Little slow to be an official #PostboxSaturday but here’s a daily double / “pretty standard stuff” for the both of them but still love a Postbox and Payphone next to each other like old pals here in Okayama Japan
The three of us, on the road by wonderful, air conditioned, Wi-Fi enabled, Uno bus service into Okayama city for passport snaps for Ichiro. His first time on the bus and he’s really into it, waved to the driver, of course, (yup, like his papa).
Lots of fun at the photo studio, serious face and a sailor suit for two passports, two countries, two sizes… Then and outfit change (jimbei & barefeet) for a bit of a commemorative studio photo / just like my Mom used to do for us boys.
After photo studio, caught street jazz / sort of informal part “Okayama Jazz Street weekend” (Including a tenor sax, followed a car and upright bass combo, the bass played by the chief of “Live House Bird” where we hosted our “foreigner welcome party” before the wedding.
We’d never had a chance to thank him in real life – he was grateful for all the snapshots and awareness of our pals brewed up.
Stopped for tea at a place filled with older gents playing Shogi & Go + bought Ichiro a puzzle at one of those dusty forgotten stationery shop so I dig.
Oh, also bumped into several people we know, or wife knows… Starting to be a lot more action around the city, was also a sake festival and saw a gaggle of obvious foreigners, first time in a long long time, seem to be maybe a sports team?
[update: done-ish] All above unpictured for now, mebbe i’ll grab something from R‘s phone as my camera is broken but i did take the instax for 3 snaps.
Home now in the cool dark room with the little guy snoozing next to me.
As part of on-going documentation of various collections of payphones. this gallery features examples of phones in various states of use, captured “in the wild” around Japan, specifically featuring hotel house phones in Shimane and Ishikawa and related devices, plus a few other phone handsets of different circumstances and origins for your edification, lightly annotated.
Pardon any redundancies, this collection definitely includes several that just haven’t fit into previous archives but maybe one or two they already are out there, there’s too many to count anymore. In this wormhole, we range widely however from the Varley Trail in Lynn Canyon, British Columbia, to Indonesia, to Hong Kong, to points around Japan. Of course, you can find many more in various collections of payphones and related communication tools.
Hello to the people in the future,
What follows are public telephones created in a time when phones did not roam freely and in pockets. To make a call, one would either enter a specially-created booth (or box), or simply stand close by as the receivers were tethered to the phone unit by a short cord, then insert a variety of coins depending on the location called (local, domestic or international) or in some cases, use a purpose-made phone card, or even a credit card (though doing so often exposed one to fraudulent actors).
Perhaps you have already imagined the unsanitary nature of sharing a phone handset (placed next/close to ear and mouth of course) with strangers – though perhaps this increased “herd immunity” despite being rather unpleasant. Note that oftentimes the coin return slots were checked for forgotten change but the miner was surprised to find discarded chewing gum, or even-less-savoury items, instead.
In the various collections of payphones (as well as hotel house phones and other related analogue communication tools) throughout this archive, the devices are often scattered in variety of locations. However, this installment includes items observed on a visit to Nagasaki in February 2020 and includes payphones, a few phones at restos and inns as well as a few rather destroyed artifacts from “battleship island” (an inland turned mining facility).
In my first era in Japan, 1992-3 in Tottori, I vaguely heard about a “western” writer who had lived in nearby Shimane prefecture, had taken on Japanese name/identity and whatnot in a time that very few foreigners were coming into Japan and those who were diplomats, business people or missionaries and generally centred around Tokyo or other big cities.
I learned more about this character named left Lafcadio Hearn (Patrick Lafcadio Hearn / Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν, later Koizumi Yakumo) and was completely intrigued. I couldn’t imagine how he chose this wonderful yet far-flung location, and the logistics of getting out there and getting settled.
Learning more about his life realized his fantastically interesting life with checkpoints in Greece, Ireland, the Caribbean, New Orleans, the American midwest west (with a then-shocking *mixed race* abandoned marriage), coming to Japan on assignment for a magazine, quitting the magazine and going rogue, later teaching at a university where his position was usurped by noted Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki.
So when I returned to Japan in 2018, top of my list (besides hanging out at Mac Kobayashi’s goat farm) was to go to his museum. As it goes, I arrived to treacherous weather, typhoons, rain storms, flooding, landslides follow by a heat wave – all of which made my illness a little bit rough but, along came a girl, the girl.
Ryoko met me in Matsue, (i’ll always remember her walking down the steps of the station with her floppy straw hat and me saying “how about a picnic?”) and indeed, we rolled by bus out to the two museums: one was his former house and the next-door was a museum which was not photo friendly.
But first, a picnic on the banks of the moat around the castle that he would have looked at every day, waving to the tourists going past in boats, taking snapshots of the statues, payphones, and post boxes before going into the house and museum (2 different places).
Lafcadio Hearn Former Residence: https://goo.gl/maps/NSDc1wHnShU3D1Pq5
First off, the house was very pleasant to explore with his custom made writing desk which was surprisingly on tatami mats, and raised to accommodate his eyesight challenges. Around, the garden was well kept and in splendid bloom along with other pieces of his artwork, calligraphy and artefacts he collected and a friendly staff with a comment box.
Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum, Matsue, Shimane, Japan: https://goo.gl/maps/zu8MZtdP6uXDpMXW7
Continue reading Museum & Musings: Lafcadio Hearn (Yakumo Koizumi)’s residence etc. / Matsue, Japan, 2018
As will no doubt be *not shocking* I have quite-literally hundreds of photos of post boxes around the world, as well as other postal type artefacts – from “still lifes” of writing letters, to random global stamps, to paintings of post boxes etc. etc.
While I made a book out of some of the artifacts {Post’d: Letters to Elsewhere}, most don’t have a “permanent home” here in this creative life archive and well, it’s a bit of a daunting task to do *all of this all at once* so sometimes a collection just sort of falls together around a theme and says (metaphorically, i hope) “hey, this seems nice” and here is one of those times.
In this case, a few post boxes – both for sending and receiving – in and around my Tsuchida neighbourhood and Okayama at large, and a few other snaps that friends here sent me (i think, sometimes i don’t know if took the photo or someone else did, no offence intended if i mistook).
No doubt this post could go on and on but instead I’ll say, “Here are some postal items, please enjoy (and remix as desired)”.
Note: i have meant to start participating in #postboxsaturday Twitter activity, maybe this’ll help me start.
Continue reading Postboxes (and related items): mostly in/around Okayama, Japan
In the various collections of payphones (as well as hotel house phones and other related analogue communication tools) throughout this archive, generally the devices are in current use and from a variety of locations. However, this installment includes items observed in a single used artifacts shop in my *new home town* of Okayama.
As for these various phones, most I suppose were used in businesses or public settings, while some maybe were for home use, i dunno. The eras certainly range from early days of telephony, to some classic golden age design, to the rugged utility of 1970s.
You’ll notice various states of disrepair and jumbled-up-ness of display *and* there’s also a typewriter snuck in here. Carry on as usual, remix as desired.
Continue reading Collection: (Pay)phones (vol. 8) – junk shop in Okayama + typewriter
While assembling diaries about hospitals and massages in Phitsanulok Thailand, as well as general “field notes“, sorta rounded-up a variety of documentary images of post boxes (both outgoing and incoming), a few payphones, parking ticket dispensers, and other oddities. So, here they are for historical record, with little/no further annotation although the payphone may be included in existing archives.
Note: to be clear, some *may not* be in Phitsanulok (Chiang Mai?) and i may add some more later as i come across, as such, consider this a “Thai bucket” so to speak. Oh snapped with iPhone 4/5 and Lomo Sardine can camera for the most part. Lousy photos, interesting items.
Four portals of various kinds in Olympia Greece, 2017
You must be logged in to post a comment.