March 2005 Issue by The Pearl

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Letter from Guest Editor LILI CASTILLA Letters to the Editor

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30 Days Left MITSUKO TAKAHASHI Unveiling the Heart of A Lion REI KANEMURA Insaka, Soka’s First Africa-Centered Club, Holds Debut Event RYO KONDO Garbage In, Gold Out Composting on Campus... SALLY MacWILLIAMS and ADITI RAO

Featured Artist SUNNY SEO

How to Get Dog S#$t Smell Out of Your Nose MONICA KAWAI

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The Punky OC WANDILE MKHUSILE “Million Dollar Baby” Wronged in Recent Review: An Opinion VICTORIA KRAUS Music Review Laura Cantrell MICHAEL O’MALLEY Nicole Chu’s Potty Break On People Crushes

Valentina Tereshkova First Woman in Space DAISAKU IKEDA

Cover by Gonzalo Obelleiro

Letter From the Editor Karen Castilla Roca

local Kashmiri carpet dealers out for Christmas dinner. So we’ll have three Muslims, two Jews and a Buddhist, which sounds like the beginning of an airplane joke, but may be a good way to wish peace on earth - or at least in Kashmir. Danny.” As a war correspondent in Bosnia in 1999, Danny witnessed up-close the horrors of war. Mariane writes that “war held no appeal for Danny or for me. What interested us was the challenge presented by peace. Both Danny and I saw our profession as a way to contribute to dialogue, to allow voices on all sides to be heard, and to bear witness”.

On February 22nd 2002, Daniel Pearl was murdered by a fundamentalist Islamic group in Karachi Pakistan while working on a story for the Wall Street Journal. Three years have passed since news of his death spread around the world after a month of intense media coverage of his kidnapping. In one of the last pictures taken of him, Danny is looking down with a gun pointed at his head. Danny’s captors wanted to show him as a defeated, hopeless person, so as to instill fear and push for their demands. But Danny’s reaction was the complete The world was introduced to Mariane Pearl at the same opposite of what they expected. He defied his captors time a video surfaced which brought Danny’s horrific with the simple gesture of his smile. His wife Mariane murder to a violent closure. She was seven months pregnant with their first baby and 34 said that, “While everyone else around years old when she became a widow. me saw the gun, I saw the smile.” Also a journalist and an award winning Our development and filmmaker, Mariane showed the same Since his early days at the Wall Street growth in part depends strength and resolution that Danny Journal, Danny was known as a dedihad when facing his own death. She upon mutual exchange cated, clever man who delighted the decided to stand up and overcome the paper’s audience with his “a-heads”, between students, facpain of his loss by raising her voice for peculiar articles that are published in ulty and the community peace. Using dialogue as a weapon and the middle of the front page. People rooted in the spirit of exhibiting an optimistic attitude that who knew him say that Danny’s jourDanny Pearl. resembled Danny’s, she confronted nalistic style combined objectivity, sindespair and grief head-on after his gular humor, and passion for his work, death. By letting people know about whether he was reporting the case of a his struggles, his commitment to his work, and his love “lost-and-then-found Stradivarius violin” or his more for life, Mariane opened a window to all those who recent critical and insightful reports as a Middle East correspondent. They also say that he loved his work wanted to take a look into his passionate life. and was optimistic even in the hardest circumstances. In a world that is often full of deceit, ambiguity, and Danny’s legacy is the driving force of The Pearl. Our deselfish interests, the legacy of Daniel Pearl is a challenge velopment and growth in part depends upon mutual to the pessimism some people seem to live comfortable exchange between students, faculty and the community with. For those of us who didn’t get a chance to know rooted in the spirit of Danny Pearl. In this issue we him that close, the person we can turn to take a look at commemorate women in every field of society, women Danny’s average yet remarkable life is his wife, Mariane. who reject the temptation of becoming victims of negative circumstances; women like Mariane Pearl. In the We hear that behind every man there is a greater mayhem of finals, papers, graduation preparations, and woman. The story of Danny and Mariane Pearl proves our own daily issues, let us all keep a positive attitude it so. In her book A Mighty Heart, Mariane says that with a smile. As Mariane writes, “No matter what hapDanny’s keen sense of humor was one of his most dis- pens, Danny used to joke: Don’t lose your smile okay? tinguishable traits. She shares some of the correspon- We’re going to get bald and fat and old, but you can’t dence Danny maintained with his conservative Muslim lose that smile.” Until this day she hasn’t, and neither friends: “Wishing you a happy Christmas, Hanukkah, should we.■ and Eid. Mariane and I are taking my colleague and our 1

Smoking on Campus

am mildly agitated and slightly upset. There is an epidemic running rampant here at Soka University of America at Aliso Viejo (SUA-AV). It isn't the crazy bouts of food poisoning/flu that have been popping up and taking people down every few days, and it isn't the mass slaughter of innocent baby snails that call our sidewalks their home. It is the tobacco epidemic. Everywhere you look there are smashed baby snails and healthy young global citizens filling their lungs with smoke. Stress, peer pressure, a nervous tick; whatever your excuse is, it isn't good enough! There is no excuse to light up and smoke your life away. So what if you only do it occasionally. Yea right, I'm sure you're not addicted. I've heard you say that you'll quit in a few years; that's all a load of crap. Need a way to fill your time? Read a book, write an angry editorial, play a video game, but DON'T SMOKE! With every puff, you might be shortening your life by a few minutes, a few days, hell, maybe even a few years. And even if smoking isn't your cause of death, it sure will kill your social life. With your yellowish-brown teeth, your nicotine stained fingers, the constant stench of smoke in your hair, on your clothes, from your mouth and fingers. Eww...who wants to kiss that?! And are you killing your friends too? Influencing them to light up? Or maybe just smoking while they're around? You know that second- hand smoke kills too, right? You could be slowly killing your best friend. Do you care? Maybe not. So, even if you don't give a damn about your own life, and you don't even give a damn about your best friend, care about something. STOP THIS EPIDEMIC and save the baby snails!! --Anonymous Farting: Noise without Substance

owever inappropriate this title may sound, I feel it reflects rather accurately the current state of Soka University. Could the Soka mission statement possibly be likened to a fart? Something that is indeed heard, but just as unsubstantial as air? “The mission of Soka University of America is to foster a steady stream of global citizens committed to living a contributive life.” As my first year as a Soka student comes to close, I feel the need to share my thoughts regarding this university. To be quite honest, I feel that many practices of this school are inconsistent with the schools mission statement. Furthermore, I believe that the students are responsible for alleviating these inconsistencies. Some examples of such inconsistencies: 1. None of the suppliers of Soka products in the

book store are monitored by an independent association that ensures the products were made under fair labor conditions. All the Universities of California have non-sweatshop clothing. And yet Soka, a school that prides itself on its attention to humanism, does not. 2. The amount of water it takes to maintain the ‘beauty’ of this campus. 3. The amount of energy wasted by keeping the Athenaeum and Dorm 375 well lit during the night. The best aspect of Soka is that the students' opinions are taken into consideration regarding the administration of this school. Therefore we are obligated to be active. We are training to be 'global citizens' thus we must deeply understand that everything is interconnected. This means that in order to contribute to society we must have the compassion to act for the well being of those who are suffering in distant places. I feel the need to ask these questions: Do we, as Soka students, have enough compassion to: -Buy non-sweatshop clothes because we refuse to support human right abuses? -Refuse to support slaughter houses because we understand that animals can suffer and feel pain? -Buy recycled and fair trade products because we know that as consumers we have the choice to not contribute to the destruction of the environment? Perhaps most importantly, do Soka students realize that the power of change lies in their hands? Or do we ignore these seemingly mundane but critical issues for the sake of convenience? I want to urge every student that we are responsible for actualizing the mission statement. Also, I would like to stress that although we may feel that it is impossible for us to do everything, this cannot be used as an excuse to do nothing. Any step in a positive direction (however minute) is imperative. I know it is difficult to constantly remind ourselves of the suffering in this world. But it is necessary to foster enough empathy to act for the possibility of peace. A few of Soka clubs are actively trying to fulfill the school’s mission—this is a good start. But we must always be mindful that if we succumb to passivity we have cannot claim that Soka University embodies its mission statement. Let's all persevere together to organize and inform ourselves so that we can ACT! Every action we take could be a catalyst for change. --Katie Widlund (‘08)

30 Days Left I rub my eyes and look again. Does that say 30? It was only yesterday that we were freshmen. And it was only a blink ago that our graduation-countdown sign read 100. While the rest of the Soka University of America at Aliso Viejo (SUA-AV) community views those digits as a countdown toward a monumental day in the history of Soka Education, what are the members of the first graduating class thinking? I have less than 30 days to finish my Capstone! Like many seniors, Elizabeth Dawson’s (’05) attention is heavily devoted to her Capstone project. With the hope that her senior thesis may one day assist her—as well as other general education teachers—in helping “atrisk” students become “at promise” for academic success, Dawson says, “I’m constantly reading, reading, and reading to teach myself all that I can about the subject of ‘at risk’ students. When I’m not reading, I’m examining nearby elementary schools, building their profiles and completing my Capstone paper outline.” Focusing on migrant deaths at the US-Mexico border, Sara Sawairi (’05) is also in the midst of data collection and writing. “I’m gathering statistics on the migrants who have passed away so that I may produce a policy report which identifies patterns and proposes ways of preventing further deaths from occurring at the border.” At this 30-day mark, Sawairi has been experiencing a bit of apprehension. “I’m a little anxious about finishing my Capstone … I just really need to push myself so I can complete it in time.” Similarly, Monica Ohtsuka (’05) has been grappling with high anxiety and stress these days. On top of analyzing the policies of the US-Mexico and MexicoGuatemala borders for her study on human trafficking, Ohtsuka is juggling exhausting thoughts about her

30 days...30 days...30 days...

What’s on the senior’s mind? Capstone? Life?

By Mitsuko Takahashi

Thoughts of the future…Finishing Capstone...determination ...stress...time...

“I’m anxious, hopeful, stressed,

happy, worried, and afraid. I’m slowly but surely finishing my Capstone outline, but I’m also preparing for life after graduation. As an international student, there are many issues I have to face … I’m mentally preparing myself to be able to face tougher challenges than what this year has had to offer. I think the best is yet to come for me.” - Vincent Mapili (‘05)

post-SUA-AV life. “I’m experiencing overwhelming stress from all the things I have to do: Capstone, job searching, searching for fellowships in international affairs … I’m too busy to think about graduation.” The majority of seniors, it seems, are in the same boat. Vincent Mapili (’05), whose research aims at promoting positive policies that may boost economic development in underdeveloped countries, is constantly experiencing a multiplicity of emotions. “I’m anxious, hopeful, stressed, happy, worried, and afraid. I’m slowly but surely finishing my Capstone outline, but I’m also preparing for life after graduation. A an international student, there are many issues I have to face … I’m mentally preparing myself to be able to face tougher challenges than what this year has had to offer. I think the best is yet to come for me.” Justin Sasaki (’05) is building his Capstone literature review, thinking about life after graduation, and trying to succeed in four additional classes. “I’m overwhelmed with preparation for so many things. I’m looking for work, searching for apartments, and taking care of financial responsibilities that are

killing me.” His Capstone, which concerns the problem of sex trafficking in Indonesia, will prove useful to him in the near future: “My ultimate goal for this project is to establish a firm, wellrounded understanding of sex trafficking in South East Asia, because in the future I intend to work at an NGO related to anti-sex trafficking, sustainable development, or human rights.” Though few, other seniors are already nearing the end of their Capstone research. “I’ve completed about 90% of my research and written a substantial portion of the paper,” explains Nathan Gauer (’05). Gauer’s Capstone examines the way in which Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, and the Lotus Sutra examines the issue of evil and human responsibility. Although Capstone receives most of his attention, Gauer has also been thinking about graduation day. “I believe that the last two months are a test for seniors to see how serious we were about being founders of SUA-AV. The way we end our time here will, in part, determine whether or not we were successful as founders. I feel responsible to ensure that this is the best graduation and that seniors have no regrets.” As they enter the final stretch of our journey through SUA-AV, seniors are working harder than ever to ensure a victorious departure and, especially at this point in time, produce a final project that encapsulates the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired here. However, how each senior defines his/her own victory varies based on individuals. What else, then, are seniors thinking when they see the countdown in the cafeteria? Just 30 days left till graduation? Just 30 days left till I turn in my Capstone? Just 30 days left here with my best friends? Let’s take the time to ask each other this question before another blink goes by.■

By Rei Kanemura

Photo courtesy SUA Community Relations

Unveiling “The Heart of a Lion” ith nearly 100 students participating, the finale of the 4th International Festival will be the largest student performance in the history of Soka University of America at Aliso Viejo (SUAAV). It is the first-ever joint performance by several on-campus clubs and creative arts groups. Soul Wings, the Orchestra Club of Soka, Rythmission, Hawaii Club, Ghungroo, Eat Art, Taiko Club and ONE are going to present “The Heart of a Lion.” Neither a musical nor a play, it is a musical production, as logistics chairperson Naoko Shimbo (’05) puts it. At the kick-off meeting, when Soul Wings and the Orchestra performed the song “The Circle of Life” for the first time, it brought some of the audience to tears. The president of Rhythmission Lavina Asabushi (’07) says, “This allowed other clubs to see and encourage one another for the success of each group.” At this kick-off meeting held in the beginning of March, Shimbo, along with three other seniors, revealed the entire plan of this musical production: through music and dance, the clubs will perform a show inspired by the Broadway musical “The Lion King.” Although the show is based on the Broadway musical and Disney movie, the performers intend to expand its themes and apply them to the International Festival. Keiko Kubo (’05), serving a dual role as a logistics committee member and Rythmission dancer, believes that the SUA-AV production will create something original that is not conveyed by the Broadway musical. Photo by Taeko Kishimoto There is a certain “openness” in the plotting of the show, which also incorporates fine arts in each scene. Shimbo hopes that future shows will involve an official art department. While the original musical favors African music in particular, “The Heart of a Lion” features Hawaiian music, Indian music and hip hop on the same stage, trying to encompass the various cultural flavors present at SUA-AV. According to Kubo, there’s a possibility that flag performers and jazz dancers will also join the production. Overall, the production aims to combine every group’s creativity into a single whole. “We wanted to express our [SUA-AV students’] lives to the community,” Kubo says. The unique variety of performing groups, beyond 5

just entertaining the audience, will also match a philosophy important for the International Festival: cherishing diversity. Kubo acknowledges the difficulty of incorporating a wide range of creative arts in one single show. Commenting on the complexity of the production, she lists technical difficulties and balancing multiple performances without a solid script. To keep the general flow and order as clear as possible, the logistics department placed each group in a scene where it can fully display its unique ability. Sheldon Gomabon (’08), who is involved in Soul Wings, Hawaii Club and Rhythmission, appreciates this opportunity of joining different clubs together because of his desire to study performing arts in general and music theater in particular. Those taking the responsibility for leading this event are currently all seniors. As a senior who has less than two months to graduation, Yuta Yanagisawa (’05) says that he wants to create history at SUA-AV. “What I want to contribute is not a tradition that future students will follow, but an opportunity for them to continuously create something new.” Acknowledging that the performers may wonder about the meaning of the event, Yanagisawa hopes that both audience and participants will apply the ideas in “The Heart of a Lion” to their own living experience. For the participants in the production, he wants them to understand and experience the themes of the original musical – courage, strength, joy, hope, friendship and victory – through interacting with each other. Referring to one of the mottos of SUA-AV, “Foster leaders of culture and the community,” he dreams that SUA-AV will contribute to and enrich the local culture of the Aliso Viejo community. Shimbo defines that “the heart of a lion means to expand our hearts.” Through discovering the potential of SUA-AV and its students, “The Heart of a Lion” aims to challenge participants and audience members to rethink their own limitations. On the day of the International Festival, all activities will finish by no later than 3:45PM so that everyone can clean up their booths, walk to the gym and enjoy the student production together. At 4:00PM, come see to what degree SUA-AV students have embodied “The Heart of a Lion.”■

Photos by Taeko Kishimoto

Insaka, Soka’s First Africa-Centered Club, Holds Debut Event By Ryo Eugene Kondo

Photo by Ryo Kondo

Insaka held its first official event at Soka University of America at Aliso Viejo (SUAAV) on March 10 entitled “Experience Africa Awareness Evening.” According to Insaka president Vincent Mapili (05), the event’s main purpose was “to bring the issue of poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa to the Insaka table so that people can discuss and share their opinions on those issues.” The word "Insaka" comes from the Zambian language of Lenje. It means a place (like a hut) where the elder men and women of a village or community come together to discuss pressing issues. The event was organized in collaboration with Be The Cause, a social awareness organization whose members recently participated in a service-vacation to South Africa and Kenya. During the event, the four attending members (Mahsa Abassi, Gianna Bartholomew, Michele Benderra and Michael Clark) recounted stories of working in Africa with children who have contracted HIV. To Mapili, “The personal experiences by members of Be The Cause in Africa were an invaluable addition to the event. They had encouraging discoveries and stories to tell that were motivating.” The event included other activities, such as a skit depicting how certain aspects of African social culture help to spread HIV/AIDS, and also a screening of Left Behind, an award-winning documentary which shows the devastating effects of AIDS and pov‘...the event’s main purpose erty in Africa. The documentary depicted the was ‘to bring the issue of povharshness of life in three specific poverty and erty and HIV/AIDS in Africa to AIDS-ridden areas: an orphanage that cares for HIV/AIDS infected children, Nairobi’s largest the Insaka table so that people slum Kibera, and urban Kenya where 100,000 can discuss and share their kids live on the streets. Virtually the whole audiopinions on those issues.’ ence was left in tears after the screening of the documentary. Bartholow commented, “I probably could have cried non-stop watching the effect of HIV/AIDS on children in South Africa, and the misinformation that's been presented to many in Africa concerning how HIV/AIDS is transmitted.” Insaka’s creation is partially the result of a conversation Mapili had with Dean of Faculty Michael Hays, regarding why there are no Africa-related studies at SUA-AV. According to Mapili, “Personally, I think an African studies class would be equally important as Pac Basin, Latin American studies, American government and Asian literature in the creation of a well-rounded 7

global citizen.” Because it is unlikely that an African studies program will develop in the near future due to a lack of appropriate faculty, Mapili took it upon himself to create Insaka, “a club not only for Africans but for everybody at SUA-AV and the surrounding community that wants to be part of the solution to the problems facing Africa.” The Insaka club is already planning future events, and is currently organizing an African Culture Day. There will be dancing, music and samples of African cuisine from Ghana, South Africa, Zambia and possibly Kenya. The club will also

‘Personally, I think an African studies class would be equally important as Pac Basin, Latin American studies, American government and Asian literature in the creation of a well-rounded global citizen.’ present a movie and a brief history of a selected African country. The time and location for this event are still to be announced. There will be another opportunity to attend a joint Be The Cause/Insaka collaborative event at the Turtle Rock Community Center in Irvine on April 30. The event will feature the experiences of the seventeen Be The Cause members who participated in the service vacation, and will also include a special guest, a traditional African dance, and an African drum circle. This event is also being held in collaboration with the Baha’i community.■ 8

Composting on Campus for a Sustainable Future

By Sally MacWilliams and Aditi Rao In the spring of 2004, students in the Sustainable Development Learning Cluster searched for ways of using the organic waste generated on campus to create value. They decided to focus specifically on food waste because, unlike other categories of waste, organic waste does not require additional energy or processes to be recycled. Under proper conditions, organic waste naturally decomposes and forms fertile, nutrient rich soil. This soil can then be utilized for on-campus gardens. The GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) computer science principle, which means “what you see is what you get,” might work in our consumerist world of computers and technology. However, in the natural world, this kind of thinking is simply an illusion used to disguise a narrow and unsustainable world view. In nature nothing is wasted; nature works in cycles—“waste” created by one form of life sustains another. In essence, the composting members’ motto is “Garbage In is Gold Out.” Last year, a study by Chie Okada (’07) and Nobue Nakaura (’07), members of the environmental science class, found that the average weight of food wasted in SUA-AV’s cafeteria was 221 lbs per day. With the addition of a hundred more students, the quantity of wasted food has increased greatly. Although leftovers can be reduced, a large portion of organic waste, such as vegetable peels and egg shells, are thrown away during food preparation. Currently, this waste is buried in landfills where it does not have enough oxygen to decompose. According to Jesse Guthery, manager of Bon Appetit, food waste from the cafeteria makes up an average of one-quarter of the total campus waste, which is equivalent to one truckload every month. It’s a shame to let all of this natural gold go to waste. During last spring’s Learning Cluster, leftovers were collected from the Every time we think of throwing cafeteria and the kitchen. In the besomething away, let’s remind ourselves ginning, only vegetables, fruits, that there is no ‘away’ to throw it breads and pasta to—our waste is taken out of our were composted. Meat and dairy view, but it does not disappear. were not because

they required a special, more complex, composting process. Every night the food-waste was taken to a composting site near Parking Lot A. Two composting techniques were used to break down the cafeteria waste. Some was buried in trenches, whereas the rest was formed into compost piles. A solution of naturally occurring, beneficial microorganisms was added to each compost heap in order to speed up the decomposition process. After the summer holidays, the class was delighted to discover rich, black, soil waiting for them. There was even a bonus prize of melon and pumpkin plants which had sprang up from seeds which had been thrown away with the food waste! Compost soil has many environmental benefits in addition to simply reducing the amount of waste thrown into landfills. Because of compost’s high Photo courtesy of Sally MacWilliams water-retention capacity, plants grown in it require less water. Compost also provides a “balanced diet” for the plants, thereby drastically reducing the need for pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Compost soil retains minerals such as potassium, making it much better in quality than ordinary soil. This ability reduces surface runoff and decreases pollution which harms the Earth’s oceans. Compost can even help repair ordinary space that has its nutrients spent, or has been damaged by the use of chemical fertilizers. All this value can be created from the “waste” we throw away every day. Because Soka is a university founded on the principles of “value-creation” with the aim of “fostering leaders for the creative coexistence of nature and humanity,” it is imperative that the campus community think about how everyday actions affect larger life-communities. Every time we think of throwing something away, let’s remind ourselves that there is no “away” to throw it to—our waste is taken out of our view, but it does not disappear. The fundamental problem making our modern lifestyle unsustainable is that we do not allow the cycle of nature to In nature nothing is turn waste into value—we only turn value into waste. True sustainable development needs to wasted; nature works in be based on full-circle solutions which give resources back to the land from where they are cycles—“waste” created taken. Composting is one small and simple step by one form of life sustowards a sustainable future. So, next time you see students wheeling barrels of stinking waste around, remember that they are holding value waiting to be created—trash with a slumbering potential to contribute to nature and society. They are reconnecting the broken circle of life; they are value creators. Go ahead and give them a hand.

tains another.

In the fall of 2004, the composting project had to be discontinued for logistical and financial reasons. Now, sanctioned by an SSGA Grant, we hope to recruit enough volunteers to restart the project very soon. If you would like to support our project, or are interested in learning more, please contact Junko Takayama at jtakayama@soka.edu. For our project to be successful, we need as many volunteers as possible. With just thirty minutes a week, you can help bring SUA-AV closer to realizing the principles upon which it is founded. Faculty, students and staff are all welcome.■

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Artist of the Month

Venus Rejected

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Sunny from Andromedaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Collaboration of Sunny and her friends

Alter Ego

How to Get Dog s#$t Smell Out of Your Nose By Monica Kawai

I had nightmares about dog s#$! for three weeks. I couldn’t get the smell out of my nose for two. Nati says if I could invent a super city pooper-scooper, I would be rich. My friend slipped and fell on dog diarrhea on the way to school. It was the first time I was able to laugh until I couldn’t breathe since I got here. I apologized later. Everyone here thinks I’m clinically crazy, including myself. My OCD is out of control and I’m starting to combine it with my passive aggressiveness. I clean my room in the morning when I am already running late because I can’t deal with going outside. You would think that after a month I would stop being homesick. No one understands. They think I’m dumb for wasting this adventure. I know I’m wasting. Can you consciously stop yourself from being homesick? I still can’t stop thinking about him. Sometimes I walk around not really aware of being awake. It’s like a dream. I don’t understand what anyone is saying unless I concentrate. I wake up in the middle of the night flustered and disoriented. I forget where I am. Some nights I cry. Some nights it is hard to sleep at all. I always dream of home. My nightmares are about dog s#$! in cracked sidewalks with footprints in them. I close my eyes and tell myself to wake up. Be home. This isn’t real. Then I open my eyes and the homeless children are still asking for change on the subway. The heat is getting to my brain. My ceiling fan makes the fluorescent light bulb blink like a retarded strobe light after I turn it off. The mosquitoes love it. They don’t pronounce the ‘s’ in mosquito here. Moh-quitos are eating me alive. All apartments use florescent lights here because of the energy crisis. Mosquito bites are not sexy. Photo courtesy of Monica Kawai

O sweet irony. I have tried to hide and run away from the 100% of me that is Japanese. Now I am in South America trying to turn yanquis (what they call Americans) into ponjas (what they call us Japs). Who knew I would be spending this much money just so I could eat Japanese rice in Argentina? O sweet irony. My host mom is a compulsive liar who thinks I’m stupid. Little does she know that I act like a retard so I don’t have to listen to her stupidity. She can go on for hours about prostitutes. Her favorite are the transvestite prostitutes. O sweet irony. All of this insanity is worth it because I am in love. With the tango. I don’t know what I did before I knew this existed. It was love at first sight. Delicious. It is the perfect soundtrack to my dramatic, Argentinean, romance. BsAs will have me in the end, I think. O sweet irony. My shoe size does not exist in Buenos Aires. I wish I was taller. First time in my life I have ever admitted that I wanted to be taller. But it sucks to be on a crowded subway at armpit height. Yea…there’s no air conditioning on the subway. Did I mention I was claustrophobic?

Photo courtesy of Monica Kawai

Roller-coastering through Buenos Aires in a taxi, I pray. Today was a good day. I finally realize that growth does equal pain. Why? Because the more stubborn and dumb you are, the harder it is to change your mind. Anyone can learn something new, but not everyone can admit they’re wrong. I thought I knew who I was. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted. I thought I knew something. Wrong dumb-ass; you didn’t even look at the next page on the menu. I remember how everyone warned me that my Spanish would plateau and there would be random days where I wouldn’t understand anything. Why did it have to be today? I also remember how they warned me that my English would deteriorate. “¿Qué pasóed?” Neologismo is the word for when you make up words when learning a new language because you don’t know what the real word is.

What is the moral to this psychosis? In order to be a superhero, you have to conquer your enemies. My superhero theme song is “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” by the Flaming Lips. I will come back a better person. I promise. I wrote this brain diarrhea in order to warn you that the best time in your life sometimes starts out as your worst nightmare. And that is how you get the dog s#$t smell out of your nose. ■ 13

The Punky OC Orange County’s punk rock scene

By Wandile Mkhusile

unk culture was the big-city youth craze in the 1980s and is now reemerging in Orange County (OC) with more funkiness than ever before. Because of its expanding cultural niche, the OC is quickly becoming a center of punk-rock, skateboarding, and punk-youth counter culture.

Last month, I was invited to a youth rock concert hosted by the Aliso Viejo library. Head Librarian, Hilary Keith, wanted to create an event for teens in high school. Keith asked Mason, a local youth, to call up bands to play at a library-sponsored event. I found this to be a good opportunity to find out what OC punk-culture is all about.

On Saturday, February 26, I put on my usual drab outfit and headed to the concert. Upon my arrival at the library I was confronted by skateboarders, teens with bleached hair, girls in sixties outfits, and guys dressed in pale make up with thick lines of mascara. The scene reminded me of London during the Punk 80’s, except Boy George was not on site. I hung out with some skaters who immediately filled me in about OC’s punk-rock scene. The OC is home to many heavy-metal and punk rock groups such as Sublime, Something Corporate and Anaheim’s No Doubt. In addition to big-name bands, OC hosts small rock concerts on a regular basis. The OC even has its own annual music awards honoring local artists from many genres. This year’s ceremony was held in Anaheim on April 5. Although these awards are not as big as the Grammys, they still help to promote local music.

The punk scene is fast becoming a part of the OC’s definitive youth culture.

The library concert featured four local OC punk bands. Mason’s band opened the show, followed by a female guitar band called The Lipstick Pick-ups, and finally ending with a battle between Drinkers Purgatory and Edge in Fashion Show. The music was short and fast as the loud amps blasted my ears. I think the songs were supposed to be about love, but I could not discern the lyrics. I was surprised to discover that my new skater friends wore earplugs to protect their hearing. I have not been to any music concert where patrons were encouraged to wear earplugs.

The best part of the concert was the last act, a punk-battle. In a battle, two or more bands line up on opposite sides of the room and compete by playing their best music in hopes of winning over the crowd to them. Battles add energy to the concert because the crowd pushes each band to play music of a better tempo and quality. Later on, a kid with make- up and rainbow-colored fingernails named Romak came up to me and handed me a flyer advertising his own band’s website www.romakandthespacepirates.com . I have since visited the website and discovered that Romak and the Space Pirates Websites related to this article http://www.orangecountymusicawards.com have been nominated for best high school punk band at the April OC music awards festival. The punk scene is fast behttp://www.lipstickpickups.com coming a part of the OC’s definitive youth culture. Check out http://www.edgeinfashionshow.com the sites (to the left) for more information on the OC Music Awards and bands featured in this article.■ 14

In Recent Reviews: An Opinion “Million Dollar Baby”

By Victoria Kraus Warning: This article is a “spoiler.” It reveals the plot of the film. For those who have not yet seen the film, and do not wish to know what happens, please do not continue reading. Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood’s four-time Academy Award winning film, is about a soon-to -retire boxing coach, played by Eastwood, and an untrained, uneducated woman, Maggie, played by Hillary Swank, who has big dreams of becoming a professional boxer despite her limited means. With the help of the veteran coach, Maggie fights her way onto the stage of professional boxing. She instantly gains attention as a world-class female boxer, but her career ends just as quickly as it had began when she suffers a spinal cord injury in a championship bout. As a result, she is confined to a hospital bed as a quadriplegic. These turn of events become even more shocking when, at the end of the film, she requests to die.

pedro, a quadriplegic who became famous after appearing on public television and in court pleading for legal euthanasia during the mid-1990s in Spain. Medved openly stated that the top Academy Award nominations went to films “that went out of their way to assault and insult the sensibilities of most believers [of Christianity].” He went on to say that these two particular films “portray assisted suicide as an explicitly and unequivocally ‘heroic’ choice.” (www.michaelmedved.com) Medved fails to recognize the difference between the two films: one is fiction, the other is not. Euthanasia is not the central message of Million Dollar Baby. It is the story of a woman with goals

The film’s controversial ending leaves room for interpretation. Recent reviews, however, say that the film’s message is unChristian and one-sided.

Million Dollar Baby does not encourage euthanasia nor does it reproach it. The film’s controversial ending leaves room for interpretation. Recent reviews, however, say that the film’s message is un-Christian and one-sided.

The National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCI) accused Eastwood of designing the film’s message to communicate the opinion that “life with SCI (spinal cord injury)…is not worth living.” (www.spinalcord.org/news) Popular radio talk show host Michael Medved (who boasts “It’s cool to be conservative” on his website) shares similar sentiments with the NSCI. In his recent article about the 2004 Oscarwinning films he states: “[This year’s] Oscar bids reflect the industry's discomfort with religion.” Medved compares the fictional Million Dollar Baby to 2004’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, Alejandro Amenábar’s The Sea Inside. This Spanish film is based on the true story of Ramón Sam-

who lives her life, physically and metaphorically speaking. When her success ends, she is satisfied with what she has accomplished. The end of the film is left open for personal interpretation, and is not a literal attack on the beliefs of others. Critics who have censured Eastwood’s film for supporting euthanasia have yet to understand that the basis for their argument is rooted in a fictional story about a fictitious person. It is a story. It didn’t really happen. I don’t recommend that the reader watch this film to simply prove me wrong and prove Medved right. However, I do recommend this film for a host of stellar performances by legendary actors such as Morgan Freeman, and like any other great film, for a good story well-told.■ 15

Music Review: Laura Cantrell:

s Ray Charles says, “What’s great about country music is the stories.” Most songs today are impressions (clichéd impressions, to be more accurate) not stories. With the recent passing of Johnny Cash, music lost one of its great storytellers. Fortunately, the craft of storytelling has not been lost on our generation thanks to the young country-prodigy Laura Cantrell.

By Michael O’Malley

are made even more beautiful by Cantrell’s voice. She sings each line At the beginning of Johnny Cash’s best record, Johnny with the Cash: Live at Folsom Prison, while singing “Folsom same Prison Blues” he moans to a hall full of lifers vulner(prisoners serving life-time sentences), “I killed a man ability and in Reno just to watch him die.” Though Johnny Cash sincerity that isn’t a murderer (at least I don’t think so), for that all of my fabrief three-minute song I believe he is. I believe he’s a vorite female wicked, troubled soul coming to grips with eternal singers sing with (e.g. damnation. Cash goes somewhere in this song that he Nina Simone, Carol King). chooses not to go to in real life. He weaves a tall tale. While most songs’ lyrics come straight out of a diary, This music is not “alt-country,” a title which has alCash’s lyrics seem to come straight out of a novel. ways seemed sort of apologetic (like “country for Using his imagination to explore the world he lives in, those who think country music is below them”), but is he goes beyond his experiences as “Johnny Cash” and just straight country music that stays true to the takes his listeners and himself to another place; he American folk tradition. tells a story. Listening to a Johnny Cash song, or Half of the songs of this album are covers, usually of Country songs in general, is like seeing a movie or ancient songs of the tin pan ally era, or American trareading a book. ditional songs. Many critics have dinged Cantrell for Cash’s style of storytelling comes from a long line of doing covers, claiming that by covering someone American Folk singers. Fortunately for our generation else’s songs Cantrell limits her own personal expresthis classic folk craft isn’t lost; today one of country sion. However, she defends herself by claiming that music’s best young storytellers is a young Nashvillecovering this is a part of the “folk process.” I agree born, New York-based singer named Laura Cantrell. with Cantrell; everyone from Woody Guthrie to Johnny Cash sings mostly American traditional songs After listening to any of Cantrell’s songs it’s clear that with their own spin on it.( With the greats, the “spin” she has schooled herself well in the ways of country that they put on the song makes such an impression music, making her one of the few artists in music tothat it forever becomes a part of the song. ) Even Bob day that know the history of their craft and how to Dylan himself says a lot of his earlier songs, though place themselves in relation to it. In Cantrell’s songs written by him, derived their melodies from older folk we hear the best bits from country music’s history, songs. By covering these older songs Cantrell, like from obscure country western singers of the 30’s, to Guthrie, Dylan, and Cash, gives us a link to our past, George Jones and Dolly Parton. (If you want an eduand the people who poured their souls into these cation in Country Music listen to Cantrell’s radio songs over hundreds of years. show, “Radio Thrift Shop” online at http:// Like Cash, the part of Cantrell’s music that resonates wfmu.org/playlists/RT ) with me the most is the stories. Throughout this reCantrell might be classified as “Alt Councord Cantrell acts like some pre-historic radio, transtry” (alternative Country ex. Wilco, Drive-bymitting all of the great stories of American Folk Lore Truckers) by many critics. But what’s great about into the present, reminding us that, as human beings, Cantrell’s style is that, unlike most “alt-country,” it we need to hear stories about ourselves. These stories doesn’t try to distinguish itself by seeming weird. In- are ultimately how we empathize and connect with stead she gives listeners a rather straight-forward aes- one another.■ thetic, thereby masking her piercing intellect and allowing her stories to take center stage. These stories

On People Crushes

get people crushes. Flashback to grade school when holding hands with a boy was more exciting than gross and you will get what I mean. People crushes are a by-product of Soka vision, in which you are attracted to people simply after a first encounter—crush-at-first-sight. It may be their smile, it may be the way they wear glasses, it may even be the way they order coffee. You know you have a people crush when you feel fifth grade butterflies fluttering in your stomach—that’s not intestinal acids from Crapstone anxiety; it’s a people crush. Now you understand why so many seniors “study” at Starbucks. They are looking for potential people crushes to make up for four years of failed Soka relationships and “secret” online flirting.

I get people crushes because I’m too scared to get real boy crushes. What girl likes to be vulnerable to potential rejection and self-inflicted humiliation? I was like this since I was little; I never let myself like someone so much that I actually let a relationship develop (sound familiar?). I used to think it was the Asianness in me. Then I blamed my mom for raising me with Peruvian-Catholic values: “don’t have sex until you’re sure he’s THE one.” But my Japanese-onthe-outside dad always balanced her conventions with comedy: “don’t get married until you’re forty … and I’m serious.” As I was raised a Buddhist (Peruvian-Catholic-Japanese-Comedian), I eventually learned how to balance my parents’ life forces. It’s funny to think that parents have everything and nothing to do with future relationships. What’s identity got to do with people crushes anyway (said in a Tina-Turner musical tone)? 17

It’s not important if I know who I am: a sexy 22-year-old on the verge of finding true love. And by true love, I mean working towards respecting myself wholly, fulfilling my dreams, and believing that there is someone of the opposite sex who is doing just the same. His name is Randy Baker. He’s this perfect guy I met in New York who just happens to be married. But Buddhism gives me hope that we will somehow be lovers in our next lives. That’s the beauty of Buddhism: you look forward to lovers in your next life instead of obsessing over the ones you have in this lifetime. It’s much easier to imagine future lovers in your head than it is to contemplate all the work that goes into real relationships. I live on pseudo-next-lifetime-love relationships with perfect guys named Randy Baker. This is my new faith. Faith does not mean that you blindly believe. I don’t blindly believe in a perfect lover. I clearly see him in my head. He is tall with dark brown wavy hair. He has great skin to complement his great sense of style. He walks funny, but it’s because he’s on the borderline of being nerdy. He’s nerdy-cute and super intelligent and confident of himself, minus the arrogance. He loves learning and he loves sharing that with other people. He seldom judges others, and when he does, he’ll qualify those judgments with explanations that defend their bad habits. He works hard because he loves to, not because he falls prey to the societal pressures of supporting a family. He wants a big one. He loves children and cannot wait to be a good father, yet he knows that being a good father simply means being a good person. His whole life, he never chased after girls, but had an inherent, inborn belief that he will, at the right time, end up with the woman of his dreams. Her name is Nicole Chu. Now that I have a secure, pseudo-next-lifetime-love relationship, I no longer people crush so much. Someone once asked me to explain what types of relationships I have. I told him I have many that I treasure: suitemate/ best friend, gay best friend/fake boyfriend when convenient, gay best friend/fake affair when convenient, One Magazine girls/writer soulmates, Berkeley/Mills girlfriends from high school, down-to-earth Harvard girlfriend, Ethiopian friend who’s not really from Ethiopia. These relationships are real-this-lifetime-friendships that originally formed out of people crushes.

I get people crushes because I’m too scared to get real boy crushes. What girl likes to be vulnerable to potential rejection and self-inflicted humiliation?

But on the way towards golden friendships, many of my people crushes turned into crushing relationships, the majority of which happened on campus. I used to blame the small environment syndrome for ending my relationships: rumors, backstabbing, and simply living like sardines. But really the bad odor is me. My future intimate relationships will always stink until I find a way to love loneliness, believe in myself, and break up with make-believe boyfriends. The latter part is always hard to do, but with breakups, you have to be completely honest with yourself. So I simply told Randy Baker that I was having relationships on the side. He demanded to know who they were, so I told him their last names are Whitman, Tolstoy, and Ikeda. Long story short: we break up, I fall in love with writing, and I wake up believing in my own dreams.■

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Valentina Tereshkova: First Woman in Space (excerpted from the book One By

“You cannot possibly imagine how beautiful it is. Anyone who sees Earth from outer space, even once, cannot fail to be overwhelmed by a sense of reverence and love for this planet that is our home.”

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Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space, orbiting Earth in Vostok 6 in June 1963 at the age of only 26. Her lively voice was broadcast to people all around the world: “It is I, Seagull!” Using her call sign Chaika (Seagull), she reported: “I see the horizon—a light blue, a beautiful band. The Earth—it is so beautiful!” The image of a seagull soaring on high seemed to fit the young cosmonaut perfectly, and she came to be known affectionately as “Seagull” by people everywhere. I first met Ms. Tereshkova in Moscow in May 1975, during my second visit to the Soviet Union. Seated facing me with a warm smile of welcome, in her green sweater and brown cardigan, she seemed modest and unassuming. I asked her why she had become a cosmonaut, curious to know what had caused her to embark on such an exciting adventure. “Let me see…,” she began in a quite voice, hands folded on the table. Her eyes, which had gazed down on Earth from space, were blue like the Earth, shining with earnest sincerity. Ms. Tereshkova told me that her desire to voyage into space was sparked by the example of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who succeeded in making the first manned space flight on April 12, 1961. The world was talking about his epoch-making achievement, nowhere more so than the Soviet Union: “The first man in space! A Soviet youth! One of ours!” The factory where she worked was filled with an air of excitement and jubilation; it was a day of festive celebration. Returning home that evening, young Valentina’s life was changed forever by her mother’s seemingly casual remark: “Now that a man has gone to space, it’s a woman’s turn.” 19

The Scars of War Ms. Tereshkova was raised by her mother. When she was two, her father went off to fight in World War II and was killed in action soon after. He had been a tractor driver, and she has only faint memories of him giving her a ride on his tractor. The news of his death arrived on a blizzard-tossed night. The sight of her mother quietly sobbing stays with her, like a bad dream, to this day. She was only three. She had one sister and her mother was pregnant with her brother. Her grandmother, unable to accept the fact that her son had died, never stopped waiting for his return. What untold pain and suffering has been inflicted on women and children by war! I, and those of my generation, have witnessed this reality to a truly unbearable extent. A widow at 27, Ms. Tereshkova’s mother did her best to support and raise her three children on her own, leaving for work each day before dawn. At times she would say that their entire family must have been abandoned by fortune: of her own seven siblings, three had died of starvation and two had been killed in internal conflict within the Soviet Union. Eventually the family moved to the city. Her mother and sister worked at a textile mill in Yaroslavl, on the banks of the Volga. Her mother was so busy that none of the children remember ever seeing her take a moment to rest or relax. At 17, Ms. Tereshkova herself went to work in a tire factory. On her first payday, she bought a flower-print head scarf and some sweets for her mother. When her mother saw the gifts, she burst into tears. Following Gagarin’s historic space flight, the space program was opened to all Soviet citizens. “I volunteered, of course,” Ms. Tereshkova told me. “I’m sure there wasn’t a single young person in all of the Soviet Union who wouldn’t have given anything to be able to do what Lieutenant Gagarin had done,” she says of that time. She had the good fortune to be chosen as a candidate, but the training was much more strenuous than she had anticipated. She didn’t go into detail, saying only: “The training was very tough, in both kind and quantity. It progressed stage by stage, each one a real challenge to my physical strength.” One can easily imagine how demanding the training must have been; she once wrote that when she was being spun in the centrifuge, which stimulates the stresses of extreme acceleration and deceleration, she felt as if her blood had turned to mercury. In addition to physical training, she engaged in intensive study of a range of specialized subjects including, of course, rocket science. Each day was a battle, but she was not deterred: “I believe that when you http://www.bestofrussia.ca/astronauts.html have a dream and commit yourself body and soul to realizing it, you can achieve it without fail.” She kept a picture of her mother in her room and her mother’s gaze seemed to encourage her: “I know you can do it!” Whenever she received her salary, she would hurry to the post office to send money home. Mothers’ Prayers The day finally arrived when she would actually go into space. Over the course of three days, she orbited the Earth forty-eight times—meaning that she saw a new dawn every one and a half hours. “It was breathtakingly beautiful,” she said, “like something out of a fairy tale.” Earth is surrounded by a layer of soft, constantly shifting light that displays all the colors of the rainbow. “There is no way I can 20

describe the joy of seeing the Earth,” she remarked. “It was blue, and far more beautiful than any of the other stars or planets. Each continent, every ocean, had its own distinct beauty.” As she circled the Earth, she thought of her mother back home. She thought of all the mothers on Earth. The planet was teeming with life. She saw mountains and thought of the birds living there. Forests came into view and she thought of all the animals and insects to whom these are home. Rivers and oceans filled with fish…And they all had mothers, as do all the people on Earth. She realized that every single person on Earth has a mother who has gone through the pain of childbirth to bring them into the world. She thought of each child as a prince or princess of Earth, whose birth had been blessed and celebrated. If the Earth’s mothers had even once stopped nurturing their children, none of us would be here. From mother to child—if http://www.gakkaionline.net/Experiences/SpaceWomanPics.html even once this millennial chain of life had been completely severed, we would not be here today. She reflected on the infinite number of mothers—mothers who wish only that we, their children, will enjoy healthy, happy lives. She couldn’t help feeling that Earth is filled with the sound of these mothers’ prayers. Gazing down from space, Ms. Tereshkova thought: “There are all sorts of mothers on our planet, but to me, mine is the best. I want to make sure that there are no more war widows Founder’s meeting with Valentina Tereshkova in 1987 like my mother, and no more children like me, who never knew their own fathers.” The Earth gives birth to life. States kill. The Earth nurtures life. Governments command people to discard their lives. If states and nations are the territory of men, then Earth itself, far larger than any single country, belongs to mothers. It is the stage where their nurturing love for life itself is enacted. We must make the 21st century a century of life, a century of women. We must make it an age when the prayers for peace of all mothers, prayers as old as human history, are finally answered. My friendship with Ms. Tereshkova continues to this day. In May 1987, I was invited to the Soviet Union by the Presidium of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, which she chaired. On that occasion, she was not only kind enough to greet me at the airport but also accompanied me to various functions over a four-day period. The SGI had brought its “Nuclear Weapons: Threat to Our World” exhibition to Moscow and Ms. Tereshkova was there very early on the opening day, busily helping with preparations.■ http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/images/screenshots/earth/earth_clouds__jens.jpg

“Once you’ve been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile Earth is. This small, blue, shining planet. We must not allow it to be covered by the black ash of a nuclear war. All the women of the world must join hands and make peace happen. We are all riding on ‘Spaceship Earth’ together.” Seagull continues her flight, pursuing the dream of peace.■ 21

NATHAN GAUER (EDITOR-IN-CHIEF); MITSUKO IKEDA (MANAGING EDITOR); WULA DAWSON (SENIOR ADVISOR); , WULA DAWSON, NATHAN GAUER, VICTORIA KRAUS; MITSUKO TAKAHASHI (SECTION EDITORS); KAREN CASTILLA ROCA (BUSINESS MANGER); ANDREW REKER (HEAD OF LAYOUT); LEILANI HORINO, SHALINI KAPOOR, JENNY TANG, ANDREW WELTY, LEEMA YAMADA (LAYOUT TEAM); GONZALO OBEILLEIRO (COVER DESIGN); RAMON PARAS, MAFE SANCHEZ (TRANSCRIPTION); TAKAYUKI OKADA (HEAD OF PRINTING); KAJAL GULATI, MITSUKO IKEDA, REI KANEMURA, YASHASVI KAPOOR, SHALINI KAPOOR, JENNY TANG, ROBERTO RIOS (PRINTING TEAM); CHELSEA NAKABAYASHI (STAFF ADVISOR); ARMANDO DUBON, SAEED FAKHRI-RAVARI, DERRICK SPRINGER, PAMELA STOYKA, GEOFF WESTROPP (TECHNICAL SUPPORT)