Hobo

Have you heard of “hobo symbols”?

Hobos left some symbols to share useful information for other hobos such as “kind lady lives here. ask food!” “doctor is here!”. It was just fun for me to brows those symbols and find out a meaning that each symbol has.

In those symbols, I came across a symbol of 2 crossing circles, which means “Don’t give up!”. It is interesting to know that hobos were trying to encourage and help someone who they never seen but someone who definitely could be in the same situation as them. So I decided to create my own hobo symbols to encourage other “hobos” out there who I never seen but are definitely like me...

My secret messages in the symbols are "Dont give up" and "Go your own way"!

 

It was 12 years ago that I met Niita the cat in a vet in my home town. I brought him to my mom and dad and since then we loved him as the youngest brother in my family. Especially my mom and his bond became special after my dad passed away and also both of her daughters left to the US. What made their bond the tightest was the disaster happened in japan 3 years ago. I had to say thank him that he supported my mom well during the days but I missed the chance to tell him that forever. He passed away in my mom's arms on a warm sunny day last spring, which was shortly after my mom found that he had a cancer. He was a well behaved, very smart, tiny gentleman. We were always joking that Niita would be really handsome in a well made tailored tweed jacket and pants...

The night I completed this wool jacket collection, I was staring at these 3 coats/jacket and found myself thinking, in my exhausted brain, Niita would pull them off very well and that eventually led me to the memory of the days that I was reading poems of the Beat Generation sitting by Niita at home and my eyes went wet a bit. I was going to name the very last jacket simply "hobo" but I named it "Niita" as an appreciation that i couldn’t tell,thinking of our tiny existentialist philosopher, Niita the cat.