Don’t panic! I’m a translator!

 

Broody=Bloody

Wohkka=Vodka

juise=juice

wokka=vodka

ram=rum

jin=gin

orenji=orange

spesial=special

Eigg=Egg

No Drugs!

Wow!  I got so excited when I saw this link for a site called bringsome.com on 100*shiki.   

It’s a site for people who want hard-to-obtain international goods and people who can provide them.  They can post ads and find each other.   Sort of like Craigslist meets merchant trading. 

I got excited because if there’s one thing I can’t find in Japan, it’s aged cheddar cheese.  So, this was my first search of course.  

It brought me to this page from someone in Prague that says:

 Cheese, flowerbulbs   

And more on demand.  No drugs!

Looks like my next search is out. 

Anpanman and Another Anomaly

Today one of my students from English Conversation Class told me that he was shocked to discover that an auto insurance client of his was a 94 year-old man.

When I asked him if his client was hunched over and senile like most men his age, he told me that, on the contrary, he stood straight and tall and dutifully watched over his bed-ridden wife, who was 5 years or so younger than him.

A rare breed indeed.

In other news, a quote from the English Wikipedia entry on Anpanman:

Anpanman doesn’t need food or drink to sustain himself and has never been seen eating. It is believed the bean jam in his head gives him sustenance.

From the epicurian archives:

Anpanman! Betrayed by your own deliciousness!

アンパンマン！かわいそう！！ [WARNING! not a correct translation..... ^_^v]

Salmon Experiment

Today in class, I chatted with the English teacher, Ms. Nakamura, about natto/納豆.

We both love natto, and we were talking about the different variety of things you can mix into it, like eggs or green onions. One of the students was bragging that he had mixed umeboshi/梅干 (pickled plum) with his that morning. We took a vote in class and agreed it sounded disgusting to everyone but him.

Then I told them about how a couple days before, I had put two slices of raw salmon on top of two cups of rice into my rice cooker and turned it on “fast cook” mode. The salmon and rice turned out perfect and I was able to use the leftovers to make instant ochazuke/茶漬け last night.

I was told that this was like an “experiment” and, like the umeboshi with natto, they had never heard of someone doing it. Actually my Japanese language/Japanese cooking private teacher, Ms. Yokoyama, had mentioned it to me before, but she used a special machine that was specially designated so as not to potentially taint flavor of rice later made in this machine.

I am hardly one for sacramentalism however; I didn’t even go to my own Prom.

On an unrelated note, I’ve been trying to write this post for the last 10 minutes but three of my students have been bugging me in the staff room, one of them jabbering at me in nearly perfect English. His friends are following behind him wondering what he is saying, and the other staff are commenting that they are surprised I understand him and are visibly annoyed by the noise they are creating.

Normally this kid just talks out at me in class; this is the first time he’s ever tried to sustain conversation with me. Looks like I should set up an English conversation time after lunch.

Culture Festival

Junior high schools in Japan have two big festivals every year, Sports Festival and Culture Festival (sometimes “festival” is translated as “day”). My school also has an additional festival which occurred yesterday called Music Festival in which homerooms compete with each other in choral performances.

Today was Culture Festival at my school, and a variety of interesting things happened.

1. The day began with music performances by the brass band and selected music groups in the gymnasium. Yesterday at Music Festival, I happened to tell one of the teachers that her homeroom had done the best performance of that day.

As we watched today’s performances, she came up to me and said that she had told her students that I had said this, and that it made them very happy. She had told her students that “music has no country.” She said this all in fairly advanced English, which surprised me because she is still shy to carry on conversation with me even after one year.

2.

I purchased yakisoba (fried noodles with pork and cabbage) and shoyu dango (soy sauce dumpling) at 10:30 a.m. and ate them promptly after. I was the first teacher to do so in the lounge area and 7 teachers followed suit like this:

Teacher enters lounge area. Exclaims “Oh! You’re eating it already? Well…we might as well haven’t we…while it’s hot….” Other teachers chime in with “Well you know, we ought to eat it while it’s hot” in utmost seriousness. Packages are gleefully opened and devoured.

I can’t emphasize enough how much they seemed to enjoy this. Whenever it becomes socially acceptable to do something out of the norm, particularly if it involves indulging, the excitement from Japanese people is palpable.

Yesterday, when they accidentally ordered the staff lunch, chirashizushi (sashimi on a rice bowl) from two different places, resulting in twice as much food, people were laughing and twittering like idiots until the second delivery arrived.

“I wonder when it’s going to come…” Two minutes elapse. “Wow, it’s still not here yet, oh man I don’t think I can eat all of that…” Secretary announces to the staff room that the delivery man just called and the food is on its way. Teachers laugh heartily. Second order arrives. I took my ELOO that morning, so I’m the only person who eats the fish on top, reserving the rice in the fridge for my dinner that night. Nearby teachers all eat the entire second portion.

3. I attended one of two tea ceremonies performed by the sadou-bu. Matcha was delicious as always, although the glorified Twinkie-like sweet they served with it was unusual and unwelcome, in my opinion. I prefer small flower-shaped pressed sugar like I’ve usually had at tea ceremonies. (I can’t help being a snob, I’ve had it too good…)

It was very relaxing and I enjoyed watching a couple next to me take photographs of their young daughter being served the tea by students. I had fantasies of escaping to a secluded life as a maiko in Kyoto, learning the ways of traditional tea ceremony and shamisen performance. Somewhere in there was a lesson on natural dyes and shibori dying method.

I woke up and I was 24 years old in a school library in Japan. I’m turning 25 in a few days.

I’ll still be in Japan.

School Lunch in NYC

This article in the New York Times online about a New York farmer trying to get locally grown carrots into nearby schools is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read in my life.

All of the food in the schools here in Japan is locally grown whenever possible. They pride themselves on it and teach the children to respect the fact that the food was grown locally and the farmers worked hard to bring it to them.

How on earth did such a simple thing become so laden with obstacles in the US?

Tragically, home-schooling continues to look more and more appealing to me whenever I consider raising more of its little citizens.

Edible Schoolyard

I really liked this article about Alice Waters and her new book “The Art of Simple Food” that was posted at the New York Times’ website on Wednesday.

Ms. Waters believes that American children need to be taught the value and importance of food, so she pioneered a project called Edible Schoolyard, classrooms where food is the primary tool for lessons in science and social studies. I think it sounds utterly brilliant.

On Friday, I was surprised, but not too surprised, to find that Japanese schools don’t need revolutionary think tanks to teach their children the basics of life. They just do it anyway.

This is a picture of recently completed assignments for the 6th graders at one of my elementary schools.

The students thought up their own lunch menu and made it with the help of teachers. Then they photographed it and wrote about how they made it and what was appealing about the ingredients they chose.

As I was taking this photo, a group of students came up behind me and asked very excitedly, “Doesn’t it look delicious??”

Jealousy is not delicious, unfortunately.

和太鼓/ Taiko

Because I’m white, I get a column in a slick, citywide publication that is delivered to everyone’s mailbox every month.

The other English teachers and I rotate this column every few months. My next deadline is this Monday, so I’m preparing an article for that, but I thought I would post my debut article, published last June.

That’s me in one of my hand-knits! On the left is what I wrote and on the right is the Japanese translation from a woman in the city office.

The Spirit of Taiko

Before coming to Japan to teach English, I had experience as a teacher, but rather as a teacher of music. My degree is in Double Bass music performance, and after 4 years of studying classical western music, I became very inspired by Japanese music and dance. One of the performance forms I am interested in is taiko drumming.

I first saw the internationally reknowned “Kodo” 3 years ago as a student at the University of Michigan. The strength and spirit of the performers coupled with the drums’ powerful sound left me awestruck. I wanted to play taiko so badly after that performance, but according to the performance notes Kodo lives and practices on a mysterious, secluded island on the other side of the world, so while I was left with this striking impression of taiko drumming, I had to put my dream of becoming a participant to rest.

Since coming to Niigata, not only do I live right next door to that mysterious, secluded island, Sado, but I could join my town’s group, Bunsui Taiko. The spirit of taiko and of music is so strong in their hearts, that I feel continuous refreshing inspiration as a musician. I feel lucky to live in Niigata, and honored to be a member of Bunsui Taiko.

FIN

I joined this group of crazy, rowdy, old and young men and women a year ago and have since played in three festivals and gone to several drinking parties with them. Here are some pictures from our outings.

Me in full festival regalia, a little bit softer (pre-Shangri-La Diet).

This drum is bigger than it looks; it’s made from an old whiskey barrel. I’ve never actually performed on it. This picture was taken minutes after the completion of the rack it is suspended on.

Believe it or not, the picture below was taken at 7 a.m. To say they like drinking would be an understatement; I like to say it’s not a taiko party if I’m not being scraped off the floor by the end of it.

This was taken on a rented bus on the way to an overnight hot spring trip. In Japan, edamame is for beer, not for hippies.

While buckets of chicken wings, french fries, and heart attacks are the usual accomaniment to alcohol in the States, over here it’s fish, shellfish, and vegetables.

This food was SO GOOD!! >_<

And tomorrow, I’m preparing to be scraped off the floor by my fellow taiko players yet again, this time at an old house near a shrine! W00T!!

FIN?

GooooooYA!

Goya, also known as bitter melon in English, is currently in season in Japan. This makes me very happy because I get to eat it! This beautiful vegi, savored in Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures, is reputed to be very good for the immune system and has been used for many years in traditional medicines; but I especially like it because it tastes great!

I decided to give a traditional Okinawan dish I’ve had in restaurants many times, Goya Chanpuru, a go using this recipe here. Mine turned out considerably different but was insanely tasty, so I decided to post the recipe. If you can find bitter melon, you should definitely try it!

(Pearl’s) Goya Chanpuru

Ingredients:

1 medium bitter melon
3 eggs, beaten
6 oz. extra soft tofu
small can water-packed tuna
2 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 tps dried dashi stock (see pic below)
1 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs oil
1 Tbs salt

Remove ends of bitter melon, slice in half lengthwise, remove pith and seeds, and cut crosswise into thin slices. Place melon in dish of water with 1 Tbs of salt for 15 mins.

Heat oil to high and fry tofu for 3 minutes, breaking into pieces. Add drained bitter melon, dashi, and soy sauce and fry for 1 minute. Add beaten eggs.

When mixture begins to thicken, add drained can tuna and cheese. Lower heat to med-low and cover with pan, stirring occasionally for 1 minute. Do not overcook, melon should be crisp. Done!

Note: This is one type of dried dashi stock, it imparts a good flavor but it could probably be omitted if you can’t find it.

Also interesting to note is that the eggs I purchased way out here in the country were cheap, and from chickens fed sesame seeds, giving all sorts of vitamins to my body. The yolks were bright, dark orange. Like all eggs in Japan, they were stored at room temperature in the super market.

お弁当/ Obento

On days like today where I feel tired and sick, I often have a craving for obento [お弁当/boxed lunch]. Obento (or simply “bento” in a casual context, removing the honorific “o”) is a boxed lunch that can be easily purchased like fast food from privately run shops or larger chains, or simply made at home, that is designed to be taken with you and eaten at lunchtime.

This one is from my favorite bento place, which happens to be literally right next door. It is the higawari [日替わり/changing daily] bento for 500yen ($4.50).

As you can see, all of the foods are clearly divided to avoid mixing, done with the general tray design, foil cups, and green plastic dividers. Clockwise from the bottom left, the contents are rice topped with black sesame and pickled plum, crispy fried skin-on chicken thigh, sausage, egg omelet, breaded and fried octopus and potato croquette with sauce, boiled potato topped with cream sauce, braised eggplant, eggplant and radish pickles, and rice noodle and cucumber vinegared salad. I am not sure of the caloric content, but the bentos purchasable at the 7-11 convenience chain generally have around 800-900 calories. The most typical accompaniment to bento is a bottle of unsweetened green tea.

I’m not really sure what it is about お弁当 that makes me feel very satisfied and happy, but it is addictive.

Understanding of the bento addiction is a Vietnamese woman named Ngoc who has an excellent blog here called “Cooking Cute” that features her obsession with making absolutely adorable boxed lunches for her family. It also has loads of great recipes for making authentic and easy Asian food with ingredients in American super markets.

Within Japan, bento is also taken to a specialized level with the eki-ben [駅弁/train station bento], usually a series of boxed lunches which feature speciality foods from a train station’s particular prefecture or region and are sold across the country. There are even aficionados who form “ekiben clubs” and sections of the news which have reviews of the seasonal, constantly changing ekiben.

This Japanese website here is easy to navigate without any English and shows pictures of the ekibens from every station in Japan.

Because I was enabled to do so by the Shangri-la Diet, I ate 2/3 of this bento at 11 am, had melon and orange juice at 1 pm, extra light olive oil at 4 pm between my flavorless window, and finished off the day with a few prunes, an asian pear, and copious amounts of green tea. I’ve had virtually no hunger since taking the oil this afternoon.