So what, exactly, do I do here?
I get up in the morning at around 7. If I was smart the night before, I'd have already showered and packed my lunch, which usually consists of whatever Katie and I cooked the previous night. I pack my laptop in its case, grab my lunch bag from the fridge, and try to be out the door no later than 7:40. If it's not raining, I'll bike to work. It's a 40 minute journey from my front door to the school's front gate. The terrain is flat enough, so the ride isn't too strenuous, which allows to let my mind wander while I'm riding. I ride like everyone else: on the sidewalk and without a helmet, both baskets filled with my personal effects. I take two main roads to get to my school: one is the north-south road, Ama Ho Sen, which runs from South Amagasaki to nearby Takarazuka and beyond. The other in Route 2, the main east-west road that connects Osaka and Kobe.
If I'm lucky, I'll arrive at school at 8:15 - 5 minutes before the office announcements begin. I enter the sliding door leading into the staffroom, offer up my daily rounds of "ohayo gozaimasu!" (good morning!), throw my stuff down on my desk, stamp my hanko in the attendance book, turn on my laptop, take out the yoghurt or whatever I threw in my lunchbag to eat for breakfast, and start my day.
First period begins at 8:40. Periods are 50 minutes long, with 10 minute breaks in between. If I have a class, I'll use that in-between-time to make photocopies of any handouts I've made for the class, or simply to discuss and finalize the lesson plan with my team teacher. I don't teach the classes by myself, you see. Notwithstanding the aneurism I'm sure my students would experience if exposed to English with no intermediary to translate it into safe, comfortable, and wholesome Japanese, foreign teachers are, by law, prohibited from teaching by themselves in a government school. I'm not exactly sure why this is so, and I can't be bothered to find out. Besides, I really wouldn't want to teach alone anyway. As I said, there's really no way for my students and I to communicate with each other, barring the rudimentary skills we both possess in each others' respective languages, which for them mostly consists of "What is your hobby?" or "What do you like Japanese food?" or "America is very crime."
Even taking into account my busiest day, Monday, I teach no more than four out of six class periods a day, and that's just one day a week. Most days I teach two or three. The rest of the time I honestly spend in front of my laptop surfing the internet. Rarely, very rarely, I'll practice writing some kanji, but I can never remember them the next day. I wish I could find the will to be more productive, as there are so many better things I could be doing with my time. To my credit, I've developed a keen interest in political science - religiously following the 2008 Presidential Campaign, reading anything and everything I can about who's a fascist, who is or is not a Muslim, and who's forgotten to wear his or her flag pin this week. To be certain, I am not impressed with the level of political discourse back home.
At work I'm more or less a ghost. If I talk to any other teachers it's almost always the English teachers, and that's only because I have to plan lessons with them. Everyone else leaves me alone. Sometimes, such as when we have an office party after work at some bar or restaurant, I'll get to socialize with teachers with whom I never interact on a daily basis. Most of them are really nice, and even if we can't understand each other perfectly, we still manage to have fairly pleasant conversations. They won't talk to me at work, but I know it's not because they don't want to, it's just that the language barrier is too great, and the conspicuous lack of alcohol (not a problem at office parties) only further inhibits them. My failure to overcome this is my own fault; I don't study Japanese enough or practice it enough, I'm not very outgoing with the other staff or the students, I spend most of the day sitting at my desk instead of visiting student clubs or activities - everything the stereotypical JET is supposed to do to get the most out of their "JET experience".
I have no right to complain because I knew what this job was going to be like before I even set foot in Japan. I had read others' accounts of their time here on this Program. I knew that the number one complaint JETs had was "too much free time." You wouldn't think it would be a problem, would you? Most people would kill for a little more free time during their day. So I don't necessarily find that to be an accurate assessment. I'd prefer the phrase "lack of purpose". That, my friends, is a killer.
Don't get my wrong, it's not all doom and gloom. A lot of my students are joys, and some pop periodically into the staffroom just to say "hello!" Actually, the conversation goes just like this, every time:
Student: Hello. (Louder) Hello.
Me: Oh! Hello. How's it going?
Student: ...
Me: Sorry. How are you?
Student: I'm fine, thank you. And you?
Me: I'm fine.
Student: See you.
Me: See you.
Anyway, I've gone off on a huge tangent here. I'm supposed to be telling you about my typical day.
After school (around 3:15) is cleaning time, when all the students clean different parts of the school. I'm sure you've heard about this wonderful utopia that is Japan where all the good little boys and girls help clean their schools while rainbow gumdrops fall like manna from the heavens. The reality, as is often the case, is quite different. First, students actually complain about having to clean, when "cleaning" in this case amounts to generally no more than pushing a swiffer around for five minutes and then calling it a day. Second, there is precious little cleaning involved. As I said, students gather together to push dust around for five to ten minutes. In the bathrooms, students take out a hose and spray down the urinals, toilets, and floor with water. That's it. No bleach, no soap, no nothing. Of course, the point probably isn't to clean anything, but to instill the students with a sense of ownership and responsibility for the school - the students will be less likely to deface that which they'll only have to clean up later on.
Even though I'm not technically a part-time teacher, I'm allowed to leave at 4:15 (the regular teachers can leave at 5 though many stay far later than that - this is Japan after all). Again, if it's not raining, I make the return journey towards home. Depending on what Katie and I've decided to eat for dinner, I'll pick up a few ingredients at the MaxValue near our house. Katie doesn't get home from work until 7:30, so I have a few hours to kill. I'll watch TV or movies I've downloaded, read, do dishes, snack, etc. until Katie walks in the door. If I'm the one making dinner for the night, I'll typically start prepping the ingredients around 6:30 or so, so that it's all ready to go on the fire when Katie walks through the front door.
We eat dinner anywhere from 8 to 9, then have dessert (usually pudding we picked up on sale at MaxValue) in front of the TV and, during this time of the year, under the kotatsu. After dinner we clean up, make our lunch boxes for the next day, and go upstairs where we read until we fall alseep, which is generally around midnight.
Now the weekends are totally different: I don't work on Saturdays, but Katie does, so I do laundry and clean up around the house a little bit. Saturdays are also when I call my parents. I'm almost always able to talk to Mom; Dad's a little harder to get a hold of. Mostly I spend the day milling around the house until Katie gets home at the usual time. On weekend nights we've taken to going out for dinner instead of cooking, and with the selection of restaurants available on our street alone, we're never out of delicious options.
Sundays are our exploring days. It's on Sundays when we hop on a train and go somewhere of cultural significance. Recently, we've been on somewhat of a Kyoto kick, even though it's twice as far as the closest big city - Osaka. As a result, we've become pretty familiar with the ancient capital, so if anyone has a hankerin' to come visit Kyoto, Katie and I are practically certified tour guides.
Well, that's about it. Lather, rinse, repeat. If my tone seems dismissive or even depressed, don't be fooled. It's just that I've come to realize that daily life in Japan, even though I'm thousands upon thousands of miles away from home, is almost identical to daily life back home. We have our routines which we follow with nary a second thought. Most people seem pretty content with this situation as it stands, but Katie and I are the restless sort. Any downtime we have is spent plotting and planning our next great adventure, patiently enduring our routines until the day comes to go somewhere new, to experience something else.
-Bob
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Outrageously overdue
Ok, so I kind of let the blog get away from me for a month and a half, but to tell you the truth, not much has happened in that time. Some things of note:
My trip to Southeast Asia was great and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I highly recommend Malaysia as a tourist destination because 1.) everyone speaks English, and 2.) even though you're almost guaranteed to get the runs, the food is awesome. The best parts were the cheap food and tropical weather. Also, I enjoyed meeting fellow travelers from all over the world. In fact, that was probably the most interesting part out of the whole trip. Based on my encounters, I feel nothing but love for Canadians, the British, Australians, Austrians, Germans, New Zealanders, the French, Koreans, Chinese, Bulgarians, Bengalis, Malays, Indians, Swedes, and of course, my fellow Americans (one of whom was in the process of bicycling across Asia). I learned that I should be eternally grateful that English is the most popular second language in the world, because were it not for that, I wouldn't be able to talk to a great majority of these fine people.
Katie and I met up in Tokyo and saw quite a bit of the city. We were especially impressed by the good eats in Roppongi (including a relatively inexpensive Thai place which boasted a commanding 13th-story view of the city) and by the plastic food in Kappabashi, between Asakusa and Ueno. If you ever asked yourself, "Where can I find quality refrigerator magnets that look like pieces of sushi?" then this is the place for you. Of course, Tokyo being as large as it is defies even the most determined tourist to see everything in a mere three or four days, so Katie and I will definitely be going back for more.
On the home front, the third years are done with classes, which means I have even more free time to screw around on the computer at work. I also read, and sometimes, if I'm especially motivated, I open my Japanese textbook. On a positive note, however, I've pretty much learned what works and what doesn't in my classes, and my students' eyes don't seem quite as glazed over as they used to. I learned that they love intonation practice. The Japanese language being fairly flat in terms of intonation (think how a robot sounds when it talks), my students cannot seem to shake themselves of this habit when speaking English. To correct this, I overemphasize the sentences I read to them to a cartoonish degree. Example: "HOW do I GET to the STORE?" taking extra care to force my voice through its full range. I then have the students repeat over and over again, refusing to stop until they've all made complete fools of themselves. Only then can the real learning begin.
In other news, our friend Adam, who now lives in Korea, visited us this past week. Unfortunately, Katie and I had to work, so he was forced to explore the local sights largely by himself. He seemed like he had a pretty good time, all in all, but I got the sense he was pretty disturbed by how cold it actually was in our house. He brought us delicious homemade kimchi (pickled vegetables, usually cabbage, in chili sauce), which we appreciated greatly.
For whatever reason, Katie and I keep getting sick. I got some kind of cold when I got back from Singapore, Katie got a horrible 24 hour stomach bug, which I got about two weeks later, and now we both have colds again. Ugh. It seems everyone's sick right now, though. Everywhere you look, the Japanese are sporting those surgical face masks all over the place. I can't imagine that they actually do anything for you other than signaling to other people, "Hey! I'm sick! Stay away!" But when you're riding trains and buses all over creation, and the little old grandpas and little old ladies haven't quite mastered the art of covering their damn mouths when they cough, it's pretty easy to contract all manner of nasties. I can only hope that this will improve as we move into spring and, hopefully, warmer weather.
Because of our frequent illness, Katie and I haven't been out gallivanting around Japan as we were wont to do, so you won't find too many new pictures or descriptions of all the new places we've been. We'll try to get on that as soon as we stop coughing...
-Bob
My trip to Southeast Asia was great and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I highly recommend Malaysia as a tourist destination because 1.) everyone speaks English, and 2.) even though you're almost guaranteed to get the runs, the food is awesome. The best parts were the cheap food and tropical weather. Also, I enjoyed meeting fellow travelers from all over the world. In fact, that was probably the most interesting part out of the whole trip. Based on my encounters, I feel nothing but love for Canadians, the British, Australians, Austrians, Germans, New Zealanders, the French, Koreans, Chinese, Bulgarians, Bengalis, Malays, Indians, Swedes, and of course, my fellow Americans (one of whom was in the process of bicycling across Asia). I learned that I should be eternally grateful that English is the most popular second language in the world, because were it not for that, I wouldn't be able to talk to a great majority of these fine people.
Katie and I met up in Tokyo and saw quite a bit of the city. We were especially impressed by the good eats in Roppongi (including a relatively inexpensive Thai place which boasted a commanding 13th-story view of the city) and by the plastic food in Kappabashi, between Asakusa and Ueno. If you ever asked yourself, "Where can I find quality refrigerator magnets that look like pieces of sushi?" then this is the place for you. Of course, Tokyo being as large as it is defies even the most determined tourist to see everything in a mere three or four days, so Katie and I will definitely be going back for more.
On the home front, the third years are done with classes, which means I have even more free time to screw around on the computer at work. I also read, and sometimes, if I'm especially motivated, I open my Japanese textbook. On a positive note, however, I've pretty much learned what works and what doesn't in my classes, and my students' eyes don't seem quite as glazed over as they used to. I learned that they love intonation practice. The Japanese language being fairly flat in terms of intonation (think how a robot sounds when it talks), my students cannot seem to shake themselves of this habit when speaking English. To correct this, I overemphasize the sentences I read to them to a cartoonish degree. Example: "HOW do I GET to the STORE?" taking extra care to force my voice through its full range. I then have the students repeat over and over again, refusing to stop until they've all made complete fools of themselves. Only then can the real learning begin.
In other news, our friend Adam, who now lives in Korea, visited us this past week. Unfortunately, Katie and I had to work, so he was forced to explore the local sights largely by himself. He seemed like he had a pretty good time, all in all, but I got the sense he was pretty disturbed by how cold it actually was in our house. He brought us delicious homemade kimchi (pickled vegetables, usually cabbage, in chili sauce), which we appreciated greatly.
For whatever reason, Katie and I keep getting sick. I got some kind of cold when I got back from Singapore, Katie got a horrible 24 hour stomach bug, which I got about two weeks later, and now we both have colds again. Ugh. It seems everyone's sick right now, though. Everywhere you look, the Japanese are sporting those surgical face masks all over the place. I can't imagine that they actually do anything for you other than signaling to other people, "Hey! I'm sick! Stay away!" But when you're riding trains and buses all over creation, and the little old grandpas and little old ladies haven't quite mastered the art of covering their damn mouths when they cough, it's pretty easy to contract all manner of nasties. I can only hope that this will improve as we move into spring and, hopefully, warmer weather.
Because of our frequent illness, Katie and I haven't been out gallivanting around Japan as we were wont to do, so you won't find too many new pictures or descriptions of all the new places we've been. We'll try to get on that as soon as we stop coughing...
-Bob
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Local haunts
First of all, my apologies for the inexcusable lack of posts for the last couple of weeks or so. It's impossible to write anything worthwhile if the creative juices just aren't flowing, and often it takes the right combination of factors to loosen the tap. I could merely offer up a brief accounting of our adventures here, but that would be a bland exercise in banality, and you deserve more than that. You deserve careful, measured commentary, and I intend to provide it for you. So here goes:
By now, I'm sure you've realized that life in Japan isn't just Hokkaido cream and peach blossoms; it's full of cultural walls to scale and linguistic obstacles to overcome. No seemingly simple, daily task is without its own devilish twist; going to the doctor for a checkup might as well be going to the moon. Nevertheless, there are moments that are so "Japanese" that I can't help but love my new home.
Case in point: two local businesses, each about two doors down from our house. One is a public bathhouse, and the other is a hole-in-the-wall sushi bar. I'll describe each in some detail.
Way back when, it used to be the case in Japan that every community had its own sento, or public bathhouse (this was before the days of private homes having their own tubs). The way it worked was like this: typically before or after your evening meal, you'd throw some soap and a towel into a little basket and you'd trot on down to the bath, where you'd get naked, take a long shower - in full view of the other bathers - and then soak in the hot, communal bath. "Skinship", as it is often called in English, was and continues to be an important aspect of Japanese society. At the baths, one can find both CEOs and street sweepers enjoying a hot soak, having divested themselves of the trappings of their respective stations.
I had previously been to an onsen, so when we finally decided to start frequenting the local sento, I was prepared. An onsen is like a sento, except an onsen uses mineral water pumped in from hot springs located all over Japan. Japan is an island rife with geothermic activity, and volcanoes, earthquakes, and hot springs all seem to go hand in hand. You take the good with the bad, I suppose. Depending on where you are, the hot spring water is said to have various healthful and restorative properties. The water from one town might help relieve arthritis, whereas the water from the town over might help cure migraines. You can never tell. As you can imagine, onsen are fantastically popular both with the locals and the tourists, both coming from far and wide to experience a few minutes in the tub. The sento, on the other hand, just heats up regular old tap water for its baths. In any event, the older lady who runs the sento next to our house had treated us very kindly in the past and had repeatedly asked us to visit her establishment, so we were more than happy to do so. That, and the fact that it's been getting pretty cold around here at night made taking a hot bath seem like a very agreeable way to spend the evening.
The entrance to the building is open, as are many storefronts in Japan, with only a half curtain hanging in the doorway. The sign outside displays the large, red, hiragana character ゆ, "yu". Yuu is the word for hot water. It has a corresponding kanji (Chinese character), but I've read that the kanji is used to represent hot water used for tea, whereas the hiragana is used to represent hot water used for people. Upon entering, you see that there are rows of foot lockers on either side, and that each side is divided by sex. You take off your shoes and hold them in your hand as you step up onto the actual floor (many establishments, including our own house, have an area exclusively for taking off ones shoes). You place your shoes in an empty locker and carry the wooden key with you as you enter the bath area - men entering through the doorway marked 男, and women through the doorway marked 女. Upon entering, the first thing you see are naked people walking around. As veterans of the stage, Katie and I are no strangers to seeing people in various states of undress (quick costume changes backstage quickly rob you of any sense of modesty), so seeing all this wasn't such a big deal, but I can easily imagine how the more repressed among us might have reacted to such a sight. Although really, anyone who goes to the gym and uses the locker rooms there with any regularity should already be quite desensitized. You pay several hundred yen (a few bucks) to the person supervising the bathhouse, and she gives you a little bottle of shampoo, soap, and a small towel. Most people prefer to bring their own supplies, though. You undress and throw your clothes into a small locker, taking only the towel (which is for washing - hopefully you remembered to bring something to dry yourself off with), shampoo, and soap with you, and proceed to yet another room which contains the actual bath.
In spite of their reputation for being polite and demure, there are a few sure-fire ways to piss Japanese people off, and one of the surest is failing to wash yourself properly before entering the bath. All along the walls are shower heads expressly for this purpose. You simply pull up a little plastic stool, have a seat (the shower heads are at waist level so you actually have to shower sitting down), and get to work with the shampoo and soap. Once you've scrubbed yourself completely, you take a well-earned seat in the bath. For a modicum of modesty, you can use the washing towel to cover your nether regions on your way from the shower to the bath, but be advised that the towel is not to go into the bathwater. Instead, many people put the towel on their heads. I'm not sure why it's customary to do this, but I've heard that in cases where the bathwater is extremely hot - as it sometimes is - putting a wet towel on your head actually prevents you from passing out. The most important thing to remember is to relax; once you're in the bath you can sit back and enjoy the mural of cranes flying in front of Mount Fuji painted on the tile wall in front of you, hazily obscured by steam.
The best part about visiting the bathhouse is how spectacularly relaxed you feel afterwards. Leaving the sento with your hair still wet and your insides still warm, stepping out into the late autumn chill, is a delicious feeling. Even better is the fact that it takes literally 30 seconds to walk back to our house which, although just as cold inside as it is outside, has certain indispensable amenities like space heaters and hot water heaters and a few seasons of Arrested Development on the computer for our viewing pleasure. C'est la vie!
I have less to say about the sushi bar a few doors down in the opposite direction, but please don't mistake my lack of prose for an indictment. Like the sento, it exudes old-school flavor; there might have been many such places that dotted our fair city in the not-too-distant past. Indeed, our whole street, complete with its fruit vendors and specialty boutiques, is somewhat of an anomaly when compared to the sprawling industrial landscape of Amagasaki. There are several sushi places on our street, and to be honest, this is the only one that we've tried. The other places, though no doubt delicious, loom large and commercial over our local dive which can only be described as elegant in its practicality. It seats maybe 8 people around a bar where a very nice man and (I presume) his wife toil busily away. It was here where Katie met some of our other neighbors for the first time; everyone seemed to be delighted to talk to us, even if it was in a broken mish-mash of Japanese and English. The most recent time we dined there, it was a Sunday night, and there were only a few laborers occupying the opposite end of the bar. They looked close to finishing their meal. We took a seat and the proprietor immediately asked us what we wanted. We ordered maguro (tuna) first, then sake (salmon). We were close enough to watch him take a block of fish and, using what looked to be extraordinarily expensive knives - I had seen such knives at a specialty cutlery store in Kyoto where some items went for as much as the equivalent of $500 - went to work.
"Sushi" is a word that refers to rice, not fish. One might translate it as "vinegared rice", which is exactly what it is: one first steams the rice and then folds in a mixture of vinegar, salt, and sugar. This addition makes the rice sticky and easy to manipulate into various shapes. "Sashimi" is the word that refers to raw fish by itself. If you order sashimi at a restaurant, what you'll get is a plate full of decoratively arranged raw fish, no rice to be seen. There are a couple of ways of combining fish and rice, however. The first way is the most common, called "nigiri". Nigiri is simply a piece of fish that has been pressed onto a little ball of rice. The next way is called "makizushi", or rolls. To make makizushi, one takes a sheet of nori (dried seaweed), lays it down, spreads out sushi rice over the nori, then places strips of fish and vegetables in the middle of the spread. Then, you roll it up (so that it's one long roll), cut it into smaller pieces, and serve. The last way is called "temakizushi", which are conical rolls constructed individually by hand.
I also have to issue a public service announcement: soy sauce is for fish, not rice. One of those aforementioned "things that piss Japanese people off" includes drenching rice in soy sauce. Seriously, the rice is often prepared with great care, so much so that a sushi chef in training might spend years just learning how to make the rice. It is prepared to be just the right consistency and flavor to perfectly complement the fish. The Western equivalent would be to drown your expertly cooked and seasoned steak in sauce before even trying a bite. Sure, you can do it, but say goodbye to earning any brownie points with the kitchen staff. So when you pick up that nigiri (yes, you can use your hands), dip it in the sauce fish side down.
Oh, and one more thing I wanted to clear up. For whatever reason, a lot of people in America think that Japanese people frown on mixing your wasabi into your soy sauce. Let it be hereafter known that I, Robert Hollands, have witnessed Japanese people doing this very thing - it's OK.
The chef went a little heavy on the wasabi this time - he takes his finger and spreads a little wet wasabi between the fish and the rice as a kind of cement to hold the two pieces together. We readily forgave him, though, because the fish was cool, fresh, and buttery in its texture. As we ate and drank, the little colored discs that indicated how much each item cost accumulated in front of us. Halfway through the meal, he thrust a bowl full of what looked like fish salad in front of us. "Fugu no kawa...karai," he told us. Pufferfish skin...spicy. As you might have heard, fugu is one of the deadliest fish known to man. Some of its internal organs contain a compound called tetrodotoxin; a powerful poison of which a minuscule amount can kill several people. Always ready to flirt with danger, the Japanese will pay top dollar for the thrill of eating this fish. It's a popular wintertime food, so here and there in our neighborhood one can see signs beginning to pop up, advertising fugu courses for somewhere in the range of $40 to $50. The danger is negligible however, because chefs who prepare this fish are well-trained and have to undergo a rigorous examination, which includes eating the fish themselves. Nevertheless, for a hypochondriac such as myself, eating any part of this animal might prove disastrous, poison or no. After returning home, so much as a sneeze might have sent me running for the nearest emergency room. As it turned out, though, I didn't sneeze or cough or anything which could otherwise be mistaken for impending death, so Katie was saved the hassle of filling out forms in triplicate at the local hospital while trying to remember the kanji for "overactive imagination".
So there you have it: an exclusive sneak peek into a couple of the quaint, local businesses that grace our neighborhood. If I had more energy, I'd tell you about the guy down the street who fixes bikes. He speaks decent English and has some friends from Vegas. He charged me 4000 yen for a new front tire, which was more than my bike cost (it's a crappy bike), but I'm not going to hold it against him.
Until next time,
-Bob
By now, I'm sure you've realized that life in Japan isn't just Hokkaido cream and peach blossoms; it's full of cultural walls to scale and linguistic obstacles to overcome. No seemingly simple, daily task is without its own devilish twist; going to the doctor for a checkup might as well be going to the moon. Nevertheless, there are moments that are so "Japanese" that I can't help but love my new home.
Case in point: two local businesses, each about two doors down from our house. One is a public bathhouse, and the other is a hole-in-the-wall sushi bar. I'll describe each in some detail.
Way back when, it used to be the case in Japan that every community had its own sento, or public bathhouse (this was before the days of private homes having their own tubs). The way it worked was like this: typically before or after your evening meal, you'd throw some soap and a towel into a little basket and you'd trot on down to the bath, where you'd get naked, take a long shower - in full view of the other bathers - and then soak in the hot, communal bath. "Skinship", as it is often called in English, was and continues to be an important aspect of Japanese society. At the baths, one can find both CEOs and street sweepers enjoying a hot soak, having divested themselves of the trappings of their respective stations.
I had previously been to an onsen, so when we finally decided to start frequenting the local sento, I was prepared. An onsen is like a sento, except an onsen uses mineral water pumped in from hot springs located all over Japan. Japan is an island rife with geothermic activity, and volcanoes, earthquakes, and hot springs all seem to go hand in hand. You take the good with the bad, I suppose. Depending on where you are, the hot spring water is said to have various healthful and restorative properties. The water from one town might help relieve arthritis, whereas the water from the town over might help cure migraines. You can never tell. As you can imagine, onsen are fantastically popular both with the locals and the tourists, both coming from far and wide to experience a few minutes in the tub. The sento, on the other hand, just heats up regular old tap water for its baths. In any event, the older lady who runs the sento next to our house had treated us very kindly in the past and had repeatedly asked us to visit her establishment, so we were more than happy to do so. That, and the fact that it's been getting pretty cold around here at night made taking a hot bath seem like a very agreeable way to spend the evening.
The entrance to the building is open, as are many storefronts in Japan, with only a half curtain hanging in the doorway. The sign outside displays the large, red, hiragana character ゆ, "yu". Yuu is the word for hot water. It has a corresponding kanji (Chinese character), but I've read that the kanji is used to represent hot water used for tea, whereas the hiragana is used to represent hot water used for people. Upon entering, you see that there are rows of foot lockers on either side, and that each side is divided by sex. You take off your shoes and hold them in your hand as you step up onto the actual floor (many establishments, including our own house, have an area exclusively for taking off ones shoes). You place your shoes in an empty locker and carry the wooden key with you as you enter the bath area - men entering through the doorway marked 男, and women through the doorway marked 女. Upon entering, the first thing you see are naked people walking around. As veterans of the stage, Katie and I are no strangers to seeing people in various states of undress (quick costume changes backstage quickly rob you of any sense of modesty), so seeing all this wasn't such a big deal, but I can easily imagine how the more repressed among us might have reacted to such a sight. Although really, anyone who goes to the gym and uses the locker rooms there with any regularity should already be quite desensitized. You pay several hundred yen (a few bucks) to the person supervising the bathhouse, and she gives you a little bottle of shampoo, soap, and a small towel. Most people prefer to bring their own supplies, though. You undress and throw your clothes into a small locker, taking only the towel (which is for washing - hopefully you remembered to bring something to dry yourself off with), shampoo, and soap with you, and proceed to yet another room which contains the actual bath.
In spite of their reputation for being polite and demure, there are a few sure-fire ways to piss Japanese people off, and one of the surest is failing to wash yourself properly before entering the bath. All along the walls are shower heads expressly for this purpose. You simply pull up a little plastic stool, have a seat (the shower heads are at waist level so you actually have to shower sitting down), and get to work with the shampoo and soap. Once you've scrubbed yourself completely, you take a well-earned seat in the bath. For a modicum of modesty, you can use the washing towel to cover your nether regions on your way from the shower to the bath, but be advised that the towel is not to go into the bathwater. Instead, many people put the towel on their heads. I'm not sure why it's customary to do this, but I've heard that in cases where the bathwater is extremely hot - as it sometimes is - putting a wet towel on your head actually prevents you from passing out. The most important thing to remember is to relax; once you're in the bath you can sit back and enjoy the mural of cranes flying in front of Mount Fuji painted on the tile wall in front of you, hazily obscured by steam.
The best part about visiting the bathhouse is how spectacularly relaxed you feel afterwards. Leaving the sento with your hair still wet and your insides still warm, stepping out into the late autumn chill, is a delicious feeling. Even better is the fact that it takes literally 30 seconds to walk back to our house which, although just as cold inside as it is outside, has certain indispensable amenities like space heaters and hot water heaters and a few seasons of Arrested Development on the computer for our viewing pleasure. C'est la vie!
I have less to say about the sushi bar a few doors down in the opposite direction, but please don't mistake my lack of prose for an indictment. Like the sento, it exudes old-school flavor; there might have been many such places that dotted our fair city in the not-too-distant past. Indeed, our whole street, complete with its fruit vendors and specialty boutiques, is somewhat of an anomaly when compared to the sprawling industrial landscape of Amagasaki. There are several sushi places on our street, and to be honest, this is the only one that we've tried. The other places, though no doubt delicious, loom large and commercial over our local dive which can only be described as elegant in its practicality. It seats maybe 8 people around a bar where a very nice man and (I presume) his wife toil busily away. It was here where Katie met some of our other neighbors for the first time; everyone seemed to be delighted to talk to us, even if it was in a broken mish-mash of Japanese and English. The most recent time we dined there, it was a Sunday night, and there were only a few laborers occupying the opposite end of the bar. They looked close to finishing their meal. We took a seat and the proprietor immediately asked us what we wanted. We ordered maguro (tuna) first, then sake (salmon). We were close enough to watch him take a block of fish and, using what looked to be extraordinarily expensive knives - I had seen such knives at a specialty cutlery store in Kyoto where some items went for as much as the equivalent of $500 - went to work.
"Sushi" is a word that refers to rice, not fish. One might translate it as "vinegared rice", which is exactly what it is: one first steams the rice and then folds in a mixture of vinegar, salt, and sugar. This addition makes the rice sticky and easy to manipulate into various shapes. "Sashimi" is the word that refers to raw fish by itself. If you order sashimi at a restaurant, what you'll get is a plate full of decoratively arranged raw fish, no rice to be seen. There are a couple of ways of combining fish and rice, however. The first way is the most common, called "nigiri". Nigiri is simply a piece of fish that has been pressed onto a little ball of rice. The next way is called "makizushi", or rolls. To make makizushi, one takes a sheet of nori (dried seaweed), lays it down, spreads out sushi rice over the nori, then places strips of fish and vegetables in the middle of the spread. Then, you roll it up (so that it's one long roll), cut it into smaller pieces, and serve. The last way is called "temakizushi", which are conical rolls constructed individually by hand.
I also have to issue a public service announcement: soy sauce is for fish, not rice. One of those aforementioned "things that piss Japanese people off" includes drenching rice in soy sauce. Seriously, the rice is often prepared with great care, so much so that a sushi chef in training might spend years just learning how to make the rice. It is prepared to be just the right consistency and flavor to perfectly complement the fish. The Western equivalent would be to drown your expertly cooked and seasoned steak in sauce before even trying a bite. Sure, you can do it, but say goodbye to earning any brownie points with the kitchen staff. So when you pick up that nigiri (yes, you can use your hands), dip it in the sauce fish side down.
Oh, and one more thing I wanted to clear up. For whatever reason, a lot of people in America think that Japanese people frown on mixing your wasabi into your soy sauce. Let it be hereafter known that I, Robert Hollands, have witnessed Japanese people doing this very thing - it's OK.
The chef went a little heavy on the wasabi this time - he takes his finger and spreads a little wet wasabi between the fish and the rice as a kind of cement to hold the two pieces together. We readily forgave him, though, because the fish was cool, fresh, and buttery in its texture. As we ate and drank, the little colored discs that indicated how much each item cost accumulated in front of us. Halfway through the meal, he thrust a bowl full of what looked like fish salad in front of us. "Fugu no kawa...karai," he told us. Pufferfish skin...spicy. As you might have heard, fugu is one of the deadliest fish known to man. Some of its internal organs contain a compound called tetrodotoxin; a powerful poison of which a minuscule amount can kill several people. Always ready to flirt with danger, the Japanese will pay top dollar for the thrill of eating this fish. It's a popular wintertime food, so here and there in our neighborhood one can see signs beginning to pop up, advertising fugu courses for somewhere in the range of $40 to $50. The danger is negligible however, because chefs who prepare this fish are well-trained and have to undergo a rigorous examination, which includes eating the fish themselves. Nevertheless, for a hypochondriac such as myself, eating any part of this animal might prove disastrous, poison or no. After returning home, so much as a sneeze might have sent me running for the nearest emergency room. As it turned out, though, I didn't sneeze or cough or anything which could otherwise be mistaken for impending death, so Katie was saved the hassle of filling out forms in triplicate at the local hospital while trying to remember the kanji for "overactive imagination".
So there you have it: an exclusive sneak peek into a couple of the quaint, local businesses that grace our neighborhood. If I had more energy, I'd tell you about the guy down the street who fixes bikes. He speaks decent English and has some friends from Vegas. He charged me 4000 yen for a new front tire, which was more than my bike cost (it's a crappy bike), but I'm not going to hold it against him.
Until next time,
-Bob
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
On Foliage, Costco, and Christmas
Wow, it's been a while since we've posted! Our apologies.
Some notable events from the last week and a half:
- The Thanksgiving Thankstacular was a grand success (as I'm sure you read), and we received many positive responses from our friends and my fellow teachers afterward. The next day at school, in fact, everyone whom I invited came up to my desk and thanked me personally for inviting them. Apparently this is a very Japanese thing to do, but I think it should more appropriately fall under the category heading of "common courtesy" -- a concept which I fear is altogether lost on the more lamentable members of my generation.
- Last week wasn't particularly memorable; there were classes and more classes, both for myself and Katie. We were really just waiting out the week for Friday, which was a national holiday (Labor Thanksgiving Day). Many of my students conflated their Labor Thanksgiving Day with America's Thanksgiving, and I had to repeatedly remind them that their holiday might more appropriately be compared to our Labor Day, which is in September. Nevertheless, we had Friday off, and to celebrate, Katie and I joined some other JETs living in our prefecture in hiking up Mount Hiei - the highest mountain in Kyoto. It was quite a steep climb up to the top and it took several hours, but the views along the way were well worth the effort. And unlike a lot of other mountains, Hieizan holds a reward at its summit for the more determined hikers among us (and for those of us who have cars and can drive there): Enryaku-ji Temple. It was a beautiful temple, made all the more spectacular by the changing autumn leaves.
- On Sunday, Katie and I went back to Kyoto to see some more kouyou (fall colors). We did a little shopping and went to Kiyomizu-dera, which is one of the more famous temples in Kyoto and, therefore, in all of Japan. Unlike Enryaku-ji, it was difficult to enjoy walking around the complex because it was so crowded. Kyoto in general was crowded: it was impossible to walk at your own pace on the sidewalks as you were being jostled and prodded by throngs of people walking to this temple or that shrine, stopping to examine the plastic food displays prominently featured outside many restaurants in Japan, or doing any one of the myriad of activities one does in a cultural capital. If you ever search the internet for pictures of Kyoto, you'll invariably find scores of photographs of cultural landmarks with nary a soul to be seen. It all looks so calm, so tranquil. This is, as Mom is so fond of saying, "A lie from the Devil." Now, don't let that discourage you from visiting what is the undisputed cultural hotspot for all things Japanese. The sights there are breathtaking and the shopping is unparalleled. Ironically, we ate dinner at a fabulous restaurant called "Falafel Garden", which I think is owned by an Israeli. Sometimes there's only so much Japan you can take in one day.
- Monday featured a trip to Costco with some of our good friends. We were running seriously low on bulk, wholesale items, and we needed to stock up. I can tell you that there is nothing more hilarious in this world than trying to fit boxes of stuff - some of which are nearly as big as your own torso - into whatever backpack, purse, or sack you can find, and then attempting to get it all home using only public transportation.
- Yesterday Katie visited the hyaku en shoppu (100 yen shop) to pick up some Holiday Cheer. Now that Thanksgiving is officially over, we can now usher in the Christmas Season, even though Santa and his reindeer have been prominently displayed in certain places around these parts since Halloween. You see, it's for this reason why I absolutely refuse to get into the Holiday Spirit until after my birthday. There's only so much Burl Ives a person can stand in a year. Even though Japan is, by and large, an irreligious country*, the Japanese passion for gift giving combined with the marketing potential of cute, furry creatures makes Christmas in Japan quite a popular holiday. On my street alone, almost every shop has some sort of display. The foreign food store down the street, Mon Marche, is absolutely decked out in its holiday best - colored lights and the flashing silhouettes of reindeer festoon the windows. On my daily ride home, I pass a barber shop that features an outdoor arrangement of dancing figurines singing Christmas songs; among them is a polar bear dressed like Santa Claus. All in all, it captures the commercial aspect of Christmas as it's celebrated in the States quite nicely. Katie was not immune to the swiftly approaching "most wonderful time of the year", and so she couldn't resist picking up a few things for the house. She bought the tiniest Christmas tree you ever did see, complete with lights, tinsel, and ornaments. Yes, Christmas has come to the Bob and Katie household.
*That is not to say that they don't believe in a higher power or powers, but it's my estimation that the majority of Japanese are more superstitious than religious, at least in the traditional sense of the word.
- The rest of this week is still up in the air. I'm taking paid leave on Friday because my one class was cancelled because, instead of conversation, the students will study grammar so that they don't fail as spectacularly for their upcoming exams as they did the last go around. Instead, I'll be headed to Arashiyama, which is another spot near Kyoto where the fall foliage is said to be particularly beautiful. On Saturday, we're having some friends over and on Sunday, Katie is taking me somewhere for a "birthday surprise". I guess and guess at what it could possibly be, but she assures me that I'm quite far from discovering whatever diabolical scheme she has concocted. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.
-Bob
Some notable events from the last week and a half:
- The Thanksgiving Thankstacular was a grand success (as I'm sure you read), and we received many positive responses from our friends and my fellow teachers afterward. The next day at school, in fact, everyone whom I invited came up to my desk and thanked me personally for inviting them. Apparently this is a very Japanese thing to do, but I think it should more appropriately fall under the category heading of "common courtesy" -- a concept which I fear is altogether lost on the more lamentable members of my generation.
- Last week wasn't particularly memorable; there were classes and more classes, both for myself and Katie. We were really just waiting out the week for Friday, which was a national holiday (Labor Thanksgiving Day). Many of my students conflated their Labor Thanksgiving Day with America's Thanksgiving, and I had to repeatedly remind them that their holiday might more appropriately be compared to our Labor Day, which is in September. Nevertheless, we had Friday off, and to celebrate, Katie and I joined some other JETs living in our prefecture in hiking up Mount Hiei - the highest mountain in Kyoto. It was quite a steep climb up to the top and it took several hours, but the views along the way were well worth the effort. And unlike a lot of other mountains, Hieizan holds a reward at its summit for the more determined hikers among us (and for those of us who have cars and can drive there): Enryaku-ji Temple. It was a beautiful temple, made all the more spectacular by the changing autumn leaves.
- On Sunday, Katie and I went back to Kyoto to see some more kouyou (fall colors). We did a little shopping and went to Kiyomizu-dera, which is one of the more famous temples in Kyoto and, therefore, in all of Japan. Unlike Enryaku-ji, it was difficult to enjoy walking around the complex because it was so crowded. Kyoto in general was crowded: it was impossible to walk at your own pace on the sidewalks as you were being jostled and prodded by throngs of people walking to this temple or that shrine, stopping to examine the plastic food displays prominently featured outside many restaurants in Japan, or doing any one of the myriad of activities one does in a cultural capital. If you ever search the internet for pictures of Kyoto, you'll invariably find scores of photographs of cultural landmarks with nary a soul to be seen. It all looks so calm, so tranquil. This is, as Mom is so fond of saying, "A lie from the Devil." Now, don't let that discourage you from visiting what is the undisputed cultural hotspot for all things Japanese. The sights there are breathtaking and the shopping is unparalleled. Ironically, we ate dinner at a fabulous restaurant called "Falafel Garden", which I think is owned by an Israeli. Sometimes there's only so much Japan you can take in one day.
- Monday featured a trip to Costco with some of our good friends. We were running seriously low on bulk, wholesale items, and we needed to stock up. I can tell you that there is nothing more hilarious in this world than trying to fit boxes of stuff - some of which are nearly as big as your own torso - into whatever backpack, purse, or sack you can find, and then attempting to get it all home using only public transportation.
- Yesterday Katie visited the hyaku en shoppu (100 yen shop) to pick up some Holiday Cheer. Now that Thanksgiving is officially over, we can now usher in the Christmas Season, even though Santa and his reindeer have been prominently displayed in certain places around these parts since Halloween. You see, it's for this reason why I absolutely refuse to get into the Holiday Spirit until after my birthday. There's only so much Burl Ives a person can stand in a year. Even though Japan is, by and large, an irreligious country*, the Japanese passion for gift giving combined with the marketing potential of cute, furry creatures makes Christmas in Japan quite a popular holiday. On my street alone, almost every shop has some sort of display. The foreign food store down the street, Mon Marche, is absolutely decked out in its holiday best - colored lights and the flashing silhouettes of reindeer festoon the windows. On my daily ride home, I pass a barber shop that features an outdoor arrangement of dancing figurines singing Christmas songs; among them is a polar bear dressed like Santa Claus. All in all, it captures the commercial aspect of Christmas as it's celebrated in the States quite nicely. Katie was not immune to the swiftly approaching "most wonderful time of the year", and so she couldn't resist picking up a few things for the house. She bought the tiniest Christmas tree you ever did see, complete with lights, tinsel, and ornaments. Yes, Christmas has come to the Bob and Katie household.
*That is not to say that they don't believe in a higher power or powers, but it's my estimation that the majority of Japanese are more superstitious than religious, at least in the traditional sense of the word.
- The rest of this week is still up in the air. I'm taking paid leave on Friday because my one class was cancelled because, instead of conversation, the students will study grammar so that they don't fail as spectacularly for their upcoming exams as they did the last go around. Instead, I'll be headed to Arashiyama, which is another spot near Kyoto where the fall foliage is said to be particularly beautiful. On Saturday, we're having some friends over and on Sunday, Katie is taking me somewhere for a "birthday surprise". I guess and guess at what it could possibly be, but she assures me that I'm quite far from discovering whatever diabolical scheme she has concocted. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.
-Bob
Monday, November 19, 2007
Thanksgiving Thankstacular 2007
Last night Bob and I did something we thought near impossible. We cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 18 people. Here is the story:THE LEAD-UP:
For a long time now, I've been suggesting to Bob that we should have his coworkers over. We have the space for it, and it's the polite thing to do, anyway. So we decided to do it at Thanksgiving. We invited the principal and his wife, the vice-principal, and all the English teachers (I think there are 6 or 7, besides Bob.) However, only 4 told us they could come. Luckily none of them showed up in costume. The principal's wife, who speaks excellent English and has a very good understanding of American culture, said "We have to wear costumes, don't we?" And the vice-principal RSVPed by saying "Yes, I will come to your Halloween party." I was inclined to just let them dress up and see what happens, but Bob informed them that no costumes were required.
One guy told Bob he was really excited to eat turkey. We had been going back and forth over whether to have turkey, or maybe just chicken or ham, which are much easier to find and also smaller. We don't have an oven, so our friend offered to lend us her electric oven. No one bakes in Japan-- it's a big waste of energy to heat such a large space when you're only baking one dish. And the ovens they do sell are much smaller, not exactly turkey-size. So we thought maybe we just won't have one. The side dishes are the best part of Thanksgiving anyway. But when that teacher kept talking about the turkey, we couldn't disappoint him, right? We took a trip to Costco, where we found the smallest turkey was 16.8 lbs/ 7.6 kg. And it was $40, having been imported from America. We got it anyway.
Now, with this turkey on our hands (which barely fit in our fridge and ended up breaking the glass shelf it was laid on) we knew had to invite more people. We sent out an email to a few foreign friends in the area, all other English teachers. A few people replied, so we now had a guest list of about 8. I was still worried, though, so I told some people at my office about it. I thought maybe 1 or 2 people would come. But many of the Japanese staff got really excited. "My first Thanksgiving dinner!" they said. We ended up having 3 people from my work. Then some more of our foreign friends replied to our email. Uh-oh. We now had a guest list of 15 people. As it turned out, another of Bob's coworkers showed up anyway, making a grand total of 16 guests.
COOKING:
With all these people on our hands, we doubled and tripled recipes in order to feed everyone. Never mind that we had never cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner for even a few people. In addition to the prize turkey, we made stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, garlic green beans, and ginger carrots. We bought corncobs, rolls, 2 pies, ice cream and most importantly, black olives. We asked people to bring drinks or desserts, or a side dish. So in addition to the main meal, there were chips, guacamole, salad, raisins, and enough beer and cheap wine so that it flowed all night.
The hardest part was cooking the turkey. I don't really know anything about cooking meat. Since Bob used to work as a prep cook, he got the job of cooking the turkey. At first he saved the giblets, thinking that we could use them in gravy, but then decided that it might be a bad idea to eat the parts of a turkey that are used as a filtration system. At least it wasn't a Chinese lead-infested turkey. I put some spices together and he rubbed them on the bird, and it went in the oven at noon.
The rest of the cooking was pretty standard Thanksgiving stuff, but with a few complications: 1. Our stove only has 2 burners. 2. We have few cooking tools. 3. With the turkey in the oven (or in the fridge, or in the freezer, or anywhere else we kept it) nothing else would fit. Now, I'm used to putting everything in the oven and letting it all cook, and then going and watching the parade. Not here. From 12-6, the turkey took up every available centimeter of space. So anything else that needed to be cooked had to go in the microwave on "grill" setting, or on the stove-- if there was room on the stove. It was a process. And then the was the most frustrating thing of all: 4. Measurement conversions are a bitch.
You would think that it would be a simple matter of converting US measurements to metric ones. And you would be wrong. You see, there are also Japanese measurements in addition to metric ones. A Japanese cup is equal to 200 milliliters. A US cup is 237 milliliters. All of our measuring tools mark the Japanese cup, not the American one. It was only a month or so ago that I finally figured this out. "Hey, does this look like a cup of water to you?" "Um... I don't know-- wait! I think it's missing 37 milliliters!" Well, it wasn't exactly like that... but I did think that Japanese cups look smaller. Now I know why.
And then there was the not-so-simple matter that the oven had temperatures labeled only in Fahrenheit (not sure why) but our meat thermometer was only labeled in Celsius. This is usually okay, since I've gotten used to describing the outside temperature in Celsius, but I'm not so good with higher temps. And when cooking turkey so that it's still juicy but no one gets salmonella- you kind of have to be precise. We left a Fahrenheit-Celsius converter webpage open on the computer, so we could keep running back and forth to check if it was bacteria-free yet.
THE PARTY ITSELF:With all the turkey fuss, it wasn't done until 1 hour after the party technically started. People began to arrive at 5, and at first, the Japanese people all remained in the back room while the foreigners stayed in the kitchen. Bob and I were still cooking, and were trying to be good hosts while quickly finishing up dinner. Once the beers and boxed wine started flowing, however, the problem began to sort itself out as people loosened up. We did introductions right before carving the turkey. The best part was making everyone say what they were thankful for. Most foreigners expressed thanks for the Amagasaki Costco, or Bob's stepdad's awesome macaroni and cheese recipe. But some people mentioned that this was their first proper Thanksgiving in years. Some people have been here for 3 or 4 years, and missed having home cooking on Thanksgiving. One girl noted that this was the time of year that many foreigners start to get really lonely-- the excitement of being in Japan has worn off, the weather is starting to get pretty chilly, and many people miss being at home during the holiday season. To her, the party was the perfect antidote to that. I didn't realize how much our crazy Thanksgiving scheme meant to some people. For me, it was the most fun Thanksgiving I've ever had. At home, it can feel routine-- we eat the same things every year, my family always argues, and the Cowboys win the football game (boo.) But when we pulled the turkey out of the oven yesterday, everyone cheered. The foreigners were so happy to have a taste of home here in Japan. The Japanese people all gathered round to see exactly how we planned to serve this thing. Everyone was excited.
Our Japanese friends all said the opposite thing: they were thankful to be invited to a Thanksgiving dinner, since none of them had experienced one before. Some had never tried turkey before, and I don't think anyone had ever had mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, or Southern-style mac and cheese. Again, I didn't realize how much it meant to them to be invited into our home to celebrate with us. But here in Japan, where it's less common to have people over (since people have much smaller houses, so there's no room), and certainly less common to have people over for Thanksgiving, it was a pretty big
deal. They were even impressed with the cranberry sauce from a can. One of my friends explained to a roomful of bewildered Japanese people that "it's very hard to make." He then gestured towards me chopping the jelly into slices.THE END:
So all in all, it was a grand success. Maybe we'll do it again, but I think next year might be a potluck instead.
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