About The Journal
Photo by: Sebastian Mayer
Hawken King is a designer and illustrator living and working Tokyo. He has been keeping and online journal since 1999 – this is it.
Hard Drive Failiure
Published 7th of Sep, 2006. Stored under Journal
Today, waking up on my sofa realising I left my computer on all night, I noticed that my trusty backup USB drive wasn’t working. This drive has been with me through thick and thin for about 3 years, I’ve taken to Japan 4 times!
Also this drive holds my entire working life. And now it seems, all my work has gone.
The list of things on there is too great to detail, but I recently migrated all the movies etc off it to another drive, leaving it purely for work. I even had some documents open when it died. It houses all of my reference material, every scrap of illustration I’ve ever done and all of my work from the past 8 years.
Thankfully I migrated all my email, personal photos and music to my mac from the drive. At least I can get all my important documents from my mail, which is handy (when you’re taking someone to court!). But as for the rest of my digital life, I can just wave goodbye.
I still need to try some other software (disk warrior) on the drive, but it costs $80. My mac tells me it’s a FAT error (which would imply that the file table has become corrupt). Recently I’ve been guessing that the drive was getting de-fragged by the mac when it’s idle because of the data clicking away. Also the mac was set to turn the external drives off (I have two) automatically when they are redundant.
Needless to say, this is a big shit.
If I get the drive up and running again, I will burn a few DVD’s of my most important stuff – for example: my clients!
Luckily, I’m not in the middle of anything major right now. I was working on notion designs re-newal but it was only a template and I have the base image in my email.
fuck fuck fuck :/
It hasn’t really sunk in yet. If I can’t repair it or if the drive is corrupted nonsense, I will have lost years of work, image reference and documents.
changing faces!
Published 18th of Aug, 2006. Stored under diary
during 1999 and 2001 I was eating hardly anything!
voices in your head!
Published 15th of Aug, 2006. Stored under diary
I watched a documentary a few weeks ago about people who could “hear” voices in their heads. At the end of the documentary they concluded that we all have an inner track, which is basically the part of the brain that talks to it’s self, and to a certain extent tells “you” what to do. The difference with these people is that their brains have somehow made wrong connections, ending up with the inner track talking to them as if it were another person.
I sometimes hear voices in that semi-sleep state before one loses consciousness and falls into deep sleep. And indeed, yesterday, I heard those voices having a conversation in my head. One truly remarkable thing, is that one can’t control these “voices”. They just have some kind of automatic track – talking about things you couldn’t even imagine, or mundane things that are of little interest.
Thankfully in this period before deep sleep, they don’t actually talk directly to me, it’s more like I’m listing to the radio or something. I hope one day I can steal some cool ideas!
power black out
Published 14th of Aug, 2006. Stored under diary
at about 7am this morning, not when I usually wake up but for some reason I was up and watching a crap movie on my computer, the electricity supply in the building was shut off. At first I thought it was my trip switch (sometimes goes if I’m using the air conditioner too much) but under closer inspection none of the switches were down. Secondly I thought it might be because of my bills… that seemed far fetched so I checked all the meters outside, none of the dials were spinning so the only possible logical explanation was that somewhere, someone has fucked up!
I live near two stations and I could hear trains running, little did I know that the whole of this area (some 800,000 homes and offices) was disconnected due to some buffoon piloting his crane barge into Tokyo’s main power cables. They got it all fixed by about 10am. My apartment came back to life, somewhat interrupting a wonderful game of New Super Mario on my DS. 
great Uncle King, RIP
Published 10th of Aug, 2006. Stored under diary
In-between masses of emails from clients, I got a rather sombre and sobering email from my mother notifying me of my great Uncles death. He was involved in a car crash some weeks ago in New Zealand, when an oncoming motorist had a heart attack and veered into Bob’s car, hitting him and his wife.
He had been making a recovery after surviving the induced coma that the doctors administered, even sitting up and eating, however a few days ago he suffered a massive multiple organ failure and passed away. It’s very sad and hasn’t really hit home yet, I only met the guy once when I was a kid, while he was on holiday in the UK.
Bob King setup his own company in New Zealand a very long time ago, selling computers. His company is now run by his son. Bob also has a two brothers(?) and a sister (his sister being my grandmother) who survive him.
I’m saddened because not long ago he sent me an email asking how I was getting on in Japan and if I would like to come to New Zealand to meet the estranged tangled limbs of what is the King family. He also talked of my blood-relative now deceased Grandfather, who I only met once. I grew up knowing my step-grandfather. Bob said I shared similar characteristics to him, and as my fathers blood-side isn’t so strong in defining my features (certainly doesn’t explain my beer-belly!) I was deeply intrigued. I wrote a reply to him, however this must have been after he was involved in his fatal accident, as I get family news last, being distant as I am. He took the secrets of my grandmothers first husband with him!
Not being able to contact him before his death is of great pain to me.
how to say "I".
Published 16th of Jul, 2006. Stored under japan
In English, how many ways can we refer to ourselves?
I, my, me, one’s self, in person & one’s.
So in all that’s six ways. By far and wide “I” would be the most used. However some languages have a multitude of ways to refer to one’s self, and Japanese is by far the most confusing! Japanese has well over 11 ways of making self references:
- 01. ç§ã€Œã‚ãŸã—〔watashi”. (formal, female japanese)
- 02. ç§ã€Œã‚ãŸãã—〔watakushi”. (formal)
- 03. 僕「ã¼ã〔boku”. (male japanese, childs japanese)
- 04. 俺「ãŠã‚Œã€”ore”. (male japanese, from boss or elder)
- 05. 拙者「ã›ã£ã—ゃ〔sesha”. (samurai)
- 06. ã‚ãŸã‚Œ “wataru”. (not sure about this one, may have it wrong, childs japanese)
- 07. 自分「ã˜ã¶ã‚“〔jibun”. (one’s self, myself, in person)
- 08. ã†ã¡ “uchi”. (one’s self, formal)
- 09. 自身「ã˜ã—ん〔jishin”. (ones, formal)
- 10. 自ら「ã¿ãšã‹ã‚‰ã€”mizukara”. (one’s self, in person)
- 11. 自我「ã˜ãŒã€”jiga”. (one’s self)
I’m convinced there are a lot more out there, with regional dialects and so on.
my name in Japanese
Published 11th of Jul, 2006. Stored under diary
recently I was told some nice kanji for my surname, which is “king”. So my full name is:
å®å‰£ã€Œãƒ›ãƒ¼ã‚±ãƒ³ã€(hawken) –> syllabic = ho-u-ke-n
金具「ã‚ングã€(king) –> syllabic = ki-n-gu
The names don’t really sound like Japanese person or family names, but the phonetic meanings are interesting. Hawken means Treasure Sword and King means to have gold or Gold Implement.
A friend of mine is called Ben. Unfortunately this literally means “poo” in Japanese phonetics. However his surname is Thomas, in Japanese this is syllabically “tomasu”. So ben+to = bento!
Japan is changing
Published 12th of Jun, 2006. Stored under japan
It appears that the newst law in Tokyo has come into effect, and it’s to do with traffic.
Before, in the past, one could ride ones bike to where one pleased and just dump it with a lock on the wheel. Now one has to take ones bike to a designated spot and clamp it to a machine or pay a space rental fee. This is the same deal with motorbikes, where once before, parking your scooter anywhere was easy and legal, now it’s totally out of the question and illegal!
Shibuya has changed a lot since I first came here in 1999. I’ve only been living in Japan since 2001 but since that time a lot of the things I loved about Japan have gone or changed for the worse. Here’s my anal list:
- All night game centers were closed. Game centers now close at midnight
- Tabacco vending machines close at 11pm
- Beer vending machines are totally removed
- smoking is banned in busy places like shibuya (although no one cares)
- PSE law comes in to ban consumer electronics over 5 years old
- traffic law comes in to ban slinging your bike anywhere you please
So I guess next it will be a ban on smoking in public places, including bars and resturants. This will be a hard ban to get through parliment but it will go through sooner or later. It’s shame really because I only just started smoking again this year, and if the ban was implemented last year I wouldn’t have given a monkeys.
Still, I would welcome it, I would have to change my routine. Fags are so cheap here, at just 270yen a pack. That’s about 1 pound 25 pence.
I may end up moving to the countyside… actually that doesn’t sound so bad.
Japan hot and cold
Published 2nd of May, 2006. Stored under diary
Yesterday was 33 degrees celcius!!
Today it’s 15 degrees.
We’ve been having a lot of thunderstorms and earthquakes recently.
cheeze
Published 6th of Apr, 2006. Stored under diary
Well, this may not be discovery of the century or anything, but I have discovered something that has changed my life.
For about a decade, or maybe longer, I’ve had terminal acne. Sometimes it’s barely noticeable, other times, and especially in my early twenties, it’s truely rife. I always used to get it around my cheeks, eyebrows and nose.
Now one starts to wonder after such long periods of time where this acne comes from? And if it’s not hormonal, what exactly is the catalyst? At a young age when my acne first started I was prescribed a very large bottle of pills. However at that time (around 15) I could hardly be bothered to do my homework, let alone take a pill every day. My pairents, at the time, didn’t really seem to care about making me do homework or reminding me to take some pills – they were in the middle of divorce – so that particular avenue of help did little to find a cure.
When my acne became rife, I tried everything to make it go away. Creams, pills, lotions & potions. Nothing seemed to work. So I thought, maybe it’s diet, and stopped eating all sugary foods. Nothing happened…
Until I moved to Japan.
Some 4 years later, I have moved back to Japan again. I did get some acne living in England in between (I lived in Japan for only 1 year the first time) and it was starting to get rather bad. However now I have found the solution! Cheeze! By taking cheeze out of my diet, (and it has to be said; there are few foods here that contain cheeze) my skin is now acne free!!
So in the end, it was diet. Something so simple, that cannot be affected by drugs. Only thing is… I love freaking cheeze!!
the biggest liar I have ever met
Published 30th of Mar, 2006. Stored under diary
One of those days where you work hard and then use your male given right to drink heavily at the pub with buddies feeling good and warm inside, knowing that you’re rewarding yourself for a days hard graft. Read More
I guess yesterday could be considered such a day, and seeing how live so close to a drinking hotspot known as shibuya, I hopped into a cab for the 2 minute journey to my local 200 yen bar where waiting friends had stories and tales to share.
My thousand yard stare took about 3 beers to wipe off and I was ready for the craik!
On April the 1st, Japan will be the same no more.
Published 25th of Mar, 2006. Stored under japan
A new bill was passed into Japanese law some time ago outlawing the sale of Japanese electronics over the age of 5 years old, if they have an internal power transformer.
This is a disaster for the electronic hub of Tokyo, a place called Akihabara. Or “electric town”. April the 1st (no fool) will be a very quiet day, as half of the stores that were open on the previous day will either have little stock to sell or shut entirely. Somewhat rich pickings for those of us that want these electronics in the coming days. I shall be checking out the situation on monday and hopefully get a bargain or two! (I’m in the market for a TV)
Somewhat alarmingly, this also spells the end for several popular electronic items such as the Sega Saturn and the Sega Dreamcast, both of which have internal transformers and both of which are over 5 years old. Understanding this, I went for a shop at a not-so-local place an hours journey on the train from my house. For just over 10,000円 ($100 / 50GBP) I was able to snap up the following items (all boxed):
- Original Sega Dreamcast (water cooled version, salary man box)
- Sega DC Karaoke machine (slots in under the console, has Sega Microphone and 16,000 songs!)
- Dreameye (dreamcast webcamera)
- 3 controllers
- Seaman microphone
- Seaman VMU
- keyboard, mouse
- Samba De Amigo unit (amazingly it only cost 1000 yen / 5GBP $10!! This thing would cost you hundreds on ebay)
- Some games
I’m considering picking up a Saturn, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. The only game I’d want to play on that system is Panzer Dragoon.
On monday I’m going to pick up some NES and SNES things, just incase. All these goods are fairly common right now, but will become very scarce in just a few days, limiting their sale to overseas only, and even such giants as Yahoo Auction (the ebay of Japan) will enforce a ban on listing “fire hazzard” goods. Fire hazzard my arse.
If you know of any Dreamcast goods that I haven’t picked up, do tell. To my knowledge I’ve only missed out the Steering Wheel unit (I already have DC sticks and VirtuaOn sticks)
polycount.net T-shirt
Published 19th of Mar, 2006. Stored under print
Two internet forums for game characters designers ran a competition to see which forum could design and produce the best character, I’ve been a long standing participator at polycount and regularly organise events there. This is the T-shirt for the polycount forum side.
Manga Kissa
Published 23rd of Aug, 2005. Stored under diary
Japan is good, Tokyo is mad, Summer is hot!
I’m killing time in a “Manga kissa” before I go to pick up my monthly wodge. I’ll explain a little: Manga is the Japanese word for Comic, Kissa is a shortening of Kissaten which means cafe. In actuallity these places are heaven for killing time, and very affordable. For about 1.50 GBP an hour you can get free refil drinks, your own cubicle with computer and internet, access to a library and a very very comfortable chair which they hope you fall asleep in so that when you finally rouse, you’re digging deep in those pockets for 8 hours kip. Being open 24 hours a day, they are semi comfortable if you get stuck in a part of Tokyo you’re not able to get out of when the trains stop running.
That is, if you can mutter the required Japanese from a mouth that took in copious amounts of Japanese alcohol. I guess they’d help you over pay, so kind.
Well this certainly brings back memories from when I first came to Japan. 5 years ago I first started this Diary in Japan, in a Manga Kissa. Unfortunately those pages have been lost in the mysts of time.
I’m closer to working out what I want from life, and my level of Japanese is reflected in this casual mentality. I’ve been in Japan for almost 5 months, with nothing particular to do. It’s driving me mad somewhat, however everything is coming together now, making sense of the chaos!
Come to Japan
Published 5th of Apr, 2005. Stored under diary
I’ve decided to come to Japan for a bit of an adventure. I’ll be studying Japanese for 3 months and then trying to put it into practice for another 3 month, which puts my return to the UK date at Oct 3rd
Again, I’m on a voyage of self discovery, trying to understand what I want from my existance on this planet. I managed to save a shedload of cash from my previous job at Babel for this exact purpose, the plan has been burning away in my mind and soul for what seems like eternity.
Nissan create Cube screensavers
Published 10th of Mar, 2005. Stored under diary
Wow!
Nissan have really impressed this time with their decision to hire three of Japan’s top interacive designers to do something special! As the site is in Japanese, I’ve linked these fantastic screensavers here for download:
Kenji Sanro: cubeman
windows | Mac OSX | Mac OS9
Koichiro Tsujikawa: cube clock
windows | Mac OSX | Mac OS9
Groovevisions: GRV2213 (my favorite)
windows | Mac OSX
The first two are 3d screensavers made in director and the third is done in flash. Cube Man is a couple of cute little cubes bouncing around, which you can map your own pictures onto. Sugar cubes is a little more entertaining and very original, little ants come out of a hole every minute to rearange a clock made from sugar cubes. The third one is amazing. Seeing a car being driven around from a Spy Hunter perspective, with seemingly random simple yet wonderful terrain.
(Nissan Cube)
large posters
Published 17th of Feb, 2005. Stored under Illustration, print
Some large posters of my artwork. Given to friends.
paintball
Published 6th of Feb, 2005. Stored under diary
“Probably the best fun you can have with your clothes on!” – I overheard someone say when we were on the bus taking us back from paintballing, deep in the Sussex countryside. A drizzly day proved to be one of the best days out I’ve had in a very long time! For the uninitiated, “paintball” is rather simple; two teams battle it out armed with gas powered guns that fire small balls containing paint. On impact these paint balls explode and render the target “dead”.
We played 7 exhilarating rounds, split into two teams (white and yellow, I was on the white team), pitched to capture flags, storm strongholds and capture objects from downed airplanes. The rounds were 15 minutes each and team member can come back to life at 5 minute intervals if shot. Round 1 saw me pick off 14 yellow players and capture their flag, successfully returning it to our base and winning the game! All of the other games were frantic, getting the adrenaline flowing and the blood pumping! Round 6 saw us capture the Yellows stronghold by use of smoke grenades and a lot of crawling on the ground. The final round I volunteered to run to the downed airplane through a swarm of bullets and capture the briefcase, which I only just managed to do before diving into a pile of leaves to hide the goods!
My whole body now aches, being shot by paint balls is quite painful at first. Fun soon makes up for that minor drawback, which was had by all! This will be my final outing with the staf at Babel Media, and what a way to go!!
Farewell to Babel Media Ltd, more time for DADAKO!
Published 24th of Jan, 2005. Stored under diary
After a few months of contemplation, I’ve decided to resign from my job as Art Director of Babel Media Ltd. This is to pursue my carrer as a fulltime illustrator and go back to Tokyo to study Japanese for 6 months.
I’ll be leaving Babel on the 28th of Feb (2005) and I’ll be travelling to Tokyo in April. As droll as I’ve made it sound I’m super fucking happy!!!
So, watch this space. Because the Dadako brand will be getting a major update! I’ve been considering how to pimp my goods for a while, a collaboration and shop are on thier way; to sell T-Shirts, wall art (cheap posters!!) and soft vinyl resin toys! Finally I have time for what I’ve always wanted to do, but it really has taken this long for me to go out on a limb and make the Dadako idea into reality.