A portrait of Japanese people

 When I heard that the theme of 3rd blog post is a portrait of Japanese people, one Japanese man came up on my mind. He runs Takoyaki (warm ball shape food which has octopus in it) shop around Gotenyama station. I often go to his shop to buy takoyaki. Whenever I go to his shop, he always welcomes me with his big smile and me and him sometimes have random conversation while he is making Takoyaki.

 After I took his photo, I interviewed with him about his life and his shop.  He started his shop 14 years ago. At first, he was working at shop with his mother, but after she died several years ago, he works mostly by himself.

 At his shop, customers can eat unique takoyaki, such as cheese tako (takoyaki which has cheese in it), kimuchi tako (kimuch in it), takuan tako (yellow colored radish tsukemono in it), chocolate tako (chocolate in it) and sujikon tako ( beef and konnyaku in it). The most surprising thing I heard from him was that some people who come to eat at his shop like to eat chocolate tako with beer. I have never thought of those combination, so I was shocked.

 Before I took his photo, I was a little nervous, because I was not sure if he allows me to take picture. Since I explained about the visual anthropology of Japan class, he kindly agreed to be taken the pictures. From that experience, I learned explaining the purpose of taking the picture is very important and if I do that, the chance of people allowing me to take photos might become high.