20th Anniversary Celebration

Chungju Traditional Orchestra - conducted by the 5 conductors who had served, opened by the Honorable Mayor Kim (whom turned around to greet me specially when his bodyguard realized it was me standing on the top of the steps as they were walking in).....great music and many twists and turns between the first notes and the last ones sung in the "norae bang"/singing room party hosted by the vice mayor, between whiskey "bombs" and old flames and calling a driver to drive me in my car back to my house (for less than a taxi) - a native of my neighborhood. There is magic, there is potential, in every positive glance, in ever opening of the heart that is full of acceptance for whatever is and whatever has been, and whatever will be.

Fame in the Rice Paddies

Tonight the Mayor of Chungju, Honorable Kim, Ho-bok, invited me to join the special dinner for delegates of the 11th Annual Chungju World Martial Arts Festival held at the Tangeumdae United Nations Park here in my rice paddy town...town of nearly half a million. What an event!! Professor David Lee Chomsky (his name is not actually Chomsky, he's just been dubbed that by foreign professors who have never had a conversation with him that did not include the word 'Chomsky', such is the obsession of an ardent linguist) accompanied me to the dinner, and good thing he was there to cue me to stand up and take a bow when the Mayor introduced my presence before 200+ hundred international military, political, and civilian delegates thanking me for hosting him and the Chungju musicians during their trip to New York last spring...or perhaps he mentioned something about the music center house restoration I'm undertaking while teaching here at Chungju - at least that is what I like to dream, and feel I do have his blessing and all flows easily on from there. It felt wonderful to have people coming by and greeting me warmly by name, musician friends from years ago and late nights in the Happy Noodle Shop after lessons at the Ureuk Music Center downtown, actually a pilot who was escorting the Chief of the US Military in Korea, Mr. Michael...something...and whom somewhere between our first handshake and last of the evening the young pilot had been promoted from Captain to Major. And the National Intangible Living Treasure, Mr.Cheon (do I remember his name correctly?), TaekYeon Martial Arts Master. The warmth is so genuine, like we had bonding experiences together and then boom here we are in very different roles that we know are just roles and enjoying peeking through the holes out of them.
At the table was Joel from France his interpretor, they ate out of each others' plates which seemed too overly cute and reminded me the day my 7th grade French teacher, Mrs.Lee, taught us the word for mistress. There was a man from Kerala, India, a very friendly Thai man whose wife is in Boston, and a Vietnamese gentleman whose right-hand lady translated every word spoken to him; the first couple of times they spoke I thought they said they were from "Vienna" and my mind was doing back-flips to try to make sense of that. We drank apple wine and quickly ate a feast of sushi, eel, kimchi, and basically every dish that could be available in Korea. At 6:30 they announced the participants of the festival should be at the stage to be announced at 6:20. Honorable Mayor Kim walked directly over to me to shake my hand again and say he got my letter (of course I followed up a visit to his office last week with a letter to thank him for his time and offer that he may call on me as a friend to assist him personally or city hall with anything while I am here in Chungju again), and he had very positive things to say about the apple pie which he shared with his wife!! (I told him I'll make more! I'm certain I'm going to be famous as Chungju AnnA for my Apple Pie made of famously delicious Chungju apples.)
We processed over gravel roads, all 200 of us, across the open dirt park to the gate to greet the participants, who were arriving from a parade downtown. It seemed like half of the citizens of Chungju were in the parade, perhaps more, banging gleefully away on drums - metal, wooden, skin, and whirling their whirl-tassle hats. The participants acted like it was the Olympics, waving and bowing and laughing and winking as they went through the lit up series of gates. Then something very strange happened, as I was heading back towards the main stage where the participants would be introduced. A city hall member in a business suit with a walkie-talkie literally bumped into me, and as he apologized he recognized me and said, "Anna?" And I looked at him trying to figure out if I knew him and how, but for the life of me couldn't place him (maybe by morning I will...it's now 10:20 and 5 hours after I told the Indian man from Kerala I knew some Mallayalam but couldn't pull it out of my mind, I remember what Sam in Muscat Oman taught me at the hotel, "sahodera" means "brother"). This man gave me an intense look, as if I had broken his heart and he couldn't believe I didn't say his name, and what was I doing back in Chungju and there's no way we could possibly say anything else as he was running to catch up with the mayor. After a long pause, I just said, "yes" and reached for his hand and we had a beautiful handshake. I think I recognize that look, because I had given it myself just last week. Hmmm..... Perhaps I best make myself prominent the next 7 days of the festival, that he may approach me again and refresh my memory. It's nearly starting to feel overwhelming, each semester alone I have about 300 students (times 7 semesters, so far), and now learning the hierarchy of the university professors, and City Hall, and the governor and chief of police and director of the korean committe of the UN, plus all the famous pop singers opening the ceremony....just smile, and smile, and smile and mean it, and have my gaze prepared when the Mayor or the Taekyeon master, or Major Oh, or my escort for the evening happens to turn to me. Suddenly thrust into political life, but being a-political, as my mom says, and not really having any political agenda, though I suppose there are links between my restoration music house project and the governnor's office (can we say 'government grant money for restoration') and the UN and, and, and.... David is a great guide into political life, as he knows the background of when so and so representative was involved in this or that branch of the central government and precisely how many years back he met them....but when it comes to the people easy to overlook....he's not good with names, not only is the secretary to the top man THE person who's name to know, he's also the most important to endear oneself to (can we say 'in control of scheduling EVERYTHING').
What else? Ah, nothing else, I guess...until tomorrow....and I didn't even mention last night...out at the "philharmonic" and last weekend nearly proposing to someone who's drunken (and amazingly musical) brother was sticking acupuncture needles into my hand from across the table after the concert......retreating to my office and waiting for the change at the strike of midnight when it turns into a DISCO and I listen to Rihanna over 10 or 20 times singing along with "take a bow", snapping as I saunter across the floor as if it's my ghetto and everyone knows I'm a goddess (because we all are). Life back in motion, and alive again, and waiting and in awe as step by step pieces come together and together....and all the rejections of the week pile up and make me happy because they free me and I go on! Happy Eid Mubarak....

Phone # of the Moment. . . .

Do you know where I am???
I am right here on the other side of your computer screen...
(786) FIRE4Uok! (well minus the k and !) If I don't answer, you can guess I'm sleeping....or otherwise occupied....^^ (that's the Korean symbol for smile; insinuation of a wink) Leave me a message....if I don't call you back....well just keep calling, I'll be so happy to hear your voice....

7 month 7 night

Tonight is the LUNAR date July 7 which is a special evening in Korean lore. I have to admit, being American (strange as it sounds for me to admit, I usually think of myself as Indian, even some of my best American friends think of me as Indian), I celebrate SOLAR dates....so I already celebrated 7/7 on July 7th....way out in the romantic countryside, beyond the corn fields near a babbling stream under a sky with a million stars and a totally sweet, and very hot, barely English-speaking guy. The legend of 7/7 is that there were once 2 young lovers that were so in love they ignored all of the work they were supposed to do, so God banished them to two opposite sides of the vast sky and allows them to meet only one night a year. On that night, black birds form a bridge from one side of the sky to the other and the two lovers are allowed to reunite. They say usually it rains on 7/7 because the two are so sad that they have to part again. There was no rain this time.... I first heard of this legend when I was leaving Korea to go back to live in NY in 2005. It so happened that because I was flying between time zones on that night, I was able to experience 7/7 twice! Now with my new scheme of celebrating SOLAR and then LUNAR dates....I not only can enjoy 7/7 twice, but it:s also about to be my birthday week again!!! Woo-hoo!!! So, wherever you are, whoever you`re with, enjoy something and send your celebrations through the ethers to me for LUNAR July 12 which falls on August 12!!

NAGOYA Curry

The English version of the air stewardess' announcement before takeoff "In the event of a collission, air masks will drop from above your head" was almost as scary as when flying with Korean Air a few years previous when the pilot himself spoke with his loose understanding of the difference between "l" and "r"..."Radies and Gentremen, this is your Pirate speaking, welcome and enjoy your Fright"!! English as a second language jokes aside, the best announcement was probably when flying from Tucson to Phoenix, Arizona, "In the VERY unlikely event of a water landing...in the desert....your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device...."

So, you'll never guess where I am....I'm sitting just outside of the automatic sliding glass doors which are shaking from the extra bass of Bollywood R&B, of the Sports Bar which belongs to the nephew of my late Indian sarangi teacher, in downtown Nagoya, Japan. It was a rather last minute trip, I had been planning to return to China while my visa is still good, along with my new Scottish jazz guitarist, and wend my way to Yunnan Province in the far southwest and meet musicians in Dali, then head back north to Xinjiang to Kashgar and over the border into the hidden paradise of Hunza where a whole town of musicians is awaiting. But the plan had to change...perhaps for reasons too complex and related to the web of human destiny for me to ever comprehend.

The too cool for their own hairdoo Indian bro`s are very busy entertaining, so I`ve been left to my own and have basically discovered "shopping" as consolation to this. The magic hues of purple that were all the rage in Milano last winter have reached the Orient, and I managed to find some very impressive sales going on.... Trying things on, the store employees make a ceremony out of taking items off the hanger and handing them over to customers in the dressing room. After buying items, the clerk then walks the client to the entrance and on the portal hands over the finely wrapped and sealed bag. Walking into a restaurant, for hot sake and salty chicken wings, guests are "announced" with a frenzy of yelling by every employee ("foreigner has come into our restaurant and sat down in the front left side table, welcome, welcome" repeated 4 times over).

The most perplexing news to report is that my very dear Japanese artist friend whom I met when I was first in Japan in spring 1997 on tour with a small group of shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) players from NY (I played sarangi and sang a song with dulcimer that had a verse in Japanese translated by Hide (the Newburgh poet and artist) that people sang along with, and played Darius and Ron`s crystal bowls).....this is a long run-on sentence to say that Nakae San, perhaps the most interesting person I have ever had the honor of knowing, is now looking on from the stars. It feels surreal to be in Japan without him, it is not Japan to me anymore. He had dubbed me "Comet Angel" which I use as my stagename and website URL, and carved a stone time capsule for me which was cemented into the front portal of his traditional house in Kyoto, it has been 10 of the 20 years til opening Christmas 2018. When he first sent me pictures of the time capsule I thought he was crazy, but I was touched and decided to create a celebration and invite all friends in my life to come to Kyoto for the opening and celebrate friendship.

I believe before returning to dig into the Korean World Music House project in Chungju, I will go to Kyoto to meet Minooka San and visit Nakae San`s resting place and pray at the Shinto forest shrine famous for it`s endless towering orange gates, Fushimi Inari, eat some ice cream, and perhaps climb Mount Fuji very slowly over the course of a couple of days with my Australian friend, Brad, who was my first roommate in Korea when I moved to Seoul to be a "music teacher" in 2002 - he was the "art teacher" but unofficially we were both simply baby-sitters trying to keep the kids from hurting each other as we sat around waiting for our boss to call in friend after friend to borrow enough money to pay our salary.

From Strikers Sports Bar and Grill, Iqbal`s spicy curry bar in Nagoya....sending love....