Banzai!

My tita is coming home in time for Kadayawan. Sayaka, her Japanese stepdaughter will be going too and will probably be staying here for 3months. I haven't had the chance to know her well during my stay in Japan. But despite the language barrier and cultural differences we managed to understand each other by body language. For Filipinos, expressing hunger would be opening your mouth, putting your fingers in one hand together and pushing it before your lips. Once, I received a bewildered look from her and to prevent further embarrassment I quickly gesticulated chopsticks with my middle finger and thumb. Good thing I didn't lick my fingers to convey "sarap to the bones" or her samurai dad would have stabbed me with a chopstick. Well, I just hope she brought a bagful of English for her vacation.

The lady to the left is not Sayaka. And definitely not Takejiro. This is a 30-minute charcoal sketch of another friend I prepared as sample work for a commission.