Self Introduction

Name

Alli Hemp

Hometown

Smithtown, New York

Majors & Minor

East Asian Studies, Psychology & Japanese

Class of

2017

Why are you taking this class?

To fulfill my graduation requirements

Because I love taking classes with Mizenko Sensei

Because I enjoy learning about Japan & its culture, and I'd like to do just that!

What aspects of Japanese culture?

The nuances of daily Japanese life as compared to western countries that often go unnoticed

Experience?

I have had the privilege to travel to Tokyo over the summer, experiencing firsthand daily life and language

Image making

I enjoy drawing images with pencil and colored pencil. I typically draw using manga style, however recently it has shifted to some sort of cartoon hybrid.

Images

This image features some decorations for the annual star festival in Japan. When I visited the country over the summer, I happened to be there for a portion of the celebrations. I had the opportunity to see many of the decorations as well as participate in some festivities. I wanted to include an image of this to emphasize the effect Japan had on me as well as some of the beauty I had the privilege to witness. For me, this image represents happy memories. I wanted to choose something simple--like we investigated in the last post, there are many grand and beautiful things about Japan. However, I wanted to zero in on something specific. Japan has hundreds of festivals, and you can always find a festival in Japan. So really, the star festival isn't all that unique. This is why I chose it; when lost in the shuffle of festivals, one of them in particular is important to me. This is why this image of Japan appeals to me when in another context it could just be another festival to someone.

This is not a screenshot from a movie I watched for another one of Mizenko Sensei's classes, Japanese film. The title was "I Was Born, But..." and the scene occurs after conflict within the family. The film class really opened my eyes to scene analysis, and so I had more interest in this visual culture class since I had some experience dissecting frames and the meaning behind everything they encompassed. Between the closeness of the couple and their children, the expressions on their faces, even down to the angle of the camera and the layout of the frame, the scene emanates a level of intimacy not shown before in the film and not often present in Japanese culture. I really enjoyed analyzing the depth of the work that goes into these frames, and I hope to come to appreciate the same in what we look at in this class. Japanese film appeals to me based on the deep themes that often go with them, as well as typically being set in Japan with all of its beauty and culture.

For the last image, I chose some artwork done by myself. I tend to do very simple work, only featuring one subject with no background because I can't draw backgrounds lol typically in black and white. I do however do color images using colored pencils and ink outlines, but that is the extent of my abilities. In this picture, I drew some fan art from the show Mermaid Melody, one I frequently watched and re-watched throughout my school days. I chose this specific one not only because I feel proud about the way it came out, but also because it symbolizes one of my guilty pleasures: useless girly fodder with fantasy and frills and no deep meaning to ruin my overbearing optimism and overall carefree outlook on life I'm looking at you Mizenko. All in all, there's always room to improve, but the real point is that I really like mermaids and fantasy and silly cartoons that make me feel happy for no good reason. This image appeals to me because it represents something that makes me happy, and was important to me growing up.