catching up

Sorry for no posts lately....you've heard THAT before.

Work, work and work. But also some occasional good late-night work on my stamp collection.

One problem with the blog - I am getting a lot of comments, all in Chinese. And they often don't seem to match the content of the blog posts....then I noticed that one of them comes from an address with a link to a rather...unsavory....website in Taiwan.

To any legitimate posters of comments - please give me some time to verify the content before I put the comments on the blog to be seen by all.

Finally, while comments in Chinese are OK, how about some comments in English as well?

trading stamps

Last week I had an unexpected knock on the door.

Stamps from China! Praise to the mail carrier!

One of my long-term goals is to set up a network of stamp trading partners from various countries. Each of us has many duplicate stamps from the countries where we live. Why not swap those duplicates with each other?

I have lots of extras from Japan but almost no stamps from Country A. Someone living in Country A has lots of extras from their country, but few Japanese stamps. So it is perfect.

It helps to have a go-between, someone to act as intermediary. I am willing to take the risk of sending the first batch of stamps (what if the other person keeps the stamps but doesn’t send any back in return? Or what if they send stamps in poor condition?).

That is especially helpful when working across languages. I have had one very successful trade with an American. Gee, we both use English, no problem. And we had a good intermediary, someone who knew us both and introduced us.

Mr. H does not use English, but my Chinese is good enough at intermediate level (OK OK low intermediate…). Still, it was quite reassuring to have an introduction from someone who knows us both well and who is quite good in both languages.

I sent him a selection from Japan and other countries and he was quite satisfied. His selection for me was all Chinese stamps, just fine by me. Experienced collectors of Chiense postage stamps would not find much excitement in those Mr. H sent me, but I am just beginning to build my collection of Chinese stamps, so I was quite thrilled.

Likewise, the stamps which I sent him were not especially valuable or hard to find…for a person living in Japan. I think it is not so easy for him to get these stamps while living in his country.

I should mention a bit more about our intermediary, Mr. Wu, who was my tai ji quan instructor while I lived in China. Early every morning, we met and taught each other (English for him, tai ji quan for me). How could I have imagined at that time that I would, 10 years later, return to my childhood hobby and begin collecting postage stamps again?

日本語 hints:
unexpected = something unplanned, 思いがけない

duplicate = an extra copy (NOTE: this can be an adjective, noun, or verb)

swap = trade

go-between , intermediary = …の間の仲介

intermediate = 中級

reassuring = 安心させる

experienced = 経験を積んだ

thrilled = very happy about something. This is one of many –ED / _ING adjectives I have included. thrilled – thrilling; reassured – reassuring; sastisfied – satisfying, etc.

taijiquan = 太極拳, sometimes called “tai chi” in English

stamp art (2)

Here are a couple more pictures from the cut stamp art // kirie (切り絵) exhibition near my home. It is hard to see in the pictures from my camera, but the level of detail in the actual works is amazing.

Kirie can be made from any kind of paper – you cut strips of paper and arrange them in colorful patterns. When looked at from afar, they are quite beautiful. To me, they become even more beautiful when studied up-close. Then you can see how strips of individual stamps were placed together to make larger sections of color.


But I don’t think that kirie made from used postage stamps are very common. I hope to try it out with my daughter soon – they have a monthly session at the Tokyo Stamp Museum.

日本語 hints:

- exhibition = 展覧会、展示会
- from afar = from far away, from a distance
- up-close = well…up close. “close up” is frequently used (and mis-used!) in katakana English, but not “up-close”

Stamp Art

A couple months ago, I was wandering around the vendors' stalls at the Tokyo Stamp Museum when I noticed someone...it took me a while to place the face, then it hit me -- the security guard at a local community center.

I often go to martial arts practice at the community center and never got a word out of any of the security guards there. I suppose foreigners walking around with swords are not easy targets for conversation.

I must have passed by his post hundreds of times over the years, and not a word passed between us. And here he was, at the stamp museum. After a pause, I ventured a few words. Turns out he is a long-term stamp collector.

Since that time, we have exchanged words each time I visit the community center.

A couple weeks back, he tipped me off about an exhibition in the lobby: works of art made by cutting and arranging postage stamps (切り絵). I should post again later with more details, the name of the artist, and so on.

日本語hints
security guard = 警備員
martial arts = 武道、武術
tip someone off = tell them, give them information

Another stamp museum

Well sort of. I took my daughter to the “stamp show” at the Communications Museum near Tokyo Station. It was not what I expected, but the day turned out fairly well.

I had images of many dealers offering a wide variety of stamps and collecting equipment. Instead, there were a very small number of dealers with fairly limited inventory. But my daughter and I both dug deeply in the “10 stamps for 100 yen” basket and emerged with smiles.

These are the unwanted cast-offs from the dealer. Nothing valuable, to be sure, but much of interest to both my daughter and I. She stuck with her interests – large colorful stamps with animals and wildlife. Those, and old Soviet space glory stamps.

As for me, I scooped up a couple dozen oldies from countries which are under-represented in my collection, many countries from South America and Africa.

While at the museum we poked around all three floors but mostly we stuck with stamp stuff. For me, one of the most interesting exhibits was a collection of regional toys, specific to various prefectures in Japan, which have been featured on the annual New Years stamps (see photos).

We’ll probably go again next year, but with a better idea of what to expect, and more small change for the stamp basket.

Socialist Glory (2): Color

Every time I get a new pile of stamps, my daughter goes through them and gets first pick. I get the leftovers.

How does she choose? Bright colors are good, and things from nature: flowers, animals, more flowers. Anime characters. Maybe another flower (Japan issues so many flower stamps….) She grabs every stamp she likes and has built quite a backlog of unsorted stamps. The work of sorting them and putting them into albums is not as exciting as grabbing the stamps that grab her.

Recently I started trading with someone in the US and got a very nice batch of oldies, some 120+ years old. All old stamps, none colorful, none of interest to my daughter. My friend in Sweden just sent an assortment of recent Swedish stamps – all colorful, all nature-related. I am debating whether or not to show them to my daughter…

The stamp above is full of color. Not so interesting, really – oh boy, tractors in the fields! Workers unite! Yar! But it was issued in 1975 – China was still in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. It was not a colorful time in China – everyone wore drab Mao suits in subdued blues and greys.

And here is a stamp positively brimming over with vivid colors. I would like to know more about how such a colorful stamp was issued at that time in Chinese history.

日本語 hints:
- get first pick = to have the first choice, the initial selection
- leftovers = 残り物 – usually used for food (i.e. curry rice tonight, curry rice tomorrow morning, curry rice again the next night…)
- anime = anime. Like sushi and manga, this word is now used globally as part of English
- backlog = 未処理分, unfinished work, things left over to do
- something grabs me = it gets my attention (this stamp grabbed me); つかむ
- batch = a group, an assortment
- Cultural Revolution = 文化大革命
- drab = colorless, unexciting
- Mao suit = 人民服上下 (Mao = 毛沢東)
- subdued = 色等が和らげられた、地味な
- brimming over with xxx = completely full of; あふれている
- vivid = bright and splendid; 色があざやかな

二宮尊徳

I was walking around Tokyo after an all-day tai ji quan (太極拳) seminar and in the best of moods. I stumbled across a pair of statues, as seen in these pictures. So very different, this pair of famous figures from Japanese history.

西郷隆盛 Saigo Takamori, sometimes referred to as the “last true samurai”. He has had a sudden surge in popularity due to an NHK drama. I recently found a flyer for a mysteriously Saigo Takamori-themed shop in my mailbox.

Recently, I use him and 虻 chan in juxtaposition when teaching about non-verbal communication. His famous statue in Ueno Park never moves, has no facial expression, no hand gestures, etc. (= common communication style among my first-time students). Then there is Abu-Chan, one half of the xxx duo. She is a model of ample use of facial expression, hand gestures, and so on. So I use those two as opposite ends of a continuum.

二宮尊徳 Ninomiya Sontoku – his statues are often found in front of Japanese elementary schools – always reading a book while walking with a load of wood. = hard worker and earnest student. I read once that, while in abject poverty, he collected the grains of rice forgotten or discarded by others, and planted them on tiny plots of abandoned land. From those humble beginnings he rose to become a much admired and respected agricultural leader.

What does all this have to do with stamps? I was thinking about my current approach to collecting. I am gathering the discarded leftovers of others. I thrill to find a marked-down album with a few spare pages that a stamp dealer no longer needs. I thrill even more when walking home after purchasing a box with thousands of stamps from around the world for a very low price.

For the dealers, these are just unneeded duplicates with little or no value. But to me, they are the beginning of a new collection of stamps and have great satisfaction and value.

I wouldn’t begin to compare myself to Ninomiya Sontoku and his accomplishments, but the minor parallel - collecting the unwanted leftovers from someone else and creating something with them – struck me.

日本語 hints
stumble across = find unexpectedly
a surge in popularity = suddenly becoming much more popular
flyer = ちらし
juxtaposition = putting two opposites together, 並列
facial expression = 表情
continuum = spectrum, range, or 連続体 (but this is for math…)
statue = 象、彫像, etc.
poverty = having no money, 貧乏、貧困 (abject = extreme)
leftover = 残り物
purchase = buy
discarded = thrown away, not needed
duplicate = extra (unwanted) copy of something (this is adjective or 形容詞. This word can also be a verb with the same spelling but different pronunciation.