New layout! (sort of)

If you're reading this on my blog's main page, you might notice a few differences. Hella Angeleno is now Hella 日本　(that's "Nihon" or "Japan" for the majority of you reading my blog), and the layout has changed! I'm not 100% sure about all this floral nonsense, but all the solid colors I tried made my blog look like the website for the historical society, so for now it stays. I suppose that is a risk of using this particular photo in the header... it's not exactly, you know, edgy. But too bad, I'm keeping it!

Speaking of the photo--it was taken sometime in the 1950s in Niigata, Japan. The lady on the right is my great-grandmother, Shige Sakuma. You can't tell from the cropped version, but in the original photo it's clear that she's the American visitor, with a nice bag and shoes. I have no idea who the other people in the photo are.

I don't know if any of you have read the book Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (or seen the movie with Elijah Wood, which is probably more likely), but I suddenly find myself in the same position as the "hero" of that book. He's full of romantic visions of his family history; he steps off a plane in the country of his ancestors, with only a black-and-white photograph to guide him--and is immediately greeted by a flatulent dog and a guide whose English he can barely understand. No one is interested in his family; they just want to know if everyone in America is rich and has a giant penis, and require multiple explanations when he asks for a vegetarian dish in a restaurant (he ends up with potatoes). As crazy as it sounds, this is what I want--to bring my connection with Japan into the present, no matter how mundane or absurd the results. I'm not interested in lying to people about my "samurai ancestors"; I want to see rice fields.

(And rice fields I shall see. Hooray inaka!)