The Slaby Sisters: Johnna Slaby (painter) and Reylia Slaby (photographer) are pleased to present their first joint exhibition at the Intercontinental Hotel Osaka until July 31.. The exhibition features five pieces from each of their collections, and will be shown. Reylia and Johnna Slaby, twins, were born and raised in Osaka, Japan.
From a young age theywere free to explore and play within different facets of the art world. They began to develop a strong relationship with both Japanese and Western art, inadvertently creating their own fusions within the juxtaposing styles.
Johnna Slaby is an abstract artist born and based in Osaka, Japan. Originally on the road to becoming a classical pianist, her career took a sudden turn when shediscovered urban sketching and fell in love with the rough lines, textures and the different ways of representing life. She made the transition from sketching to abstract painting from 2014. She currently experiments with incorporating physical objects and coffee (literally) into her work, creating pieces that start conversations of culture and the beauty in our everyday lives.
Reylia Slaby-Fine Art Photographer
Ame-Onna (雨女) “Rain Woman” by Reylia Slaby
Having been born and raised in Japan, Reylia Slaby uses the influences from her unusual upbringing as the main theme in her artwork. Her photos are a rich blend of the Japanese aesthetic, and is greatly revealing of her personal experiences and thought. Her desire is to weave all the different aspects of her life into her art. She strongly believes in an empirical body of work, and is adamant when it comes to adding an individual and unique meaning to each image. Photography entered her life as a gradient. Originally a semi-professional graphite pencil artist, Reylia made a gradual switch to photography around her teen years, and then discovered fine art photography in 2012. It instantly struck a chord, and she knew that she had finally found her ideal outlet of self-expression, and for years immersed herself in the fine art world though books, online sources, and other artist’s work that inspired and moved her.
About the space:
STRESSED patisserie is proud to present fine works of art on periodic exhibition. Having invited leading artists locally and from around the world to display their outstanding works at STRESSED, the patisserie has become a gallery of fine art with paintings and prints displayed and on sale throughout. Patrons can obtain a catalogue in the patisserie for more information about the artists and their works as well as listings of the artwork for sale.
“Fingertalk” a cafe run by the deaf in Indonesia has become a successful philanthropic business in Indonesia. It owes its success to the experience and determination of Dissa Syakina Ahdanisa, a graduate from Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU). APU is a university located in the famous hot spring city of Japan — Beppu, Oita prefecture. It was after her graduation that she has embarked on a path to become a social entrepreneur focusing on helping the deaf community in her home country of Indonesia. APU is renowned for having multicultural environment with foreign students from 86 countries (as of May, 2017) and for having a strong bond between the university and Oita community through various local activities. The school aims to give students more than just a four-year higher education, but also a unique life experience, which is hoped will result in producing open-minded, brilliant, and inspiring graduates who embrace the term ‘differences’ and challenge the world to do the same.
Dissa founded ‘Fingertalk’ in May 2015, a business which has expanded from a single cafe to two fully operating cafes, one workshop/craft store, and a recently branched out into a car wash business. What’s special about Fingertalk’s business model is its goal to connect the deaf community with the hearing community by hiring all deaf employees. While aiming for that long term goal, Dissa hopes that for now, Fingertalk can create job opportunities for the deaf, be a fun place where people enjoy universal pleasures, such as food and artwork, and be a place where people can learn something new — particularly sign language. Hence, ‘Fingertalk’, named by the young social entrepreneur herself, represents the way the deaf community communicate by sign language. In Indonesia, sign language is called Bisindo.
On 2 June 2017, Dissa came to APU’s Tokyo campus to give a talk about her life after APU, specifically about the Fingertalk business and her recent visit to schools for the disabled in Oita prefecture, supported by the local government. The event was flooded with interest from APU alumni owing partly to the fact that in September 2016, the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, had spoken of Dissa and praised her for her inspiring work in the Youth Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) in Laos.
Dissa said when she was 10 years old, she became fascinated with sign language having met a deaf person who taught her how to spell her name at an event in an old folks home where she accompanied her mother. During her time in APU, she found her passion for volunteer work and took several trips to many countries with a mission to contribute in some way to a better society. After graduating from APU, Dissa obtained her masters’ degree in Australia and worked in the Singapore headquarter of one of the world’s top financial institutions. However, she continued to pursue her passion for volunteer work. During one of her volunteering missions, she spent three months in Nicaragua where she heard of a cafe with deaf employees called ‘Cafe de Las Sonrisas’. She decided to visit the cafe and was very inspired by the concept. Having remembered the man she met as 10-year-old combining with her passion for the non-profit field, Dissa felt an urge to create a similar cafe in Indonesia. After a considerable amount of research, she found that Indonesia has more than 6 million people with disabilities, and of which, more than 470,000 are deaf. And the more prominent problem is that more than 70% of people with disabilities there are not working, let alone receiving proper education.
Fingertalk cafe & car wash business
At the event in Tokyo, when asked about her biggest obstacles in opening ‘Fingertalk’, Dissa admitted that she had a rough beginning. Though some people supported her idea, it was hard for her to raise funds to realize her cause. So, she decided that she would have to do it all by herself. She intended to save as much money as she could from her job in Singapore and at the same time, she started learning Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) and American Sign Language (ASL) in order to understand more about the deaf community and make new friends. Eventually, she kickstarted ‘Fingertalk’ in Tangerang City, Indonesia, and soon after, left her job at the financial institution to pursue her dream full-time.
‘It all started by getting to know someone from the deaf community. Then, they started introducing me to their friends and people they know. That’s how I started recruiting people for Fingertalk. I started by interviewing them with pen and paper when I wasn’t fluent at Bisindo. I needed to find out what they can do, and what they aimed to be. Through the process, I luckily met one deaf lady who allowed Fingertalk to use part of her house as the first cafe for free. This jumpstarted our business.’ says Dissa. Despite the hurdles of the financial obstacles, the location, and the staff recruiting she had to manage, the cafe took off and people started coming into the cafe. In the cafe, there are sign language posters everywhere in order for the people from the hearing world to try and communicate with the employees. With this, Fingertalk took one step closer to its mission—connecting the two worlds and teaching people something new. With more and more people coming in, the employees also feel more motivated to communicate and work hard. More importantly, this help them to believe in themselves and their abilities. According to Dissa, the biggest challenge she faces is ensuring that the employees’ self esteem remains intact; that they don’t feel any less confident than those who hear.
This year, Dissa and some of the staff from Fingertalk came to visit Beppu, Oita where APU is located. She also visited schools for children with disabilities. The city government of Oita Prefecture generously supported Dissa fully in all the trip arrangements. Together, they visited Oita School For The Deaf (大分県立聾学校) and Beppu Special School.
Oita School For The Deaf
According to Dissa, the schools have such great facilities for children that can support their learning and creativity. The atmosphere was warm and fun. Even in a deaf school, they have a piano where the children can enjoy music through the vibrations on the floor. Dissa felt like Japan is at least 40 years more advanced than Indonesia in terms of educational and life opportunities support for people with disabilities. She was also impressed with how caring the teachers are. One teacher in particular, a deaf teacher who did not let his abilities be an obstacle for him to doing things such as learning English, she found to be very inspirational. Other than the schools, she also visited Taiyo no ie (太陽の家）or ‘The Sun Industries’ — an organization established in 1965 after the Paralympics in 1964 with the motto that more than charity, what’s more important today is creating employment opportunities for disabled people. To provide employment opportunities to people with disabilities, Sun Industries have made partnerships with large companies such as Sony, Omron, Denso, Fujitsu, and others. This is another example of a good support system that Japan has for people with disabilities. After the trip, Dissa is determined to make use of her new knowledge to help people in Indonesia through Fingertalk.
Dissa mentioned how supportive APU alumni and the faculty members have been to Fingertalk.
APU event in Tokyo campus – Dissa signing ‘Fingertalk’
Not only have friends from APU paid visits to the cafe, but also Professor Kenji Yokoyama, a vice-president of APU. Dissa finds suggestions from alumni from all over the world useful and interesting since each country has different pros and cons in the support system toward people with disabilities. At the event, one alumni even suggested a tool similar to Google Translate for sign language, something to consider in the future. Some others asked about the future of Fingertalk whether it is the expansion of business into different areas or expanding its focus to people with other types of disabilities. Dissa’s answer was that she is now focused on helping deaf people but the long term goal is to definitely help people with other type of disabilities as well. Now Fingertalk is still small but she is aiming to expand its services and footprints.
After two years of founding Fingertalk, the business has attracted interest from media and local government and received awards such as Tokoh Metro 2017. Fingertalk’s crew have also been invited to attend many events such as Inovasi Indonesia Forum & Expo and Festival Kewirausahaan. When asked of what keeps her going with such positive energy, her answer was that “I want people to learn something from me when they meet me, even if it is just the sign of Beppu”. She taught use our right hand to create something that looks like number three and our left hand as a horizontal C to cover the base of our right hand, making the three fingers visible. With two hands pounding each other twice, it becomes ‘Bep-pu’ — the three fingers represent steam wafting from hot water, for Beppu is famous for its hot springs. Later, she personally taught me how to say ‘Thailand’ in sign language. It’s a very clever and fun way to sign my homeland. You use an index finger to point to one’s nose and slide the finger down and outward from yourself. This represents elephants, the symbol of Thailand. It’s something I’ll never forget. And that is part of why Fingertalk works so well, because the people working there and those visiting are always learning something from each other. It’s not just a meal and a drink, it’s a rewarding experience.
Moringa Milk’s awkwardly named coffee creamer, Creap (クリープ), has long been the source of adoration and ridicule for the devoted Japanophile. This delightful dairy based product gets its name from “Creaming Powder for Coffee” (コーヒー用クリーミングパウダー）which was shortened to Creap. Obviously, the other meaning for the word as “to sneak up on slowly” or “generally unpleasant weird individual” wasn’t known to Morinaga at the time.
Creap! It’s not just your neighbor, it’s Japan’s only dairy based coffee creamer and its delish!
According to Maboroshi Channel, Creap’s own website, and other sources, the product was first launched in Showa 35 (1960) around the time that instant coffee became widely sold in Japan. Creap, which actually includes milk, differing from non-dairy creamers, was considered the perfect pairing for instant coffee. It doesn’t go bad quickly and just like instant coffee, all you have to do is stir it in hot water and there you have it ready to consume.
Creap, the awkwardly named powdered milk product, was first launched in Showa 35 (1960) around the time that instant coffee became widely sold in Japan. Creap, which actually includes milk, thus differing from non-dairy creamers, was considered the perfect pairing for instant coffee. It doesn’t go bad quickly and just like instant coffee, all you have to do is stir it in hot water and there you have it ready to consume.
At first the product didn’t sell very well because no one was quite sure what it was but after adding illustrations of coffee to the label, the brand recognition sky-rocketed and along with instant coffee, Creap became a huge hit in Japan. The advertisement campaign in 1969 (coincidentally the same year that the future messiah was born) featuring Japanese actor Shinsuke Ashida, further cemented Creap in the Japanese consciousness. The catchy phrase, “クリープを入れないコーヒーなんて” (Coffee without Creap is just….” became a part of the national dialect. The smooth taste of the powdered substance along with the pleasant smell of sweet milk made it much beloved by the Japanese population.
However, in recent years, Creap has lost some of its appeal as people have switched to vegetable oil based non-dairy creamers either because they’re lactose intolerant or they’re counting calories. Well, if you check out the Creap trivia page you’ll find that actually Creap has less calories than many vegetable fat based alternatives. (BTW, if you’re a Vegan, you’re still going to hate Creap.)
So for your education and in order to collect the 10 billion dollars that the makers of Creap are not actually paying me for this long product placement avertorial, here are 3 Not-Creepy Things You Didn’t Know About Creap.
1. Creap is Japan’s only “creamy powder” (coffee creamer) made in Japan that actually uses milk as a main ingredient. It’s because it’s milk-based that you get ” a rich and slightly sweet taste”.
2. In reality, Creap has few calories than vegetable fat based creamers! People often mistakenly believe that vegetable fat based creamers are lower in calories. Fail! One spoonful of delicious, rich and slightly sweet Creap has only 15 calories! Suck on that Coffee-mate!
3. You can even use Creap in cooking. Why only have Creap with your coffee or tea? Creap in its powder form lasts long and is easy to use in any number of recipes where its creamy taste adds to the mix. Scones, pancakes, and even stew–Creap is totally versatile. Open your own Creap Kitchen today!
Haunted House or Creap Kitchen? Which would you rather have?
All of us at Japan Subculture Research Center would like to thank you for your reading the articles posted here this last year, your contributions, and your comments. Here are some of the articles we thought were the most amusing, edifying, or just fun, grouped together in general order. We had some outstanding outside contributions which made for some excellent reading–and to those contributors thank you as well. Whether you’re interested in Japanese culture or pop-culture, Japan’s nuclear problems, or yakuza and the Japanese underworld—there’s something for everyone. Enjoy!
I know–total self-promotion. What else do you think pays the costs of running this labor of love? Book sales, some donations, and whatever else I can scrounge up. All that aside, I’m hoping this will be a good read with a moral to the tale. All good stories have something to teach.
The Centers For the Elimination of Organized Crime will be able to launch legal proceedings to shut down yakuza offices under the new laws, if the group is designated “extremely dangerous.”
The HuffPost and Google News have started to turn the business into a con game–the con being that “exposure” will get you a real job as a journalist. Better think twice on that. If journalism is your calling, you may need to have a second job.
Yes, Ray Bradbury was a novelist but sometimes people can say greater truths in fiction than they can in an essay. I was sad to see him go and this is my small essay on what I find inspiring in his best novel, as a journalist, and as a father.
A guide to the Japanese underworld, Japanese pop-culture, yakuza and everything dark under the sun.
Dear Gentle Reader,
