ANTIQUE RAILROAD POCKET WATCHES

Young Var in a necktie and tweed suit with my mom and a Japanese dignitary whom I don't remember. This was taken in the hotel in Tokyo where we lived when we first arrived in 1947.

The hotel was next door to the main bus terminal. What I remember most about living there was in the mornings watching black smoke billow up from the burners on the buses. Busses and taxis had steam engines that were fired by wood and coal so there were always big clouds of smoke when the burners were first lit. For a kid, that was fun to see.

My father was a staff officer for General MacArthur in the Military Government Section of the Ocupation Government. He went to Japan right at at war's end in 1945 and worked on writing the local government section of the Japanese constitution.

Because of my father, I have had some absolutely wonderful experiences. Living in Japan for three years with him as part of the Occupation Government led to things I cherish among my fondest memories today.

One of the highlights was having lunch at the Imperial Summer Palace with Princess Chichibu. She was a young woman in her early twenties then, and I was swept off my feet, absolutely smitten, by her charm, grace, and beauty. I was only four or five, but I knew it was magical to be in her presence.

Though she spoke English (educated in England) she and I conversed in Japanese. She later told my mother how delighted she was with my ability to speak Japanese. Of course, that sent me over the top. She and the Prince (the Emperor's youngest son) visited our home on two occasions for dinner and I can remember sitting on her lap, thrilled to be there and mesmorized by everything about her.

Tokyo, Japan 1947

Japanese street artist Shin Tanaka is best known for his elaborate paper creations. With his use of curves, bright colours and careful attention to detail, Tanaka is successful in fusing origami and urban culture in his work. Some of his most notable pieces are his paper sneakers. While he only started to make replicas of popular sneaker designs to comfort the fact that he could not afford the real deal on a student’s budget, Tanaka’s idea exploded into a very unique, worldwide open source project.

Shin has instigated thousands of collaborations worldwide. He is known worldwide as being an innovator of papercraft and creator of the most widely recognized graffiti and urban paper toys on the market.

Shin says about his design: “War mixes everything, to compare war to colour, it is black. To restore to a state of peace means factorizing the black to three primary colours. And white reduces the influence of darks”.

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