fresh fish
I had my first raw fish yesterday.
It was “tarako,” or raw cod eggs which was covered with a spicy red seasoning. Pink (almost a salmon color) and round. Keiko had shown me a picture of it in a booklet/magazine on Sendai which we looked at on the train to Ishinomaki. She came in from the kitchen when we were about halfway through dinner yesterday, cut me off a piece, told me what it was, that it was spicy and a “very Japanese food.” She likes to eat it for breakfast when she’s at school in Tokyo, she said. But instead of eating a biteful of fish with rice, one is supposed to mush up (for lack of better word) the fish with the rice and eat it as a mixture – at least I think that’s how it’s supposed to work. It was spicy (the spicy almost overwhelmed the texture and mental image that one is eating raw fish – raw fish, a whole chunk of it), but not as cold as I thought it was be, and the thing I remember most about eating it was how little round bits of the fish stuck to the chopsticks afterwards. It was so just so different than anything I’d even had before that I’m not even sure if I can say whether I liked it or not. But I’m sure it won’t be the last time I try it.
I knew my first raw fish encounter would happen eventually, but wasn’t expecting it to go down as it did. On our walk yesterday afternoon Keiko and I first went to a 7-11 store (it’s actually called something different on the sign like ‘7-i open’ or something like that) a couple of blocks from their home. I’ve been trying to think of what exactly I mean when I say that I forget that I’m actually in Japan. The 7-11 was a good example. The logo was almost exactly the same as one in America, there were banners with Snoopy hanging above the entry way (people love ‘Peanuts’ here. Keiko loved it when I told her Charles Schulz was from Minnesota. We talked about it on the train ride after I saw she had a ‘Peanuts’ folder and when I pointed out the banner yesterday, she remembered.), yet when I you walked in, what was there was completely different. In addition to the kanji and hiragana and katakana writing, what was in the coolers and on the shelves was different in scale, appearance and variety (although I am pretty sure that I saw some corn dogs in the hot deli-like case at the front of the store). Sweet red bean cakes (I forget what they’re called, but they’re TK’s favorite) and dango (rice flour dumplings shaped vaguely like popsicles and put on sticks) and different types of gum and candy and dried meat products at the end of an aisle which Keiko said were in a classification called “susami” – “good with beer.” We went to the book/cd/dvd store next and were looking at the food/cooking section of the magazines (Keiko’s favorite part of the store), there was a book entitled and dedicated to “susami.” Also looked at travel magazines, fashion magazines (including one called “Crea” which is dedicated to cats and fashion – as in models posing with cats), some of the aisles and aisles of magna, an English-Japanese (NOT Japanese-English) dictionary for me, CDs (which one can rent like movies), and, of course, movies. So many of the movies there were American: “Finding Nemo,” “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Where’s Waldo,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Winnie the Pooh,” etc., etc. It’s odd to suddenly be pointing to something that one really doesn’t feel that much affinity for (like “Finding Nemo” or “Winnie the Pooh”) with such glee – it’s something that 1. you can recognize, 2. that can serve as a conversation piece for awhile, and 3. it seems to make one’s host feel more comfortable that you see something familiar or there’s something you can both relate to. It’s also odd how, when one doesn’t understand the language or alphabet, how strongly one can suddenly feel comforted and drawn to something romanized letters (romanji), even if I have no idea what it says. Keiko also introduced me to a rotund blue and white cartoon cat (whose name starts with a “d” but I can’t remember what it is even though she repeated it numerous times) who travels through time to help a boy. The cat is universally loved in Japan, according to Keiko, and I can understand why even though I’ve never seen his cartoon. So adorable that I literally reached up to a sign with his image and pretended to tweak his cheek as a way (albeit a very strange, maternally, middle aged, Midwestern way) of showing Keiko how much I liked the cat. Cats, cats, are everywhere here.
The reason for our walk, I thought, was were going to the store to buy things to make a “hamburger steak supper” – which is what the electronic translator said when Keiko showed it to me before we left. But instead of buying things for supper, when we went to the grocery store, we went to the McDonalds inside to bring back food for us and Kyoko and she and Keiko’s grandmother. Thus, my first time eating that quintessential Japanese food was also accompanied by a Filet-O-Fish.
Keiko and I have been using primarily Yahoo’s English to Japanese and Japanese to English converter to communicate with each other (which works very well as it allows one to type in a whole phrase.) TK and Shigeko’s other daughter, Kyoko, doesn’t speak as much English and so our conversations have been generally limited to smiling at each other and occasional interpretations by Keiko. It’s pretty unreal (although I guess very, very logical and rule number one of communication) how the dynamics of a conversation can change based on language. I do need to learn some more basic, basic Japanese because when we go to the convenience store and the grocery store, I have no idea what people are saying and/or what the appropriate response back to them would be. At the 7-11, I bought some candy for Keiko’s grandmother (who lives with the family), and I didn’t know what to say to the person before the counter as I’m sure she greeted me and extended other professional niceties, but at the end of the transaction, she and Keiko smiled at each other when I said “arigato.”
My first real observation about Japanese and culture: food is so important here. Brochures at the book store, tourist brochures for places, all prominently feature food pictures. In TK’s photographs (he likes to take photographs and got at least three of us at the grocery store alone yesterday), he shoots pictures of the food – by itself and also with the person who is eating it. The television was on during dinner last night, and the program that was on featured two teams going around to different restaurants on a scavenger hunt to try different meals. And I feel like I’ve been eating so much here. Last night in addition to tarako and half sandwich and french fries from McDonalds, I had sticky rice, tempura left over from lunch, a fried wedge of potato which TK’s mother (Keiko’s grandmother) made, slices of cucumber with a salty brown paste, and dessert. Keiko really likes a type of dessert that is like fruit cocktail – pieces of fruit in heavy, sweet sauce, but also with cubes of tofu and clear gelatin, and red bean sauce to mix in - but I just couldn’t finish it last night.
My jet lag has been weird, almost non-existent – I slept about five hours the first night I was here even though I had been without real sleep for close to 30 hours. Last night I went to bed early – slightly after 9 p.m. and am up early (5 a.m.) today. The plan, however, is to try to get a little more sleep if no one is up by the time I’m finished with this.
Today will be first time visiting the school, which I’m looking forward to.
It was “tarako,” or raw cod eggs which was covered with a spicy red seasoning. Pink (almost a salmon color) and round. Keiko had shown me a picture of it in a booklet/magazine on Sendai which we looked at on the train to Ishinomaki. She came in from the kitchen when we were about halfway through dinner yesterday, cut me off a piece, told me what it was, that it was spicy and a “very Japanese food.” She likes to eat it for breakfast when she’s at school in Tokyo, she said. But instead of eating a biteful of fish with rice, one is supposed to mush up (for lack of better word) the fish with the rice and eat it as a mixture – at least I think that’s how it’s supposed to work. It was spicy (the spicy almost overwhelmed the texture and mental image that one is eating raw fish – raw fish, a whole chunk of it), but not as cold as I thought it was be, and the thing I remember most about eating it was how little round bits of the fish stuck to the chopsticks afterwards. It was so just so different than anything I’d even had before that I’m not even sure if I can say whether I liked it or not. But I’m sure it won’t be the last time I try it.
I knew my first raw fish encounter would happen eventually, but wasn’t expecting it to go down as it did. On our walk yesterday afternoon Keiko and I first went to a 7-11 store (it’s actually called something different on the sign like ‘7-i open’ or something like that) a couple of blocks from their home. I’ve been trying to think of what exactly I mean when I say that I forget that I’m actually in Japan. The 7-11 was a good example. The logo was almost exactly the same as one in America, there were banners with Snoopy hanging above the entry way (people love ‘Peanuts’ here. Keiko loved it when I told her Charles Schulz was from Minnesota. We talked about it on the train ride after I saw she had a ‘Peanuts’ folder and when I pointed out the banner yesterday, she remembered.), yet when I you walked in, what was there was completely different. In addition to the kanji and hiragana and katakana writing, what was in the coolers and on the shelves was different in scale, appearance and variety (although I am pretty sure that I saw some corn dogs in the hot deli-like case at the front of the store). Sweet red bean cakes (I forget what they’re called, but they’re TK’s favorite) and dango (rice flour dumplings shaped vaguely like popsicles and put on sticks) and different types of gum and candy and dried meat products at the end of an aisle which Keiko said were in a classification called “susami” – “good with beer.” We went to the book/cd/dvd store next and were looking at the food/cooking section of the magazines (Keiko’s favorite part of the store), there was a book entitled and dedicated to “susami.” Also looked at travel magazines, fashion magazines (including one called “Crea” which is dedicated to cats and fashion – as in models posing with cats), some of the aisles and aisles of magna, an English-Japanese (NOT Japanese-English) dictionary for me, CDs (which one can rent like movies), and, of course, movies. So many of the movies there were American: “Finding Nemo,” “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Where’s Waldo,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Winnie the Pooh,” etc., etc. It’s odd to suddenly be pointing to something that one really doesn’t feel that much affinity for (like “Finding Nemo” or “Winnie the Pooh”) with such glee – it’s something that 1. you can recognize, 2. that can serve as a conversation piece for awhile, and 3. it seems to make one’s host feel more comfortable that you see something familiar or there’s something you can both relate to. It’s also odd how, when one doesn’t understand the language or alphabet, how strongly one can suddenly feel comforted and drawn to something romanized letters (romanji), even if I have no idea what it says. Keiko also introduced me to a rotund blue and white cartoon cat (whose name starts with a “d” but I can’t remember what it is even though she repeated it numerous times) who travels through time to help a boy. The cat is universally loved in Japan, according to Keiko, and I can understand why even though I’ve never seen his cartoon. So adorable that I literally reached up to a sign with his image and pretended to tweak his cheek as a way (albeit a very strange, maternally, middle aged, Midwestern way) of showing Keiko how much I liked the cat. Cats, cats, are everywhere here.
The reason for our walk, I thought, was were going to the store to buy things to make a “hamburger steak supper” – which is what the electronic translator said when Keiko showed it to me before we left. But instead of buying things for supper, when we went to the grocery store, we went to the McDonalds inside to bring back food for us and Kyoko and she and Keiko’s grandmother. Thus, my first time eating that quintessential Japanese food was also accompanied by a Filet-O-Fish.
Keiko and I have been using primarily Yahoo’s English to Japanese and Japanese to English converter to communicate with each other (which works very well as it allows one to type in a whole phrase.) TK and Shigeko’s other daughter, Kyoko, doesn’t speak as much English and so our conversations have been generally limited to smiling at each other and occasional interpretations by Keiko. It’s pretty unreal (although I guess very, very logical and rule number one of communication) how the dynamics of a conversation can change based on language. I do need to learn some more basic, basic Japanese because when we go to the convenience store and the grocery store, I have no idea what people are saying and/or what the appropriate response back to them would be. At the 7-11, I bought some candy for Keiko’s grandmother (who lives with the family), and I didn’t know what to say to the person before the counter as I’m sure she greeted me and extended other professional niceties, but at the end of the transaction, she and Keiko smiled at each other when I said “arigato.”
My first real observation about Japanese and culture: food is so important here. Brochures at the book store, tourist brochures for places, all prominently feature food pictures. In TK’s photographs (he likes to take photographs and got at least three of us at the grocery store alone yesterday), he shoots pictures of the food – by itself and also with the person who is eating it. The television was on during dinner last night, and the program that was on featured two teams going around to different restaurants on a scavenger hunt to try different meals. And I feel like I’ve been eating so much here. Last night in addition to tarako and half sandwich and french fries from McDonalds, I had sticky rice, tempura left over from lunch, a fried wedge of potato which TK’s mother (Keiko’s grandmother) made, slices of cucumber with a salty brown paste, and dessert. Keiko really likes a type of dessert that is like fruit cocktail – pieces of fruit in heavy, sweet sauce, but also with cubes of tofu and clear gelatin, and red bean sauce to mix in - but I just couldn’t finish it last night.
My jet lag has been weird, almost non-existent – I slept about five hours the first night I was here even though I had been without real sleep for close to 30 hours. Last night I went to bed early – slightly after 9 p.m. and am up early (5 a.m.) today. The plan, however, is to try to get a little more sleep if no one is up by the time I’m finished with this.
Today will be first time visiting the school, which I’m looking forward to.
posted by kathy at 10:28 PM
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