5 posts tagged “food”

We talked a little bit about food today in my "Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture" class. Here is a paraphrase of what someone said after a comment about accidentally getting fish sausages: "It's like they take fish and disguise it as all the foods that I want to eat."

I did squat this weekend, and when I feel like doing squat, I have an amazing habit for not giving a second thought to my todo list, which usually recommends I do anything but. So I never wrote "A Hostful Morning, part 2," the sorely unneeded sequel to "A Hostful Morning, part 1." Since so much has happened since then, and I still have hundreds of Golden Week photos to document, here is that sequel, in bullet-time.

1. After lunch, we went back to their home. It's an apartment way up high (10th floor or so), with a kitchen, office, Japanese-style おふろ・トイレ (ofuro/toire - ofuro/toilet) combination, living room, balcony (interestingly wide), and bedrooms. It was well-decorated and very cozy. We sat around the living room and watched a little TV, and お母さん (mother) served an orange-flavored tea. I could write a whole post about just the TV, but I'll leave it at "awesome."
2. After tea, we went to a natural disaster museum which serves the area by teaching tiny schoolchildren about what to do during natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, and their after-effects like burning buildings. Despite my age, it was entertaining. I was struck by their eagerness to participate with me: imagine your parents covering their faces with clothing so navigate a burning building with you, or climbing under a kitchen table with you during a simulated level 7 earthquake.
3. After that, we took a walk on the beach. The weather was beautiful. There was a group of freshman/sophomore-aged girls drawing pictures in crayon, and even though I don't believe she knew any of them, お母さん (mother) walked up and started asking them about what they were doing. Not three minutes in, she turns and introduces me, and suggests that we all "play." Whoa, there. Either this was normal, or they were really good at playing along: one of them took out a volleyball and nearly dragged me out onto the sand and we started passing back and forth. A few others joined, and it was fun, but incredibly awkward. お母さん and お父さん just sat down and started taking pictures. I don't have these photos, I don't want them, I won't get them for you, and you will never see them.
4. Then we walked around to a nearby restaurant district, which happened to have an expansive arcade (a staple around these parts), and since I'd said that I loved games, we walked through. お父さん (father) had some coins burning a hole in his pocket, so he put some in one of the shooting game machines. I picked up a gun and offered him one, but he shook his head, and stood for the next ten minutes just watching me play. And when I died, he put in another coin and stepped back. And then again. It was fun, but I wondered why he was suddenly so passive.
5. We stopped at a grocery store called "Red Cabbage" (or something like it: Google shows nothing). お母さん (mother) started asking which foods I liked, picking them up as we went. I think we left with a bottle of water, a box of crackers, and a box of cookies, which I ended up taking home at the end of the day, much to my surprise. I wasn't expecting to take home such a bounty. I thought we were shopping for their apartment.
6. Lastly, we went to dinner at pseudo-Italian restaurant. (If I ever describe a restaurant or food in Japan with a word like "Italian" or "Mexican" without a "pseudo-" in front, just add it for me. I must have forgotten.) I got spaghetti [sic: it was fairly authentic] There was パン食べ放題 (パンたべほうだい - pan tabehoudai - all the bread you can eat) and it was some delicious bread. おいしかったよ！もう一回行きたいね。
7. Then we went back to their apartment to get the car, and they dropped me off back home (with delicious goodies in tow).

Unfortunately, confining myself to bullets didn't make this article any shorter, only harder to read. しまった！ You'd better enjoy every letter!

I met my ホストファミリー (hosuto famirii - host family) for the first time yesterday. We spent the whole day together doing wacky stuff. But first, some context.

JTW host families don't host full-time. They're basically available for weekend get-aways. Each student is pretty free to form whatever kind of relationship they like with their family. I know one person who hasn't ever heard from their host family even after several contact attempts, and so hijacked a friend's host family who was a lot more supportive.

My host family consists of a mother, father, a son, and a daughter. The children are both old enough to not live with them any more, so they don't. So I spent all day with お母さん (おかあさん - okaasan - mother) and お父さん (おとうさん - otousan - father). They asked me to call them this way, which I don't think is unusual. I should ask around.

Anyway, a week ago or so I got a voicemail on my ケイタイ (keitai - cell phone) from an unrecognized woman's voice. It was in 日本語 (にほんご - nihongo - Japanese), which was my first hurdle to understanding, but the second was that all she said was her name and to call her back. At this point, I had received no indication that I would be contacted by my ホストファミリー, so I had absolutely no clue who that person was. I heard from QZ that it was ホストファミリー time and that was probably who it was, so I answered the next time she called. (I also got confirmation from the JTW office, of course.)

The call was a mixture of 日本語 (Japanese) and 英語 (えいご - eigo - English) and I hardly knew what was going on. I think there was some kind of self-introduction, a description of her family, where she lived, and when we should next meet. But I really couldn't tell. She knows a lot of English, but it was hard to understand. Luckily, she called again and I sent her e-mails and she sent me e-mails and she called me again (she doesn't like e-mail). Eventually I understood that she wanted to pick me up from the 会館 (かいかん - kaikan - dorm where I live) on Saturday.

So they did. 土曜日の午前１１時に (at 11 AM on Saturday) I got a phone call from her and she told me that they were at the gate. It was kind of funny to me that they had spread out from the car to maximize their vision of dorm while still being able to see each other, so that they would see me approach. Unfortunately for them, I took a back way and still managed to sneak up on them. Mua ha ha! That's when お母さん (mother) took out the photo I'd attached to my 申し込み (もうしこみ - moushikomi - application form) and told me that I didn't look the same. We hopped in the car and took off!

Their 車 (くるま - kuruma - car (the character means "cart;" doesn't it look like one?)) looked like a typical Japanese model to me. Things I noticed:

• The steering wheel was on the wrong side! Not a shocker, obviously.
• There was a tiger print cover over the back seat. It was very comfortable.
• The back seat seatbelt buckles were hidden. They were covered by the seat cover, and also embedded into the seat. お母さん (mother) explained that they are typically not used, and not required by anyone. Their last car didn't even have seat belts in the  back. The back of the front seats looked pretty comfortable, so I figured that I might be able to walk away. I wore the seat belt anyway.
• Their GPS was awesome. It was higher-resolution than any I'd seen, it showed you which lanes you could use to not miss your turn, and it seemed to show which highway lanes you could use depending on the type of toll you wanted to pay. Really cool.

About ten minutes of awkward conversation later, お父さん (father) idled in front of a レストラン (resutoran - restaurant) while お母さん (mother) and I went to look at the menu posted by the door. After hearing my approval of the traditional style breakfast, she signaled that it was okay and he parked the car and joined us. We arrived just before lunch hour, so we got seats immediately.

There were mats and the table was low so that you could sit Japanese-style while you ate. But there were also giant holes in the floor beneath the tables so that you could also sit western-style, for which my knees thanked me. A very, very short time later, a gigantic tray of そば (soba), チャーハン (Chinese-style fried rice), pickled fish, soup, 天ぷら (てんぷら - tenpura - tempura), and probably more was placed in front of me.

More in Part 2! (I'm tired of writing!)

Update: A Hostful Morning, part 2, Evening Edition

Okay, so the trip is long over. I'm working on that! Until then, some recent news.

Last Thursday I visited a karate practice that was held in the gym on campus. It was cool to watch, but watching was all we were allowed to do. There were students of all experience levels. The captain looked especially experienced. I had a great time. I might have joined, if it were not for the cost: ￥８，０００ (~$67 USD) for entrance, and ￥２，０００ (~$17 USD). Thanks, but I think I can do better.

Today I visited a different club. I was invited by Taka, my Japanese conversation partner. He has a brown belt and is studying for a black belt. (I have to be extra careful with 敬語 from now on, huh?) We arrived on time, which meant we were early. It was another ten minutes for even one more person showed up. When everyone arrived, there were about ten of us, only one female. And they all had black belts. Whoa...

Amazingly, they let me practice. We started with some bows, and went into routine punch-kick-stance-whatever practices. Darned if I know the names. People yelled Japanese phrases routinely, with which I sometimes mumbled along. It was incredibly tiring, and I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing most of the time.

I slowed everything down, to a screeching halt at times, because I needed instruction on every move. It was very embarrassing. I remembered some things from when I did karate as a small child, but most memories had faded. How to stand, the ways to orient my body, how to punch, ... I was so busy thinking about how to position myself that it was impossible to do so much as count to ten (in Japanese) with the group. Oi! But I made it. 2.5 hours.

There was one set of exercises which involved blocking kicks and punches from a partner. It was lose-lose for me: blocking hurts, and so does being blocked---when your partner has years of training on you, and appendages made of steel. I also found that my right hip hurts when I bend it to do one of the kicks. I don't think I pulled anything before that drill, so I'll have to pay attention to that. Maybe I'm being moved too fast through the initiation practices because of the company I'm in.

After practice, six of us went to dinner. Lucky (ha!) for me, the food was traditional. It started with a tiny bowl. There were semi-transparent, gelatinous, noodle-looking things covered in seasoning in it. It was described to me as being made from seaweed. I was able to force myself to swallow four or five of them before the main dish arrived (with beer for three, and tea for three).

The food was a famous Fukuoka dish according to my tutor. I've already forgotten the name (something ～なべ). All you need to know is that it's a big stew with some animal's innards floating around inside. There were various vegetables in there too, which I ate. But when I was done, my bowl was full of little pieces of some internal organs. It was either a horse or a cow. Either way, I couldn't bring myself to take a single bite, to the disappointment of the others.

I piled more of the stew into my bowl, but less would fit this time, so I snacked on a few more pieces of floating lettuce and had to call it quits. I thought I was saved when the next course was rice, but they dumped the rice in with the stew, so I was only slightly better off. At any rate, I ate enough to be momentarily satisfied, and I got a lot of good Japanese practice in. I think I'll go back to Wednesday's practice.

To quote Bueller_07's response to annie on the JapanesePod101 forums:

annie:

My grocery bill has probably doubled since I moved to Nagano. I'm paying a lot more for fruits and vegetables because I don't have access to the direct produce stands.

And rent out here isn't as cheap as you'd hope it would be. especially with the key moneys and other added costs.

Bueller_07:

Haha. Well there's your problem. Key money.

Plus, you're buying fruit in Japan.

It's cheaper to just get your scurvy treated when you go back home.