Wanderlust for exotic places around the globe may wane with every journalist’s footprint but every time I mention or think of Mongolia, it remains mystical, never failing to conjure up images as one of those fertile frontiers. While the winds from China’s pop-up cities have spread traces of modernity throughout the region, lowly-populated agricultural-based frontier villages continue to thrive on the fringes of the Horquin Desert, a 1,800 hectare area of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. To this day, the region is a place where cultural life remains rooted tradition in an environment which is highly dynamic and increasingly threatening. On the Mongolian frontier the wind never seems to stop, persisting as one steady whisper. What few may know about the Horquin, a 1,800 hectare area, is that similar to other deserts, it is expanding with every gust of wind, grain by grain, over the plentiful patches of green. For centuries, these sands have found their way South and blanketed villages while taking over countless hectares of pristine grassland. Occasionally rapturing neighboring cities, the sands of the Horquin have been known and proven to impact places as far away as Tokyo and France. This desertification of arable land is in turn exacerbated by livestock overgrazing, crop cultivation as well as logging, all to meet regional economic demand. On the Mongolian perimeter, families are in jeopardy, left only with the option to relocate.

While the situation may seem helpless, the seeds of change have begun to take root. Since 1999 the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, has been getting greener everyday, thanks due to the Japanese non-profit organization, Green Network. Director Yoshio Kitaura has been dedicating time and effort to lessening the harsh effects of the Horquin while educating and putting to work anyone willing to join him and his organization on their mission. Just eight years ago, Green Network began to enlist the help of both Japanese and Chinese universities as well as receiving sponsorship from corporations like Timberland, which since 2001 has been sending volunteers from its Japan and Asia-Pacific offices. To see what was happening firsthand, I joined Green Network and Timberland’s Horquin Tree Planting Project and ventured into one of the most dynamic and unknown regions of the world.

Just after arriving in Shenyan, we met Mr. Kitaura and the latest group of volunteers from Japan, Singapore and China, loaded our gear onto the bus and started our roughly four hour trip towards the Horquin. That our highway was straight as an arrow, seemed to sum up the region for me- as if we were driving through the aorta of this burgeoning economic juggernaut. Every head turn brought economic activity into focus, our gaze occasionally interrupted by trucks carrying livestock and roadside fruit stands while towering clusters of high rise buildings ominously appeared in the hazy distance. In the middle of all this economic activity I still had to remind myself that we were headed for a place imagined as desolate.

As we continued, Kitaura began an informative lecture. For nearly ten years, Kitaura has been active about the importance of the Horquin Tree Planting Project but even more importantly, adopting a strategy of leading by example. While I got the sense that this was really a pan-Asian project, Kitaura alluded in his initial remarks that it was not always easy. When the project started several years ago, Kitaura recounted the initial scoffs and doubt however, today, volunteers from local parts both young and old have joined with a spirit of commitment as endless as these frontier winds. Now Kitaura counts and appreciates all of the help from the believers he has won over.

We arrived in Kanchika as the sun set and during a welcoming dinner I got to know the rest of our volunteer team; we shared our common goals and aspirations for the project. One volunteer, humbly stood, “I’m just here for the Earth,” while a university student followed, “I wanted to volunteer and help the Earth, so I brought my mother along to show her what I am passionate about.” Afterwards, we ventured out into the streets of Kanchika only to be met with dimly-lit streets. Although on that evening stroll, I made my first local friend, a younger university student working the late shift in her parents bodega-style corner store nearby. After greetings and small talk about the local area, she began to tell us a story. “Once, I made some friends from Japan who came to plant trees to help protect the environment because the sandstorms remain a severe problem for the people here. I thought they were great people for coming to help.” The smiles seemed pre-congratulatory after which she told us, “you are great too,” giving a greater sense of purpose to our mission and efforts with the Horquin Project.

After an early morning meeting over breakfast, our team of volunteers made our way out to the edges of the desert for our first day of field work. The paved roads gave way to dirt and upon arrival, we gathered around Kitaura as he explained how increasing timber cultivation had left the region with fewer trees, especially a lack of older trees. With logging of older and taller trees around 80 years old, the fringe forests, the initial windbreak for sandstorms, has become a dotted plain of younger saplings easily tormented by the wind unable to block blowing sands. Our guide went on to explain that our mission for the day was to prune this section of poplar trees in order to allow them to continue growing higher therefore speeding up the replacement of the once-tall elder trees. By pruning and cutting off the thin branches, anything below shoulder length, these poplar trees would conserve enough energy to grow higher and better serve as windbreaks. Equipping ourselves with a pair of gloves, a set of pliers and mini saws to cut unwanted branches, we ventured into the forest. As our faces switched back and forth between smiles and grimaces of hard work, Kitaura observed and took time to check our progress while offering encouragement, extra tips and even local berries. Deeper and deeper into the forest, a sense of realization dawned that this forest had been made by people who came before us. We were doing the work that the next group of volunteers would come to see. This was cooperation over time- over generations- with real results. After a few hours of pruning amongst the saplings that had reached about 10 meters, we left the forest as still as it was, but noticeably improved.

Afterwards, out to the fringes of another section of the Horquin planting area where settlements were distanced hundreds of meters apart, we drove over desert dunes on pick-up trucks to reach a forest of younger saplings facing harsher conditions, drowning in sand. I pondered how their roots could take hold. Despite the barren conditions, we learned of an underground well that would provide irrigation to this younger forest which had been laid out in a grid by the previous volunteers- a different kind of ecological footprint. As we teamed up with more local volunteers, we listened as Kitaura demonstrated how we were to plant pine trees fresh from the nursery. “Dig a hole knee deep, get on your hands and knees, tear the protective plastic cover off the roots, drop it in and shovel in the sand and then move on to the next point in the grid.

Row by row, our team of volunteers advanced like a garrison against looming rain clouds which threatened to halt our mission. After planting over 900 trees in a matter of hours, it was time to irrigate from the well. Lining up, we proceeded row by row and passed buckets of water and essentially poured life into every tree well. After finishing, we gathered and took a group photo to celebrate our hard work and for leaving a positive ecological footprint.

Working with the local volunteers added to the cultural experience of participating in the Horquin Project. On two separate occasions, I had found myself invited into their homes. Only a short drive away from the day’s work site, we visited the home of an elder with wrinkles nearly as steep as the desert dunes, a volunteer who lived in a simplistic brick home centered around corn and squash plantations. As we discussed daily life I noticed the common sleeping area- a wide bed designed with long, hard winters in mind. Our talk ventured into history, admittedly triggered by a Genghis Kahn portrait on the wall, and it became clear that lineage was something clearly remembered as far back as possible. “That’s Genghis Khan, our ancestor, “do you know of him?” as our conversation continued.

Spending time with one of the younger volunteers, our talk ventured into religion and simply asking what it was he prayed for, he simply answered, “Rain.” Meanwhile, his wife had ventured out into the local garden and emerged with an offering of squash.
The following day we reached where the Timberland forest lay since its birth in 2001. Timberland had teamed up with the Green Network and bought up about several hectares of land and vowed to make a forest of their own with the goal of planting 1,000,000 trees by 2010. It seemed possible with enough hands but still a challenge for a landscape dependent on 240 milliliters of water a year. Upon hearing that statistic, I looked down at the bottle of water in my hand- it was more than what the area receives a year. Just then we encountered a large flock of herded sheep, a passing reminder of overgrazing; a practice often encouraged by local farmers along this vast expanse of territory.

As we observed the steady progress of the Timberland forest, we marched up formed sand dunes only to be met with powerful winds which sent us retreating to the shade and shelter of a hidden grove a few kilometers away. As we lunched with our local volunteers, protected from the winds, it made the project’s objective clear if this little grove was to be taken as an example. As we continued deeper into the grove, we continued working together- pruning the poplar trees in the area straight through the afternoon.

For our last day, Kitaura had provided the opportunity for the Japanese team to engage in workshop sessions where we discussed the planting project, models of sustainable lifestyles in fringe communities as well as ideas closer to home such as how to lead a more environmentally-conscious lifestyle. Something invaluable we could all bring back home.

An excerpt of this original text and photography appeared in Paper Sky No. 31 (Denmark, January 2010)

The Green Network (website in Japanese) is located at:
502 Bay City 8-14 Takigawa, Yokohama, Kanagawa 221-0834.

Tradition is an echo, heard slightly differently by each new generation, a pattern of knowledge passed from old to young. Adaptation is the only way to guarantee the survival of these echoes; it’s the maxim of all natural systems– adapt or die. Washi itself is one such adapted echo, since the time it was first introduced to Japan in 610, brought over from China thanks to a Korean Buddhist priest named Doncho. The imported paper proved however too fragile for Japanese use and so, as an adaptation, stronger and more fibrous Kozo bark was used as pulp.

In the workshop of Hoki Naritoshi, a younger Mino paper maker, we get a sense of how Mino washi is beginning to adapt to the contemporary world. “I want to create new paper that has more uses for the world today, beyond the restoration of old paintings and parchments” he says. For a start, Naritoshi has begun adding natural color dyes to his paper mixtures. It may not seem like a radical change, but Mino’s trademark is brilliant white washi and the color has strong cultural reverberations. Naritoshi has also mastered a complex Sukihashi technique allowing him to create patterns with different thicknesses on the same sheet of paper and as a result, light is able to pass through the paper more easily. This technique has made Naritoshi’s paper attractive to companies, at this point it has been used to create luxury umbrellas, lampshades in addition to a range of products. Naritoshi’s approach has given hope to a tradition which has been through dark times: “during the 90‘s bubble period no one wanted to make handmade paper, there was too much money to be made elsewhere.” Naritoshi’s approach suggests a revival, a way for Mino paper makers to make their craft financially sustainable again. Financial sustainability is of absolute importance the paper making community in Mino.

After talking with Naritoshi in his workshop, he leads us up a nearby road to a valley containing Mino’s first plantation of Kozo trees. Rather than use Kozo from Ibaraki (the traditional source for Mino paper makers), Mino has decided to make its washi production self sustainable. However, sustainability is not a simple (or solitary) action, “I tried to grow my own Kozo tree’s actually, but I was so busy making paper that I neglected the trees and bugs ate them. You can’t do everything by yourself, paper making is a collective activity.” It has taken a long time, but Mino’s washi tradition has almost completed a necessary full circle where the paper of Mino is once again being made collectively by the hands of Mino.

Hoki Kobo is located at 1957-1 Warabi Mino-shi, Gifu Prefecture.

Original text and photography of this entry appeared in Paper Sky No. 33 (Switzerland, 2010)

Man can do many thing without tools but with tools he can become godlike. And so it is that the alchemy of handmade paper is completely reliant on two tools: the Keta (or ‘Koteh’ as it’s called in Mino) and the Su (an intricate screen of bamboo bound in silk). Essentially, the Keta is a large rectangular frame roughly one meter wide. Its bottom portion holds slats supporting copper wires which carry the Su, and the top frame folds down via metal hinges to seal the Su in tight. Washi would not exist without these tools and the makers who craft them. Shouji Kazunari is the last Keta maker in Mino, and one of only three remaining Keta makers in Japan. We visit him late in the afternoon at his workshop, where he sits cross-legged as he talks, surrounded by pale wood shavings from “one of the most expensive woods in the world;” his suntanned face holds eyes that are exceedingly shiny and when laughing he shows no shame about a missing tooth. He tells us the story of his Keta making: “I started making sliding wooden doors about 40 years ago when I worked for the boss of a local hardware store. My boss had a master who knew how to build Keta, but for some reason that master never shared his knowledge of Keta construction. I had to take many Keta apart to understand how they were built.” Intuiting the minute specifications of Keta construction, Kazunari eventually understood the rationale behind the the placement of specific slats and grooves, and learnt how to making correct joins minimising water damage. “I make everything by hand now, except the hinges,” he shows us bamboo nails he carves by hand to seal the joins. Taking a week to build, each Keta will last roughly three to four years, eventually decaying from water damage, being used so often in the liquid bath where the paper will be drawn out of. There is a question about the future looming as we talk: “The future? Well, I am 60 now,” he says with a smile, “i can’t afford to have an apprentice without government support, and I have no sons, so I don’t know what will happen to Keta making, but I do know that in ten years, when I retire, I’m going fishing.”

Showa-Mokko is located at 993 Otagiri Mino-shi, Gifu Prefecture.

Original text and photography of this entry appeared in Paper Sky No. 33 (Switzerland, 2010)

There was a time when all the paper in Mino was made collectively by the hands of Mino. Every part of the process– the stripping of bark from Kozo (Mulberry) branches, the boiling of the bark with lye in huge ovens, careful cleaning of the bark with cold river water, the pounding of the resulting Kozo pulp with pine hammers– each action was performed by the entire town; children, mothers, grandmothers and farmers all participated in the transformation of wood into ‘washi’ (Japanese paper). But only one person, would be responsible for actually drawing the wet paper out of a liquid bath of dissolved Kozo pulp and Tororo-aoi roots (Japanese mountain yam– used to help bind the Kozo). Today the paper makers in Mino undertake all of those old, once collective actions by hand.

Eighty year old Masashi Sawamura, a national living treasure and 15th generation Mino paper maker is one of the few who still make paper in much the same way as it was made hundreds of years ago. “It is very difficult work” he says, pointing a large hand towards bundles of dried Kozo bark; waiting to be boiled, cleaned, boiled again and pounded before being dissolved into a watery mixture. It might be trying work, but Sawamura feels that doing everything by hand, using the body in carefully honed movements, makes the work “tender.” Sawamura leads us to his darkened workshop, and to the ‘fune’ (wooden bath) where the paper will be drawn out of the liquid bath. He picks up his ‘Keta’, a wooden frame which holds a thin bamboo screen, called a ‘Su,’ and begins dipping it into the bath, splashing the cloudy liquid over the screen again and again in a procession of movements– side to side, forward and backward ending with a rapid flicking of the remaining liquid from the screen. “Today we are making 30 gram paper. Eventually you learn to tell the exact amount of liquid required to make a 10 gram difference to your paper.”

Intuiting the weight of paper is not the only seemingly supernatural thing about Sawamura’s handmade paper. Behind him rests a small tower of recently made, white washi, still wet. “How can you be sure the paper won’t stick together?” we ask. Sawamura stares at the washi and asserts, “It is alive, the paper. It knows what it should do.”

Sawamura Masashi Kobo is located at 752-3 Warabi Mino-shi, Gifu Prefecture.

Original text and photography of this entry appeared in Paper Sky No. 33 (Switzerland, 2010)

Last February Daido Moriyama spent a few days in New York City for the opening reception of his latest exhibition. “I actually didn’t have a lot of time while there but of course walked around and took photos. It had been about eight years since I had been and it felt good to be back and well, feel the cold again.” The photographs which Moriyama took that frigid week in New York took printed form as Number 15 in his more personal and willfully experimental ongoing series, Record. After over forty years of taking photographs and producing well over twenty publications, Moriyama has remained consistent- the shroud of noir that develops in the play between the grainy black and white; the subject ultimately consumed in a fleeting moment characterized by desire, or despair. Shadow and depth quietly usurp light, obfuscating and tantalizing the viewer’s gaze at the same time.

As we peruse Record #15 together Moriyama was quick to point out his pictures, “have a dark sensibility to them. And sure, I accept that.” Soon after our conversation gravitated towards the differences between the two large, oft-compared cities. Whether New York’s ethnically diverse populous was of any concern to Moriyama, we discussed the subjects he photographed a few months ago. “I don’t have any particular individuals to shoot, I think people are just part of the landscape of the city.” Moriyama continued, less concerned about the differences between cities and more pensive on something more universal, yet within the realm of the personal. “My overall theme continues to be desire and I’ve worked to capture this through people who are out and about in the city. I still take a lot of photographs because it’s my own desire as well. The desire of my desire to take photographs about desire is one in the same.” Yet, while Moriyama acknowledged New York’s diversity, it is nowhere near the forefront of his practice. The photos Moriyama has included Record #15 are more partial to the backstreets than main boulevards or touristy spots like Times Square. They capture the city’s pulse, in moments, candid or otherwise. “I’d like to capture the whole city when I arrive somewhere, but I prefer to be in the backstreets so I just spend more time there. The vivid and actual objects we see throughout the main streets are pop- just cheap and junk. I don’t want to take photographs of the calm and beautiful objects or the fake serenity they make up as places, that is the pop facade.”

As we continued to discuss urban landscapes Moriyama elaborated, “cities look, or can appear different on the surface, but if you ask me about Shinjuku,” the place Moriyama has photographed most extensively and is inextricably linked, “well, Shinjuku is like a stadium or more of a pop art museum when I come to think of it. The pop and cheap junk you see everywhere is representative of our desire. The city has become a theatre for art, and the facade provides the main backdrop for events to take place but backstreets is where the real details are, it’s where you can clearly see desire. I think it’s more of an honest reflection, a tighter relationship, of how people relate to the place they are in. Wherever. People warned me in Buenos Aires not to walk to certain areas but I was curious to venture on because, well, I’m a photographer.”

Moriyama’s impassioned curiosity and taste for adventure, prompted comparisons to the nature of the war photographer- traveling, seemingly fearless and dedicated to a vision sustained by clarity and impartiality. Although, Moriyama related a sense of his own neutrality- one self-declared as a gazing position between observation and involvement with an intangible conflict of desire’s persistent scar on reality. Rather than entertain the war photographer analogy, Moriyama seemed comfortable with the term ‘backstreet photographer.’ “Actually, it’s the opposite for me. For example, subjects like perverts have an instinct to escape from my lens when I am photographing. Subjects like that tend to escape if they know they are being focused on.” After spending so much time encountering and indeed, focusing, on subjects entangled in desire, an exit method of some sort must be in place after years. Moriyama described walking away after taking a photograph, “I usually get in a taxi right away and leave. Sometimes I just want to forget what I just saw or photographed. I’m like an antenna, I sense everything on the streets and I try to find where the signal is coming from- the signal of desire itself, and after I do, I just want to go back home.” More resilient than melancholic, Moriyama feels that each successive photo is a step closer to an assumed clarity of the truth, and so the photographer has continued to insatiably persist in the darker corners of Tokyo just as he has for decades.

Still, Moriyama continues, actively, delving into the human soul in search of something more universal, or inherent, as if each successive photograph were an assurance. With desire at the core, Moriyama is able to focus on and refract what he feels is universal to humanity, regardless of the particular differences between cities, or nations, themselves. “People can change and cities can change too but they are pretty much set where they are.” Moriyama continued in reference to the static nature of Shinjuku, “well, it’s more like a spiral and it’s definitely not going up. New York and Los Angeles are also spiraling too, they are consumed by a lifestyle driven by desire that too often leads to excesses. And it’s not only that, there are bigger problems at the same time. It’s not only about bad people all the time.” To what degree Moriyama considers himself involved, we continued listening, “I’m more of a tentative record of the places I have photographed, I am in the spiral too, definitely not outside, but recording. If the world is perceived to be spiraling down, then I am too, in it.” Moriyama pondered, took a break and continued, “humans are difficult so I have yet to see us really spiral up- I have yet to see. I’m often asked about the history of the Shinjuku but today I’ll say that the landscape, by which I mean the fashion and buildings, has changed but the basement is the same. The violence and perverts continue to thrive.”

The palette of experiences Moriyama has had over the years in Shinjuku effectively became a template for a stylistic consistency as well as a comparative lens Moriyama has employed in places as far as Buenos Aires and as close as Hokkaido. “I shoot what I want to shoot, everything is open and there is no process of self-censorship except a little sense of fear because sometimes it gets scary.” I instinctively retort by asking about the nature of his phobia, “Well the thugs and gangsters are scary, they come out at around 2:00 or 3:00 AM so I don’t photograph them directly, but if I do, I snap quickly to capture a glimpse of what they are after and in hopes of avoiding confrontation. I’ve been caught and confronted before and had my film taken aggressively. Whenever that happens, it’s scary to see how far it will go. But that was a few years ago. Now I am much better at being discreet.”

With his studio in the near vicinity of Shinjuku where we met, Moriyama remains indifferent to any notion of whether Shinjuku has reached its end of history. For Moriyama, the business and equal parts entertainment district is still festering, full of activity and continuing to draw its raw power from an ecliptic mix of people which fascinates and repulses him at the same time. “My approach is not pessimistic nor melancholic, it depends on what I see day to day since I am always out. Taking photos everyday is my lifestyle, I am always carrying my camera when I walk around. It’s the little sense of expectation in the short term that drives my own desire to continue taking photographs. Day by day is how I relate to the future. When you see a photograph on paper, you may think about the future or the past, but it could have been taken by someone ten or fifty years ago so the photo is like a fossil itself. I have always liked photographs which provide a sense of everything- the ones that give clues to the future and the past. It’s more absolute in that way.”

A selection from this interview originally appeared in Japanese in Papersky #33 (The Movement Issue, Switzerland, 2010).

Daido Moriyama was born in 1938 in Kansai. In 1960, Moriyama relocated to Tokyo and joined the photographer collective VIVO and has since published well over twenty publications. Moriyama is widely considered one of the most influential living photographers for his representation of post-war Japan in addition to his volumes of personal work. He currently lives and works in Tokyo.

Daido Moriyama may be likely found strolling the backstreets of Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Without large and sturdy trees, the canoes that transported people across oceans could never have been made. Such trees were the products of dynamic and healthy forest systems, fed by rainwater that was absorbed in the Earth and flowed back to the sea in rivers. The sea, in turn, served as a bridge to other lands, and the canoes carried their navigators to new forests, from which new vessels were made.

The innumerable islands of the South Pacific were once heavily forested, and there was no shortage of giant trees for sea-fearing canoes. Sadly, reckless and short-sighted logging practices have led to the devastation of woodland areas, and as a result islanders are only making traditional canoes when large pieces of driftwood happen to wash ashore. As is evidenced by the dying art of canoe-making, the loss of the South Pacific’s island forests threatens an exceptional cultural inheritance.

The desire to see with my own eyes what remains of the region’s forests only grew stronger as I continued to research ancient marine navigation. Giant canoes large enough to transport several families were first built in the 10th century in the Polynesia Triangle, an area that includes Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Today, however, most of the islands are heavily trafficked by tourists, and in terms of natural resources they have become mere shadows of what they once were.

On my search throughout the islands of the Polynesia Triangle I came at last to the virgin forests of New Zealand’s North Island, located at the region’s southernmost point. In all of Polynesia, it is only within the patchwork of these remaining forests that trees are still found in great enough quantity for islanders to continue building traditional canoes. The forests of North Island are inextricably entwined with the history and culture of the Maori, New Zealand’s indigenous sea-faring people, who consider them sacred places.

When you enter the forests of North Island, you are assaulted by the sense that you have no idea which direction you are facing. The word “void” takes on its true meaning, and one realizes that the spirit of the vast sea, the past and future of the islands, and the canoes that bind one to the other will survive as long as these ageless forests continue to exist.

This article originally appeared in Paper Sky Issue 12 (Texas, Mexico: Diaries of the Tex Mex Borderland. Winter, 2005) and was made possible with New Zealand Tourism and Air New Zealand, located at 16F, The Imperial Hotel Tower
1-1-1 Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0011.

About the author:
Naoki Ishikawa was born in Tokyo in 1977. He began his wanderings in India as a high school student. In 2000, he traveled from the North Pole to the South Pole while participating in the Pole to Pole project. In 2001, he climbed the highest mountains on all seven continents. Currently, he is studying traditional navigation techniques of Micronesia. Ishikawa tried to cross the Pacific Ocean in a hot air balloon in 2004, but abandoned the attempt 1,600 kilometers from Japan. His published works included the book, “To Those Who Will Inherit the Earth” and a photography collection, “The Wind that Connects the Polar Regions.” His first book of photography, “The Void” was published by Knee High Media. For Papersky Issue 28 (New Zealand, 2009) Naoki Ishikawa was our guest navigator.

A Journey to India: Hosono and Yokoo, “Cochin Moon.”

1978 was an important year for Haruomi Hosono. The evolution of his exotic sound, already evident on the 1975 release “Tropical Dandy” and “Bon Voyage Co.” of the following year, reached its peak with the release of Harry Hosono and Yellow Magic Band’s hit album “Paraiso” in April, 1978. In February of that year, the idea of Yellow Magic Orchestra was conceived by Hosono and fellow musicians Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the group’s debut album came out in November. The catalyst for the metamorphosis from “band” to “orchestra” was an almost accidental trip to India with writer Tadanori Yokoo.

“It must have been sometime after “Paraiso” was recorded,” says Hosono. “I stopped by Yokoo’s studio in Seijo. One month later, there we were in India.” Hosono was not without reservations about the trip. “Actually, I didn’t want to go. I felt that if I went to the real place, it would lose some of its exoticism. At the same time, though, it sparked my sense of creativity. Exoticism is fine for a while, but you can’t really hang on to it forever.”

“We arrived in Delhi, that was our first big shock. It was so crowded. There were peopld squatting on the ground where we were walking, and we kept stumbling over them. We were still really exhausted the next day when we went to a place called Agula, about three hours inland, in a car without air conditioning.”

Thanks to the efforts made by the Indian Tourist Bureau the group got royal treatment. “The one problem was that it was so hot. We put ice in our juice, and everything else we drank. That night I think we al ordered whiskey on the rocks. Maybe Yokoo and I weren’t really strong drinkers, but after we parted in the lobby and went back to our rooms, I got hit with the worst diarrhea and vomiting. I was sick every few minutes. I spend the night alone in agony, and in the morning I had to take an 8:00 AM flight to Bombay. I was in the toilet the whole three hours of the flight, and the one-hour taxi ride to the hotel was terrible. In the nearly sixty years that I’ve been alive, that was probably the worst thing I’ve endured.”

“In Bombay, we met a famous Indian movie actress and went to see the Taj Mahal. At night, however, Yokoo and I both felt bad and couldn’t sleep, so we stayed up talking about a lot of things.” It was a dinner in Madras that brought Hosono back from the brink of death. “The Consulate General of Madras invited us to his house for dinner. He said, ‘My wife made Japanese food, so come eat and cheer up!’ We sat at his wife’s table, and they served us grilled salmon and okayu (rice porridge). She talked about psychic phenomena, like the fact that she could cure illnesses herself, and that when she wore a watch, it would go out of order, and that she often saw red balls about 40 or 50 centimeters in diameter flying around her garden. She said, ‘You’ll be cured after you eat.’ We both noticed that we really did feel better!”

After returning home Hosono was asked by Yokoo to create an album with India as its theme. “I had to think of everything from scratch by myself, and at first I didn’t know what to do at all. Then suddenly I started hearing about computer music, and I was able to go see a demonstration by Hideki Matsutake. As I listened, I thought, ‘Here’s something interesting that I can do and ‘Cochin Moon’ was the result.” Incidentally, Hideki Matsutake himself became the honorary fourth member of Yellow Magic Orchestra as a computer programmer, one of the first of his kind. “If I had never experience India with Yokoo, YMO would never have been born!”

This article originally appeared in Paper Sky Number 9 (Naples Family: Italy’s Living Room City).

Originally, Hosono is from Minato, Tokyo.

In 1979, Dr. John told Haruomi Hosono, “Watch out for the music business!”

Still excited about first hearing Van Dyke Parks’ “Discover America” (1972), a few months later Haruomi Hosono listened to Dr. John’s “Gumbo” (1972) for the first time. “Eiichi Otaki told me that a great record had been released and that it was all I needed to hear in order to understand what the New Orleans sound was all about. Well, he was right! (laughs)” Not only Ohtaki and Hosono, members of the the 70′s Japanese rock band Happy End, but for music fans worldwide, “Gumbo” became a showcase album of the New Orleans sound- a sound not easily heard by non-locals at the time. Hosono’s connection to New Orleans goes way back.

“Most of the stuff that I liked on the hit charts during school was music produced in New Orleans. Lloyd Price’s Personality (’59), Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law (’61), Lee Dorsey’s Working in a Coalmine (’66). Of course Allen Toussaint (producer, singer and keyboardist) was involved with the recording of Dr. John’s hit tunes that he made as a young guitarist. New Orleans was a dazzling cache of treasures.

Did you ever think of going to New Orleans? “No, the records gave me the entire picture. Blending something with something always produces interesting music, but it’s not about being in the specific place. The work is done in the composer’s head, which needs to be a real hodgepodge of things, so I’ve never thought of going to any special place to create music.”

A famous New Orleans dish, “Gumbo,” is also a thick soup that contains okra, and is pretty much a hodgepodge. Five years later, Hosono met Ronnie Barron, the keyboardist in Dr. John’s band, by coincidence when he was working as co-producer on the Makoto Kubota and The Sunset Gang’s “Dixie Fever” album, which was recorded in Hawaii. “I went out to the Honolulu airport to meet him and his face and black clothes, a color not really suited for Hawaii, made him look like a pirate. With no preparation we went straight to the studio and as soon as he started playing, a New Orleans atmosphere filled the room.”

Following on from that, Hosono produced Ronnie’s solo album “The Smile of My Life” (’78). It was recorded planned and produced in Tokyo. “I think it turned out really well. H was happy with it as well.” In February of 1978, Hosono formed the Yellow Magic Orchestra and in May of 1979, the first YMO album was released in the US on Tommy LiPuma’s label Horizon. “After YMO performed at LA’s Greek Theatre, we went to a party at LiPuma’s house that was attended by people from the music industry. Dr. John was there.” This was the period that Dr. John released two LiPuma-produced albums rich in AOR flavor, “City Lights” (’78) and “Tango Palace” (’79). “He had also started on a new musical life. While gently rubbing my shoulder as we were going he said, “Watch out for the music business!”

In 1999 Hosono teamed up with good friend Makoto Kubota and formed the duo “Harry and Mac,” recording the album “Road to Lousiana” in New Orleans.
“Ronnie Barton had already passed away by then. There’s no gravesite so we went to his house and paid our respects at his urn. When his relatives told me that he had never forgotten the solo album that he made in Tokyo. I felt happy that we were able to have done that.”

This article originally appeared in Paper Sky Number 7 (Paris Books: Read the City).

Originally, Hosono is from Minato, Tokyo.

“Since I was a kid, I had been painting with my mother, who had done a lot of ceramic painting and my dad actually worked for a paint company so I had endless supplies. I actually wanted to be a comic artist but I ended up getting so involved in skateboarding that I somehow forgot about that dream.  I guess you could say my older brother inspired me to to start skating, although I think I started a bit late actually, when I was seventeen, but I’d been surfing since I was thirteen. I was a student then and just going to the beach on Sundays and in the downtime, I just started having fun with slaloms and turns. One day on my way home I saw some kids doing tricks, which was like my first exposure to street style skating. When I got home I tried a boneless and ended up with a few bumps and bruises which made me stop for a couple weeks but since I started up again, I haven’t stopped. I’d say the other half of my inspiration comes from the Venice skate scene in California. You know, Dogtown and Z Boys. I had been out there a few times and even though they looked a bit tough and gangster, they were all really nice and friendly. The new (school) wave of skateboarding the 1990s brought inwas almost like a fork in the road. Style-wise, things were changing and I remember kicker-ramps and pool skating were fading but I still see the Z Boys as a base of my style, namely guys like Jay Adams, so today, I’m proud to be on the Japan Dogtown and Z Boys Team. I still think about making it back to California to skate some more pools.”

When DEE was in his late twenties, he shared a house with a few artist friends which became an informal unit for painting and skating. “I lived with six friends, one of them was Kami actually and Kami was the one who always said, ‘let’s go out and paint’ so I would go along with markers and cans and started throwing up what I had previously been painting on my own.” The mixed group of artist and skaters eventually formed into a loose crew though made their presence known with exhibitions in Paris, then under the group name M.U.R.,  as well as in Japan as part of a group exhibition at the Art Tower in Mito. “When we had an exhibition at the Art Tower in Mito, which was basically because the curator really liked graffiti, we were all kind of excited about the group show but actually, we thought it was a trap [laughs]!”

Even though groups comprised a large part of DEE’s artistic activity, he affirms he’s a loner at heart. “Even though we were living and practicing together, it was never about being a gang of any kind for me. People talk too much behind each other’s backs in gangs and even though I love getting out to paint and skate, most of the time, I just like going out alone. Especially now that I have my six month old daughter. Not only does she keep me busy but everyday brings something new- it’s actually really inspiring.”  Such a self-affirmed soliloquist, Tanaka even named his own label, simply, Own. “It started in 1994, when a creative unit was starting to form, we called ourselves the ‘Original World Network’ and were practitioners of a blend of art and street culture, making everything from clothes to street graphics.” Every summer, Dee and his team did their own, ‘OwnTour’ and went all over the country doing demos at parks and events with live MCs and DJs. “One of our friends had a camera and came along to document the whole adventure. Whenever we had some downtime, I’d take his camera and photograph people skating, or take a few portraits of the people around us or even just some landscape shots.”

Tanaka’s reportage style of photography has stayed with him ever since. The adventures haven’t solidified into the stuff of legend just yet around these parts, however some of the photos have been published in a previous issues of Sb. “I ended up forming a photography duo with PAI, aka Miyuki Hirai and we based our style on the natural, candid moments we experienced. Since 2003, we have been active as a photo duo and setting up our own group exhibitions, where we show photos of the community- the graffiti, the hardcore bands and well, just skate life. It’s always fun because the younger kids come to check it out as well as the people we took photos of, it’s always a nice gathering. Actually, this summer, is the third one so I’m really looking forward to it.”

Daisuke Tanaka can be found skating at his favorite spot, and upcoming Skateboard File Feature, Felem.

Van Dyke Parks: “Don’t give the steel pan to Hosono.”

On October 4, 1972, Haruomi Hosono flew to Los Angeles to record overseas for the first time with his popular 70′s Japanese rock group, Happy End. Back then, it was rare for Japanese musicians to go to LA for recording. The Sunset Studio was the gathering place for the ‘hip’ guys, so after hearing about me Van Dyke Parks came along. He ended up producing “Sayonara America, Sayonara Nippon” for me. He guided us with great wisdom, it was great.

After returning to Japan, Hosono listened to “Discover America,” “I was totally taken in. It was fantastic, especially the Calypso. “Jack Plance,” sung by Mighty Sparrow. You know, the song ends halfway through. It is such a bummer. In those days I was attracted by the music for the soap opera Hollywood films of the 1930′s and 1940′s. When I noticed Van Dyke was already creating such wonderful nuance I realized that we shared the same feeling.”

Hosono was born in 1947, and Van Dyke in 1943, and because Hosono was the first musician to sing rock music in Japanese and Van Dyke collaborated in recording “Good Vibration” by the Beach Boys they were both recognized as members of similar musical circles. Later on, Hosono went back to LA with the Japanese folk singer Wataru Takada.

“We worked very closely with Robert Greenridge, who was a steel pan player, and I sweet talked him into making me a steel pan for $300.” Steel pans are native to Trinidad and Tobago. Hosono purchased a paint pan, which is basically a painted cut-out drum. As soon as he came back to Japan Hosono released his third album “Taian-yoko” and in its title song he is playing the steel pan. “I was really happy, but I understand that Van Dyke didn’t like what he heard. I was told that he got angry and said something like, ‘don’t take American ethnic music instruments out of the United States.’ Nonetheless, I heard that he hung my ‘Tropical Dandy’ album on the wall of his house. I just think we were both curious about each other.”

How could someone think that Caribbean steel pans are a American instrument? “In Japan we had been ‘fantasizing’ about the pans from records for a long time. But in the case of Van Dyke, he had been ‘living’ the pans since his childhood, in the midst of a very international music scene in Hollywood. He was in the show ‘The Swan’ as a child actor, and ‘Calypso’ was a popular show at the time too, so he considered all that as American music.”

In July 1988, Van Dyke Parks came to Japan. Hosono was on stage with him as a bassist for the ‘Discover America Orchestra.’ “He called me to his room. He let me listen to a piece of music on a walkman. It was the music source for his 5th solo album ‘Tokyo Rose,’ which he was still working on. I thought to myself, ‘This lacks craziness’ but told him it was good. He seemed happy and embrassed. He was blushing. I realized at that point for the first time how good a guy he truly was!”

This article originally appeared in Paper Sky Number 6 (New York Urban Green: The City is a Jungle).

Originally, Hosono is from Minato, Tokyo.