When I was going home from school one day in my hometown Shin-Okubo I saw a TV-team making some documentary. And then I noticed this girl from Iran that has become a Japanese TV-star. Her life story is so amazing you won't believe it...
When I had recently come to Japan I thought Japanese seemed almost impossible to learn, but then I saw a TV-show with this girl named Sahel Rosa. Her Japanese and way of acting was exactly like a native Japanese person so I got really chocked.
Here she is in a Japanese TV-commercial:
Lately Korean Pop music has become super popular in Japan, and especially this band "KARA". Their songs has been playing everywhere constantly and the fact that they are coming to Japan for a concert soon is the biggest news story in a long time.
So recently every TV-channel there is has been in Shin-Okubo(Korea Town) where I live to document this "Korean Wave" with the Korean Pop Idol shops packed everywhere etc. When I went up to Sahel and told her that I've seen her on TV and read about her in magazines she was so nice!
I read an article in the magazine Metropolis about her background story. When she was 4 years old her home in Iran was bombed and her mother, father and all of her 10 siblings died! :O
Sahel got buried under the masses from the house, but four days later somebody saw her hand sticking out of there so she was saved and miraculously survived!
After she lost her family she was in an orphanage for a few years but nobody wanted to adopt her. After appearing in an government-sponsored TV commercial asking people to become foster parents of war orphans the nurse Flora on the picture adopted her when she was 7 years old.
Flora's fiancé was Japanese so the next year Sahel moved to Japan with them, but the fiancé didn't seem to want Sahel in his life so he threw them out after three weeks and they had to live in shelter parks.
Sahel had to survive on the school lunches during the weekdays, and on the the weekends and holidays they could only eat food samples from super markets they give out to the shoppers. And in school Sahel was picked on by bullies.
Eventually she thought about commiting suicide, but she continued to struggle with learning Japanese, went to University and drama school and is now a model and has a leading role in Japan's entertainment world appearing in everything from documentaries and drama to commercials and game shows. Wow!!!
Some of the pictures and this information comes from the article about Sahel Rosa in the magazine Metropolis which you can read on their website here.
Here is a clip from a TV-show with Sahel:
Sahel has written a book named "From War Zone to Actress" and dreams about opening an orphanage in Iran.
It's so inspiring how she can keep up this good attitude and be so incredibly nice to everybody even though her whole family was killed, she was thrown out on the street and being bullied.
Hearing about her hardships make me feel like my own troubles in life is nothing. She really deserves everything good that comes to her!!^^
I've been really sick the last weeks, but being sick in Japan is no excuse for not being fashionable! ;) (I've not been fashionable at all though)
At the gigantic department store Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku they have all kinds of masks to protect yourself and your environment from being sick.
I remember when the swine-flue was everywhere on the news and pretty much everybody was wearing these masks. They even made it into fashion to look as sick as possible... XD At the picture above you see the CocoLulu staff in times of Swine-Flue.
The eye-patch is usually used when people have got red eyes from wearing color-lenses to much. It was pretty common for a while so they came up with eye-pathes that made you look like a pirate etc...
Taking these pain-killers, prescribed medicines and nose spray, plus wearing masks is pretty much everything I've been doing the last two weeks! :P I wonder if thos masks really help. What do you think?
According to the doctor I had something called "KinKinChouSeiZuTsuu". It means something like "Long Term Muscle Pain Headache" I think... Anyhow I haven't experienced so much Sagepoyo for many years! "KinKinChouSeiZuTsuu" is horrible!! :/
But now it's gone, and everythings is Agepoyo again!!^^
While suffering I've been playing the Wii-games Super Mario Galaxy and Last Story. Last Story turned out to be pretty good for learning Japanese since the characters chat with eachother through voice recorded conversations all the time while you play. So you kinda get a good feel for casual conversations. And we just had a big test in school so I've been studying a lot from my Japanese school Kai's text books. At least I learned some more Japanese while being sick. =)
One of the things we study in school is Kanji-words. Words written in Chinese characters. Appearently the word Kannon, which means "The Godess of Mercy" is where the brand "Canon" got its name from.
So this Japanese brand that makes some of the world's most sold cameras and printers...
...Is named after this godess. Kannon, the godess of mercy. This makes me wonder where Japanese brands like Sony and Nikon got their names from!?
In December when I were in Shibuya 109-2 a group of models and photographers from the Gyaru-O/Host Magazine Men's Knuckle came by and asked me to join in a photoshoot.
Me and one of the most famous Men's Knuckle-models Kenzou was supposed to look like we discussed somehing on an iPad. You can read more about the photoshoot here.
One of the pictures I took with Kenzou made it into the magazine's main article called "Shibuya Dream Story". It's about how the dreams came true for Men Knuckle's most famous models, and what they wish for the future.
So I'm in the part about Kenzou's "Shibuya Dream Story". Appearently he was born in Spain and moved to Japan when he was 8 years old. I've heard he's half Latin. His dream for the future is to get his own clothing brand.
Next to the picture it says that the models got acquaintanted with different kinds of people during the photoshoot.
The most famous and succesful host Ryoma is also part of the "Shibuya Dream Story". He now owns his own host club and is a designer.
I have never met that Ryoma, but THIS Ryoma I have met many times!^^ He's modeling for the MAYHEM-brand ELCID in the magazine.
He's the MAYHEM-staff I gave a Zlatan-shirt to in this entry.
Another guy that's in the magazine that I've met before is this Murder License model and Kingdom staff Masayama. Looking at the throwing star attached to his chain makes me wonder if all the Murder License-accessories looks like murder weapons..!?
With Masayama at the last Double Heart party.
This is what the cover of the magazine looks like! It's sold in pretty much every convenience store in Japan. I'm on page 29! =)
This guy with a overzised Rilakkuma hat has been wandering around in Shibuya and Shinjuku playing on his flute.
He doesn't ask for money or care about anything around him. Nobody knows what he want. I guess he just adore Rilakkuma and enjoy playing on his flute.
Here he just got a party invitation but he didn't wanna go.
Watch "The Real Rilakkuma" in action here:
I'm not sure who is more funny, The Real Rilakkuma or The Tiger Lady? You can read more about my encounter with The Tiger Lady here.
If you have been following this blog for a while you might remember when Hiroki, Ren and me met The Mad Hatter and Jack Sparrow. You can read about that here.
The Mad Hatter is a really outgoing person that likes to hang out in Kabukichou where all the hosts are in Shinjuku.
Last time I saw The Mad Hatter he was drawing great charcoal paintings. One of the paintings almost looks like his friend Jack Sparrow. Maybe he misses him?
My friend lately showed me pictures of him hanging out with hosts. Is that his new career!? ;D
An intresting person I've forgot to mention about is "The Amazing Soccer Fan" that runs around in a Japan's soccer uniform and has a Japanese flag sticking out of his backpack.
He's very easy to spot from far away!^^
My personal favorite is this guy that belives he has the super power to make people stop smoking. He was standing in the middle of Shibuya using the different instruments in the box behind him to achieve this. The maraccas is only one of his powerfuls weapons in the fight against smoking.
Well, I think his purpose is really good. In Europe it's forbidden with promotion of cigaretts, and on the packages it's scary pictures of polluted lungs etc. But in Japan the Tobacco companies are free to glorify smoking like this everywhere, with posters of fit cool people enjoying it... Not OK.
So it's not easy being the "Super Anti-Smoking Man" or whatever we should call him. After a while of hard work "Super Anit-Smoking Man" almost gave up and yelled: -"No matter what I do, you people won't stop smoking!!"
Maybe if The Real Rilakkuma, Tiger Lady, Mad Hatter, Amazing Soccer Fan and Super Anti-Smoking Man teamed up they could accomplish this mission!? :/
If they're the good guys, I guess this must be one of the villains! ;) It's so many fascinating people in Tokyo, that it sometimes feels like it's just a big experiment.
When she heard that I'm Swedish she said that two of her co-workers at Kiddyland in Harajuku where she used to work was Swedish.
Kiddyland in Harajuku. Appearently her Swedish co-workers "liked Japanese women too much". Not sure if she meant that was something positive or not, but at least she laughed about it... ;)
I have been really sick for more than a week now so that's why I haven't updated lately. :( I tried to find some Purikura that describes how bad I feel right now...
"Sick" Purikura... Right when I thought I was fine my condition got worse. Tried to write a blog post yesterday but gave up because my head ached too much.
I thought it wouldn't be any readers left since I haven't updated for a week, but I got really suprised and happy when I logged in yesterday and saw that it's still a lot of people checking this blog.
Thank you very very much and I'm so sorry that I haven't been updating or answering any comments lately! I can't believe I have such great readers!!^^
While being sick I have been playing the game Last Story, that was just released here. It's the best selling game in Japan right now, produced by Nintendo and the key people behind Final Fantasy.
The artwork is amazing as always in Japanese role playing games. It's important for Japanese people that the characters they play with are fashionable.
When I bought the game you could also try the new Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo 3DS lets you play games in 3D without any glasses on, and it works really well!
The only problem was that me and my friends felt a bit dizzy after playing, but maybe that will be okey when you get used to it? Anyhow you can adjust the 3D-effect using the switch on the right side of the screen.
Closeby they were working on a golden Mecha-robot. If you've been to Japan you probably guessed by now that all of this took place in the electric town Akihabara.
In one of the most famous game stores in Akihabara called "Super Potato" they have Super Mario comics in Swedish on the walls by the way!^^
Well now I have to go to school on pain killers which is soo Sagepoyo! :( Take care!!
