen in public for four years.

Blaine's latest...

Great timing for Blaine's latest, a front-page story about North Korean sales of its minerals to raise hard currency.

US administrations have negotiated with the DPRK based on the understandable assumption that North Korea needs American help in the form of fuel oil, food or hard currency; a decade ago, one North Korean defector said that he'd seen the bodies of starved children in the streets of Pyongyang.

Blaine's story, however, says the DPRK has an estimated $2 trillion - that's trillion with a T - worth of minerals in its mountains. It sounds like any serious effort by the DPRK to mine these materials and sell them (most likely) to China could give the North Korean leadership some long-term staying power and could alter the equation with Washington.

Trailing Spouse: China and North Korea edition

Blaine left today for an amazing trip: to Beijing and, on Monday, to North Korea (!) with the New York Philharmonic. Blaine's travel can be tiring for both of us, but I think this is so cool.

It's very hard for American journalists to get into North Korea; many foreign correspondents who cover the Koreas never get there. But the Philharmonic had space on the plane and naturally said yes to the Washington Post, among others.

The Philharmonic is on tour in Asia. It will play in Beijing on Sunday night (Blaine is going to that, too) and then will fly to Pyongyang on Monday for a concert on Tuesday night. The orchestra and journalists will leave N Korea on Wednesday to fly to Seoul; Blaine will probably be back in Tokyo on Thursday.

I don't know anything about where Blaine is staying or what else he'll be doing in Pyongyang, but I'll blog if/when I get details.

The program in N Korea includes Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 From the New World and Gershwin's An American in Paris. Will Kim Jong-il be there?

(Here's a creepy website about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, if you're inclined to read a "bio" of the Great Leaders.)

And if you want to see and hear the concert for yourself, the NYT says: "The concert takes place in Pyongyang on Tuesday at 6 p.m., which is 4 a.m. on Tuesday in New York. Channel 13, WNET, will show it on tape on Tuesday evening in the New York area, and it will be available two days later to other PBS stations. It will also be shown around the world."

It's good to be Arno

After supper tonight, we asked Arno about his friends at school. We mentioned a few children, and then Arno said, "Can we talk about who else loves me in Umi class?"

Working mom

I had a terrific week at work last week - but, wow, was it exhausting to rush from school to work to playdates to school to home, and then to cook dinner and get the kids to bed.

Backtrack: I've found this great part-time job here, editing for Kateigaho International Edition, or KIE, which is a quarterly, English-language magazine about Japanese arts and culture. I found them, or they found me, because KIE's exec editor (an American woman, Mary Ord - Hi Mary!) lives in the Seattle area and I met her before we moved to Tokyo.

KIE is owned by a prestigious Japanese family and their company, Sekai Bunka, is sort of like the Conde Nast of Japan, but smaller. They also publish a Japanese language mag called Kateigaho, which is very glossy, heavy paper, super stylish.

I'm editing for KIE, and last week I went to their office for 4 days (Tues to Fri) to help them close the magazine. This is superfun for me because I love editing (more than writing, actually) and I could use editing/production skills I learned almost 20 yrs ago at Aspen Magazine and In Fashion. I was editing English mag stories to make sense, to fit the space, to look right in the space, and working with the creative director and other editors to solve problems with the text and look of each story.

The closing week happened to take place while (1) Blaine was in South Korea and (2) Arno had a school vacation on Monday and Tuesday, and (3) Lucinda had a school vacation on Thursday and Friday. I scrambled around and found childcare for Arno on Tues, and Lucinda hung out w/her closest school friend on Thurs and Friday - and that girl's mother is a saint, as far as I'm concerned!

I rushed to get the kids squared away each morning and then commuted to work on the Tokyo subway, grabbed a coffee, focused on the magazine for 6-7 straight hours, then rushed back on subway to pick up the kids and go home. Full-time job w/traveling husband? This fell in the "be careful what you wish for" department. And I totally loved it.

I also had this great, funny cultural experience: lunch in the company cafeteria. Major publishing companies in the US, like Conde Nast or Hearst, have very fancy cafeterias; Conde Nast's, in the 4 Times Square building, was famously designed by Frank Gehry (I've been there exactly once, for coffee w/a Glamour editor).

So on Tuesday, at lunchtime, I went to Sekai Bunka's cafeteria with some of KIE's staff. It was 350 yen (about $3.50) for a lunch that you'd find in Furr's Cafeteria: rice, soup, beef burger, pickled vegetables, green tea - served by, I swear, old ladies in hair nets. Like a school cafeteria for professionals!

After you eat, you bus your tray. And at the station where you drop off the tray, you pick up each dish and hold it under a spray of water to rinse your food off. Then you (gently) toss the dish into a big vat of soapy water for the hair-net ladies. Rinsing your own dishes?

I said to the cool creative director, Alexander Gelman, "This isn't exactly Conde Nast, is it?" And he said, "No, not exactly Frank Gehry."

Blaine's latest

Blaine had an awesome story on A1 last Friday, about a Japanese chef whose restaurant, Ozaki, got a 1-star review in the new Michelin Guide for Japan.

The point is that Tokyo has more Michelin stars than any other city, including NYC and Paris. And the food here is fantastic - superfresh, lovely to look at, and carefully prepared and seasoned. (If you want to see the full list, here it is.)

The side benefit to his reporting: I went to the restaurant with Blaine, his translator Ako, and her husband - and we had a 15 course dinner with probably 20 different kinds of seafood, for $150 each, plus beer and sake. Each course is 2-3 bites and by the end we were stuffed.

Here's the chef, Ichiro Ozaki, who sleeps in an apt at his restaurant 6 nights a week.



This was an extraordinary food experience because we ate so many things I would never dare to try if I weren't sitting at a counter in front of the chef who was serving it me.

Things like: This enormous raw prawn.



First you pull out the tail and eat it, and then you slurp out the turquoise-blue, oceany-tasting slime that's left behind. (I guess that would be prawn guts.) Then you eat the small cubes of tuna with a sprinkle of Japanese lime juice and salt - but no soy sauce because it would overwhelm the gentle flavors.

We also had fritters made of snapping turtle, and turtle soup - how strange to need a toothpick to pry turtle meat from your teeth! Or an abalone, served the half-shell as it's heated over a small flame, which burns the hairs on the shell, not such a friendly smell.

Or raw cod testicles, a question of mind over matter. The chef asked if we'd like to try them, and we said yes - but then stared at this dollop of wavy white flesh. (Sorry, no photo, but I'll try to get one from Blaine.)

Crab, conger eel, and blowfish - the fish that can poison you if it's not prepared properly by a licensed fish guy. And octopus, abalone, and anglerfish. And probably eight kinds of sushi.

Including this unbelievable tuna sushi, which was actually two different types of tuna.

Chef Ozaki scored - that is, cut thin lines on - each slice of tuna so the soy marinade that he painted onto it would seep into the fish. It was masterful.

We felt perfectly fine afterwards - that is, no funny stomach. But I don't think we'll go to a sushi restaurant for a few weeks, at least.

We have liftoff!

This is a first: Lucinda is reading Green Eggs and Ham by herself at the breakfast table. Very exciting!

Arno's day off

Arno had a vacation day on Monday and I took him back to the Tokyo Children's Hall with my friend Susan and her 3-yr-old son Max. This is where Lucinda and I made a sculpture a few weeks ago, but Arno doesn't have the patience for that.

He pushed himself on an airplane for about 3 minutes.


We made a quick sword in the art room.


We checked out the Rollerblades and unicycles on the rooftop playground.


Then the boys were ready for lunch. They waited in the world's cleanest parking garage for the car to come down the elevator.


Arno has discovered my camera, so at home, he took photos of his favorite things: "Max," "Tool Set," and "Still life with Power Ranger.






Swords, pals, tools, Power Rangers. It's a little boy's world.

Everyday Japan

Since our holiday vacation, I've gotten a little lazy about carrying my camera around - so I nudged myself to take it today, and I'm glad I did.

I've been thinking about taking pictures of everyday things in Japan to show what's different. Here are two good examples, just from today:

Tokyo trash men wear these superclean uniforms, hard hats and gloves - and they jog beside the mini-trash truck as it goes from house to house. They must be the fittest trashmen on the planet!


And here's the Japanese mailman on a motorbike! They zip along this city's winding streets and sometimes sprint from the bike to the mailbox and back.



Not your typical civil servants.

Going to work

It should be an interesting week. Blaine is in Seoul, the kids are on vacation for four out of five school days - and I'm actually going to work in a magazine office tomorrow (Tuesday) through Friday. It will be my longest stretch in an office since Lucinda was born in June 2002!

I'm editing for a neat magazine, Kateigaho International Edition, an English-language edition of a glossy magazine about Japanese arts and culture. The stories are written in Japanese and translated into English, and they hire editors like me to smooth the translation and make everything fit into the layout. I learned how to do this at In Fashion magazine, where I worked from 1991 to 1993.

I've arranged for childcare for the kids around school; Lucinda will spend her two vacation days (during the day) with her best friend from Nishimachi, whose mom is an incredibly nice 1st grade teacher at the school. The kids won't be used to me working, and then by next week it will be over until I do it again in May.

Should be exciting, interesting, and it will feel great to work steadily.

Soccer with Binoculars

A friend sent me this link - It's not particularly Japanese, except for the fact that it is Japanese.

Super Wednesday

Funny, we are just going to bed on Wednesday night, and the US is waking up to heaps of Super Tuesday analysis. I will read it all tomorrow.

My ideas about Super Tuesday:

1. McCain is a terribly weak GOP nominee. Flying leap guess: he'll choose Huckabee as his VP.

2. Hillary won the establishment states: CA, NY, NJ, MA. Obama won Missouri and 12 others, which is a pretty big deal when you consider Hillary's 99.9% national name recognition. If HRC wins the nomination, she would have a hard time winning Missouri in November.

3. Obama would easily beat McCain. Hillary probably would, but that's not a lock.

4. So does this continue all the way to the convention? I'm betting that there's a scandal related to Bill or Hillary, or something dramatic that shakes up the race, not an endlessly drawn-out contest with a scrap for the last delegate. Obama has more money than she does and now more time to introduce himself in states like Ohio - should work in his favor.

5. Edwards will endorse Obama in the next 10 days, and if Obama wins, Edwards will be his Atty General.

How's that for the back of the envelope?

Greedy cat

Lucinda was in a 5-minute play at her school assembly today. Her class recited and played out the book "Greedy Cat", and Lucinda was a "mom" who refused to feed the meowing cat.

She is really happy right now about school - energized about reading, proud that she is trying new things and enjoying them, more confident about friendships. It's lovely to see.

Second thoughts?

The New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton about 10 days ago and, in my view, missed an opportunity to surpass the essential stodginess of the establishment. Since then, the LA Times, Philly Inquirer and many other papers have endorsed Barack Obama.

Now, however, Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor - that is, the guy in charge, after the publisher - wrote this "editorial comment" after he attended an Obama rally in California where Maria Shriver, Oprah, Carolyn Kennedy and Michelle Obama talked up Obama. Rosenthal said it was the "best campaign rally" he'd ever seen.

Is someone at the NYT having second thoughts?

McCain is obviously going to win the GOP nomination; Romney is just too fakey. But I'm going to revise my thinking that an insurgent candidate probably can't win. Obama will win the nomination, because you don't get 16,000 Dems to a rally in Boise, Idaho, for god's sake, unless your campaign is cooking with some serious gas - or is kicking some serious ass.

Super Bowl Monday

I'm watching the Super Bowl right now - at 9:09am on Monday morning! My Super Bowl snack is a breakfast bowl of cornflakes and milk.

We can watch big American sports events (Super Bowl, World Series and baseball playoffs) on the NHK channel, Japan's public television station. We hear the American announcers and play-by-play, but there are no commercials.

So while Americans are pitched by Budweiser or Apple or Chevy Trucks, we hear three minutes of background noise from the stadium and see replays or a random video feed of players waiting on the sidelines or on the field. This makes for a much quieter Super Bowl experience.

Quiet weekend

It snowed all day today, leaving a layer of slush on the road, and we've mostly nested at home all weekend: reading books, checking political news on the web, hosting playdates. Blaine took Lucinda to her gymnastics class this morning, but Arno and I didn't leave the house. We made chocolate chip cookies this afternoon.

On weekend days, Blaine and I really need down time when we can read a bit or answer email or read a book without feeling constantly on call, and this gets harder when the kids stop napping. So in the past few weeks, I've been training Lucinda and Arno to play together without squabbling every 15 minutes or demanding our intervention - and I think it's working.

Today they played for an hour of "quiet time" upstairs in Lucinda's room and for another 45 minutes in the morning and afternoon without any crying or screaming, which seemed miraculous. For "quiet time," I tell Lucinda how to read the clock to know when she can come out, and I extend the time if she comes downstairs early. She always complains about having to stay in her room, but eventually gives in to her enjoyment of books on CD (Little House in the Big Woods or, this week, Anne of Green Gables) that we rent from the Tokyo American Club. Arno is basically happy if Lucinda is willing to play with him.

We're already thinking ahead to our big summer vacation in the US: 2-3 weeks in Colorado with a possible side trip to Iowa, and maybe a week in Seattle on the way back to Tokyo.

Neat building

I love this new building in our neighborhood! Much better than this city's typical concrete bunkers covered in beige bathroom tile.





The bottom floor is a fancy men's store. The second floor sells modern furniture, and I think the top floors are apartments.

Channeling Martha Stewart

The Japanese emphasize handmade arts and crafts - like origami, only more complicated. I've never been much of an artist, but Lucinda and Arno love to make art, which forces me to try stuff I've never attempted before.

Like last week, when Lucinda and I made a newspaper-fabric-glue sculpture at the Tokyo Metropolitan Children's Hall. This free children's museum near Shibuya station devotes an entire floor to arts and crafts, and Lucinda eyes these sculptures every time we go there.


When she had a day off from school, we made one. She selected this doll as her model and we crushed newspaper to make a body and a head, then attached them with scotch tape.





The children's hall assistant provides a dish of glue and a wet facecloth to wipe our hands (in Japan, everyone helps you stay clean!). Lucinda selected squares of fabric from the supply table, and we started by glueing on the face and skirt.



Then on to the rest of the dress, sleeves and hair.



We topped it with a blue velvet hat to cover the pieces of hair - and Lucinda loved it!

Artsy craftsy

Along the same lines, I noticed a huge section at a fancy bookstore that's devoted to homemade crafts that look shockingly precise. This stuff is so Japanese!


Here we have embroidery, which mothers are apparently supposed to sew onto lunch sacks and children's clothing (yeah, right.)...





...an embroidered squirrel, felt flowers and sparkly beaded purses....






...And even homemade hats!





Fluffy!