In the performance Occidental Tourist, a tall red-haired, fair-skinned and freckled American woman wears an ill-fitting Japanese summer kimono and chopsticks in her hair. She kneels on a white piece of paper, makes a deep bow and practices "useful Japanese words for the Occidental Tourist" from a language tape. The words on the tape correspond with the activity she will perform which is an absurd hybrid of Japanese traditions vaguely familiar to westerners.
She pours sumi ink from a soy sauce container onto sushi trays and makes prints using her wooden sandals as a stamp. Carved into the bottom of the sandals are the words occidental and tourist in both English and Japanese. The last word on the tape is "waltz" for which there is no Japanese word, only a Japanese pronunciation.
After stopping the tape, she stands up, puts her feet into the sandals and attempts to waltz in the clunky sandals, using a large piece of Japanese calligraphy paper with dance steps as a guide. She counts in Japanese: ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku (one, two, three, four, five, six.) After the dance, she kneels down and stamps the paper with a hanko, stands up, bows deeply and exits.
Occidental Tourist is inspired by a recent trip to Japan where attempts to "blend in" were always in vain. No matter how deep their understanding of Japanese language and customs, westerners, by their looks alone, will always remain gaijin- literally "foreigners" in Japan. The absurdity of the performance, particularly the contrasts between east and west, recall the conflicted condition of a westerner travelling in the Orient.
