I was looking up at the beginnings of a weeping willow tree around the lake in ueno park. The branches were thin and whispy and did not yet reach the ground, yet they were quite green and caught the light even though night had already fallen. I watched it for a few seconds mesmorized, as just the start of new life reminded me of nothing more than an old man's unkempt, thinning hair blowing in the breeze.

The scenery was beautiful that night, as it always is by the lake.  The small temple is floodlit and its image bounces off the water, and the cramped clusters of Ueno's cabarets and snack bars are set back at a safe distance, just lending to the scene their glittering neon lights. It surprised me how well the silouette of the old temple and the city skyline went together. I wondered how much of the classic, quaint architecture tourists flock to was considered to be garish and distastefully modern in its time. I thought of the industrial revolution and its smokestacks, of electricity and central heating, of skyscrapers, and I wondered what could happen to the horizon next that could change everything, that could turn even the twisted concrete jungles of Tokyo into something historical.

Flying cars, I decided. Definitely flying cars.

I thought of myself, at the age of eighty or so, and children will ask me "What was it like when you were a girl?" And I will say, "Well, when I was young, cars had to stay on the ground. Of course there were terrible traffic jams and people got hit by them all the time, but it wasn't all bad.
  "Because now when you go into the city at night all you see are these endless lines of light streaking across the sky, and during the day the ground flickers with these weird moving shadows.
  When I was a girl the sky was clear from horizon to horizon; it was this wide unbroken thing, and wherever you were, even if you were in Tokyo or LA or San Fransisco, all you had to do to escape the madness of the city was to look up, and there the sky would be, blank and perfect."

  And, as I thought that, I did so, and my eyes were filled up to the edges with a mottled blue-black , and I stared at it until my eyes made shapes of their own to cope with the purity of it.

  I breathed in and out, and felt at peace.

-And if you don't believe me about the flying cars..

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/15/60minutes/main688454.shtml

The wind blows. The wind blows yesterdays rain into next winter, until the Tokyo sky is clear blue from end to end. The wind rattles the buildings in the distance, and it sounds like thunder. The wind rattles the windows and it sounds like rain. The wind makes the exhaust fan whir and it feels like summer.

In america we have the first robin of spring; in Japan they have the first wind. So, its spring that is whistling through the buildings of nihonbashi, the tiny cafes are selling cold soba and everything is beginning to thaw.

I went for a walk

And I found a shrine.

And breathed in a history I didn't understand.

And stepped over somebody's livelihood

And decided I didn't need any eggs.

To be continued...

Tonjiru and Ginzake Teishoku

Thursday March 9th, Nihonbashi, Tokyo

Pictured clockwise: Rice, shredded cabbage salad, gelatin and canned mandarin orange slice, mame, tonjiru, and salt fried silver salmon.

ƒ‰ƒCƒX@Rice: Everyone who has ever been to Japan knows how much the japanese like to import foreign words and then Japanize them to suit their purposes. They completely change the pronunciation, write it in their own syllabary, and use it however they please, without any respect for the original meaning or connotation. These words often fill in gaps in the Japanese language, but sometimes the additions seem completely superfluous. For those who for whatever reason can't read the japanese at the beginning of this paragraph, it says, in japanese syllabary, raisu. Rice. They imported the word for rice. What the hell! Japanese people obviously have their own word for rice, in fact, I think they have about seven. Gohan is the word for cooked rice, and I don't know what nuance raisu could bring to merit its importation. Near as I can tell, they call rice raisu when they serve it on a plate, and gohan when they serve it in a small bowl.

ƒTƒ‰ƒ_ Salad: When I first came to Japan, the thing I immediately started craving was a nice big salad. You know, with chicken and avocado and shredded tortilla chips, easy on the dressing. Forget it. The best I can hope for (without going to TGI Fridays) is some iceberg lettuce, salmon sashimi, and onion with italian dressing. Not quite the same, but good nonetheless. However, usually, salads end up being like the one pictured- tiny, and saturated in a mayonnaise dressing. This one was shredded cabbage, corn bits, and cucumber with Thousand Island and about 4 noodles worth of macaroni salad. I hate mayonnaise. I couldn't touch the macaroni, although the rest wasn't bad.

Dessert- Not sure what flavor the gelatin was, and not sure what it was called. Probably@ƒ[ƒŠ, but who can tell. I love slurping this stuff through my teeth. I think its calorie free, although the sugar sauce its in certainly isn't.

Mame- sweet beans. I forget exactly which variety they were, but they were really good.

“Ø`@Tonjiru- Pork soup. This was by far the best thing in the whole meal. Tonjiru is a miso-based soup with some pork meat in it, but this restaurant had it stocked full mostly of vegetables- daikon, carrots, gobo, green onion, and it came with a packet of seaweed to put in. Really good.

Okay, so, why are you describing food?

Long story short, so people will stop asking me how much good sushi I'm eating in Japan. I end up pretty much gearing this entire blog towards the ultimate end of people not asking me the same damn questions over and over again. Not that it works; people tend to think its cute to ask them all the more since I wrote a whole blog about how much it bugs me. (P.S. It's not. Stop it.)

Long story long, I just freaking love Japanese food. I love everything about it, from the delicately arranged tsukemono to the subtly beautiful teacups. I adore eating with chopsticks. I love that no self-respecting restaurant will serve you iced coffee after october or cold somen before march. I love the attention to detail, I love ordering a lunch set and getting a million little dishes rather than one big one; I love noodles and I love the way restaurants specialize in just one type of food. Nihonbashi in particular has an amazing wealth of great and very traditional restaurants packed into just a few blocks. Most of these places have a higawari, or daily special, or a small selection of lunch sets. This comes in handy for indecisive people, and also people like me, who may or may not be able to read the whole menu.  

Moreover, while culture can be exorcized from architecture, technology, transportation, and clothing, culture is unfailingly steadfast in at least two places- language and food; and believe me, food is much easier to grasp!

So I've decided to start taking pictures of my meals, posting them, and describing them. I feel like a complete douche and a tourist taking pictures of my food, but I'll try and swallow that best I can.

In Engrish News:
"Around the world in three tripes!"
-On an adolescent boy's sweater

"School of Lock"
-Backdrop of a punk concert that was given as a special treat at a middle school. School of lock... good gracious that tickles me.

Today it was sunny and not that cold, and after looking at apartments, I decided to hop on the keihin tohoku towards omiya to visit Warabi, the place where I lived for 6 weeks in 2003.

That time is preserved in my memory the way few things can be. The friendships I cultivated then stuck tighter and faster than even friendships I had a whole year to work on in Kyoto. I remember the look and smell of warabi during that hot, sticky summer. I remember the way the cicadas screamed and the funny way the female proprietor of my dorm, the ryoubou san, talked through her missing teeth. I remember where my favorite restaurants were. I can still taste the food.

As I climbed up the platform steps into the station, memory slammed into me. Yes, there was the bakery; there was the ticket machine. Yes, there was the long walkway over the railroad tracks; I had forgotten about that. I left the station and it happened again. Yes, there were the taxis, yes, there was the tiny cafe; there the drugstore, my favorite mexican restaurant. I began the walk to my old dormitory, which was longer than I remembered it. The road seemed to open up to me a little at a time, giving me little clues that I was still heading in the right direction. Emily and I ate there, I almost got my hair straightened there, I remember that sign, this crosswalk. I hit one unfamiliar street and doubled back. Oh yes, I was supposed to turn at that blue awning. How had I forgotten?

I finally arrived at my destination; I almost missed it. Two years ago the building that marked the driveway was undergoing construction and was hidden under blue screens that could be seen for blocks. Emily and I, walking in the stifling humidity under the hot sun would see it, and know we were almost home. The building is complete now. It looks nicer than I thought. Rounded corners. Stucco. I turned in front of it and walked down the gravel pathway to my old dorm. Its terribly ugly; cement and boxy with an orange-red metal gate. I ignored several no-tresspassing signs and tentatively stepped  through the gate. I peered in the glass door and saw the shoe racks. No one was there. I tried the door and found it locked. I walked away.

I don't know what I expected to find by going back to Warabi today, what I expected to happen. Did I think that by standing where I stood 2 and a half years ago, I could somehow travel back in time? Did I think I could somehow commune with my past self, and tell her her future? And why would I want to do that anyway?

The futility of the exercise came home to me as I walked away from the dormitory and took the long way to the station. The feeling of familiarity that had swept over me as I walked up to the gate and stood on the porch had been overwhelming, exactly what I had wanted. I walked all the way up to the door and it did not op enfor me. I had nothing to do but go back. What had I come here to do? Had I failed or had I succeeded?

I realized that at the exact second that I reached the front steps of the dormitory, I had turned memory into reality. For a split second, I got back the time that I thought I had lost forever. But then, as soon as I walked away, it all became memory again; all I had done was layer a new memory on top of an older one.

Spring is coming; the plum blossoms are blooming and marking the last part of Japan I can really remember. In the Spring, my family came to visit. We did the usual tour around Kyoto, visited Miyajima and Hiroshima, and I left them in Tokyo. I hopped a shinkansen that very afternoon to Kansai international airport and met Ileana there. We walked tetsugaku no michi under the sakura and drank with Yoshimi and Ai on Kiyamachi doori. I remember the fall. I remember Nanzenji and Kyomizu. I remember my Spanish class and my Philosophy class in Japanese that I struggled through so terribly. I don't remember the winter at all. It is all one big, gray, twiggy tree branch cluttered fog. I remember huddling myself up in my big orange ski jacket when climbing up the steps of imadegawa eki as the train below and the air above caused a freezing wind to slam into our faces. That is all.

But the summer, oh the summer I remember very well. I remember every day, it seems. Everything was new to me then, and newness crystallizes memory better than anything but love. Emily and I forged are way through an unknown city, hopping trains and exploring. We found drinks in Shibuya, karaoke in Ueno, and English books in Ikebukuro. Surrounded though we were by unfamiliarity, we managed to conquer it, know it. I remember clearly my first week forgetting which coin was 5 yen and which was 10; by the time I left I felt a complete master of the JR train lines. It was a thrilling feeling.

Yesterday I looked at an apartment in Ueno. It was a bit small for my taste, but we walked around the area and I found myself standing in front of the TGI Friday's where Emily, Dickson, Jessica, Randy and I had spent many a happy hour, warming up for Karaoke across the street. I was sublimely shocked and murmured a breathless "natsukashii", which was the only way I could manage to describe my emotions. I tried to imagine myself three summers ago, what she might have thought if someone had told her she would be in that exact same spot again not too far in the future, only this time looking for a home, not just at cheap mudslide. Could she have known? Somewhere? Wasn't the future as imprinted upon her as the past is imprinted on me?

No. Of course it wasn't. We adore the past because it had no idea of the present. Rather than feel superior in our knowledge we feel jealous of our ignorance. Not because our present is bad, but because the unknown is so much more thrilling.

I came back to Chiba exactly at twilight. The pale pink, orange, and white winter sky was exquisite, none less so for the dozens of power lines criss-crossing and parsing it into tiny parallelograms. I breathed the cold air in and out, feeling completely contented and at peace. Perhaps I will come back here again one day, tracing my route home, trying to remember which bus I used to take, thawing out the cold spaces in my memory where chiba will be kept. I smiled and pitied my future self, as she tries to grasp so futilely what I experience so effortlessly.

It was a good day.

Ramen Update

While eating breakfast this morning, I saw the Ramen place described two entries ago on TV. It was number 31 in a countdown of "Top 33 Truly delicious Ramen Places"

You can imagine my surprise.

Yeah, so pretty much ate shirako, which blessedly did not come up in the dictionary at the time.

It tasted fine, but the memory of eating it is making me sick.

Yeah, its globefish sperm.

So much for avoiding culture shock.

Any Requests?

I feel dwarfed every day by the renewed realization of how far I have to go in being a 'normal' japanese employee. There are so many things, big and small, that I shoud learn, will learn eventually, or would learn eventually if I spent an eternity here. Even though I feel I got a pretty good Japanese culture education, there are still things that come up now and again that surprise me. For example, I just found out yesterday that when Japanese people touch something hot, they touch their finger to their ear lobe, in the same way that we might put our finger in our mouth, or shake it to cool it off. 

Generally though, my daily discoveries/ lessons are becoming more and more specific and/or business related. These are things that require a bit of background explanation and, useful as they may be to me, are not that interesting anyway. The more of these particulars of a Japanese office life that I learn, the less likely I am to note the obvious parts of my life. Strange foods eaten in tatami rooms down dark allys no longer phase me, and not being able to sit on the 45min train commute is not nearly as bad as I expected. I've even stopped laughing at Engrish (unless its really wacky).

So, I'd like you to ask me some questions about Japan, or give me ideas of things to write about. Not because I flatter myself that I'm doing some great service as a cultural informant, or that I'm some great fount of Japanese knowledge, but I'm asking more as a favor to myself. The things I've stopped noticing are the things I'm likely to forget once they've stopped being normal- which is terrible. So please, enryou naku, ask me some questions. If I don't know the answer I can always ask my co-workers, as a nice follow-up to our ear lobe conversation.

Ramen and 50's Robots.

 I make fun of my Japanese friends for always saying that anything and everything is 'yuume', or famous, but to be fair, Japanese people seem to have a bigger space in their minds for famous things, whereas the American mind only has room for say, Hard Rock Cafe, or Paris Hilton's dog.

The main cause of this seems to be the comparatively greater number of Japanese TV shows dedicated to uncovering all the best holes-in-the-wall of any given area. These shows are really, intinsically, dull, which is why in America they're relegated entirely to the discovery channel, or maybe PBS. Mostly they consist of some guy who is shown hunting around for a 'famous' ramen shop, sweet shop, steakhouse, whatever. He finally finds it, talks to the waiter, gets his food. The camera zooms in on it, while an excited announcer describes the ingredients/ special cooking methods. All wait breathlessly as the dude puts the food in his mouth. He pauses. Then, inevitably, he blurts out 'Umai!' The address and phone number are then flashed on the screen along with a wide shot of the storefront. And then it's off to the next restaurant.

Now you may be asking "Why the hell would you want to watch a show about somebody you don't know eating something you can't have?" I guess the short answer is, in Japan, with a little effort, you can have it. For one thing, a lot of TV is only broadcast to certain regions, so the stuff you see on TV isn't too far away. For another thing, the GPS systems that most people here have in their cars can take you anywere you have the phone number for. (in theory)

Hiro and his wife have made Ramen houses sort of their weekend hobby, and today, armed with a name and phone number they got off the TV a year ago, we headed out to the inaka (even more inaka than where we were already, anyway). It's raining today, and the droplets streamig down the window obscured the dead rice fields and power lines (so many power lines I've never seen before Chiba-ken)  I stared out the window until my eyes unfocused, and about a half hour later Hiro informed me "Ato 100 metoru. Ato ippun". I looked up expectantly, but when we stopped the car, all I saw was a pizza place. Confused, we asked somebody for directions. We found ourselves in a housing maze. We asked a man with fuzzy speech and a clear umbrella for directions and found ourselved in front of the train station. We asked a young woman at a conbini for a directions and found ourselves in front of a supermarket. We piled out of the car and walked through the drizzle through a nice looking neighborhood that was entirely houses. We asked a buaisou girl with a pout and a polka dot shirt for directions and, voila, were directed to our destination. It was a house, two story and a bit wider than usual, but an ordinary residential house with only a banner announcing its status as an eatery.

As I took off my shoes in the genkan, I tried to think of what type of American businesses you might find in a private residence. The only thing I could think of is that I used to get my hair cut in a woman named Jonie's garage. Do zoning laws prevent things like that?

Anyway, I wasn't done being suprised. After donning the house slippers and shuffling through the sliding door I saw pretty much the exact opposite decor I was expecting at a Ramen place. It was decked out like a fifties diner, with neon signs (true, they said 'miller time', but we'll let that go), fake jukeboxes at each table, and, most impressively, a glass cabinet completely full of old timey metal toys and 50's robots next to an old coca cola icebox vending machine. There were even a few of those 'mammy' salt shakers and figurines that were vogue in the '30s.

A woman in an apron told us which type of ramen was reccomended, and we all ordered it. It came quickly, and was pronounced 'futsuu' by Asami and 'ma-ma' by hiro. I liked it pretty well, though, especially the noodles. Frankly, after a while its really hard for me to distinguish one bowl of ramen from another. Some standouts include Ippudou (which is a chain), a tiny place we waited an hour for in Sapporo, and the kimchee ramen at an all-nighter in Osaka that I always seem to end up at, no matter who I'm with.

As we ate, a train rumbled by not 50 feet from the window, as the beatles played out of a CD player fashioned to look like a tin metal toy radio. Sometimes I wonder if artists ever think about how far their songs might travel. For example, when the Beatle's wrote and recorded 'Day Tripper', could they ever have imagined that it would be played 40 years later at a ramen shop in Middle of Nowhere, Japan in a room full of 50's robots?