at the office

Yerp. Therss ers whert ert lerks lerk ert mer werk.

Teacups behind me belong to my boss, who has been collecting "Occupied Japan" hand-painted teacups and saucers for some time now. The "Occupied Japan" label was placed on certain Japanese(?)-made products for a short period after the end of World War II, when the United States occupied Japan before finally leaving. On eBay, these cups and saucers sell for absurdly cheap prices—like $3 a set or something. My boss wants to collect them all, then generate interest in them by starting a little shop somewhere in Seoul.

Koreans themselves might be intensely interested in these little pieces of art, if for no other reason than the karmic one: Japan occupied Korea, then the US occupied Japan. These tea sets are a reminder of that. I find the cups gorgeous, but there are now so many in the office that storage has become a problem. There simply isn't enough wall space to put in more pigeonhole shelving, so the rest of the cups, from now on, will have to be stored inside my boss's home. My boss is a collector of many other things, too, so I don't know whether he'll have much space at home for more of these sets.

Also behind me is some butterfly art, made by my boss's half-Korean sons as some sort of school project. The boys speak exclusively in Korean (my boss speaks the language fluently); the last time I met them and tried talking with them, they basically ignored me and wandered about the office. Cute kids, though.



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