Beyond the obvious differences in weather between the 4 or 5 seasons in Japan, each season is also known for certain foods (eating seasonal was a necessity and a way of life here long before it became back in vogue in the US).  Mushrooms, chestnuts, apples and saury are famous fall foods (try saying that 5 times fast) for example.  One big spring food is sansai, or mountain vegetables (the same san as Fuji-san, which is how it’s called in Japanese).  What sansai actually entails can vary depending on what part of Japan you are talking about.  They are typically not cultivated but foraged for in the woods and mountains.  Around here we have fuki (butterbur; looks sort of like celery), warabi(fiddlehead ferns), and what Hokkaidoins call ainunegi (ramps or something similar; really strong garlic tasting green).  Many of my older students would tell me they had gone forraging when I would ask them what they had done the previous week.  Then they would describe the delicious food they had used them for.  One Hokuto man (one of the cities bordering Nanae) was not so lucky.

On April 6th, a 50 year old construction worker went out during his lunch break to forrage for sansai in some nearby mountainous woods.  When he didn’t return after lunch his co-workers alerted the city hall who called in assistence from some deer hunters to start a search party.  They discovered his body the next day with injuries that implied he’d been killed by a small bear, probably around 5 years old.  I didn:t ask how but they were also able to tell that it was male, about 1.2 meters tall and 70 kilos (not quite 4 feet and 154 pounds).

Can you imagine many American construction workers spending thier lunch break forraging for wild vegetables?

Every August a bunch of foreigners (from all different countries–USA, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Brazil, Korea and Mongolia last year) who are all studying near Tokyo come to Nanae and other towns and cities in Hokkaido to have a 2 week homestay. During the day they visit schools and experience the culture of Japan. Lucky for me, I got to participate in all of these fun activities. One of the highlights was making soba. Soba noodles are grey-ish in color because they are made with buckwheat flour rather than wheat flour. They can be eaten hot or cold but are a very popular summer dish served cold on a bamboo strainer above a plate, dipped into a cup of cold soy sauce based broth and slurped up.

A group of older Nanae citizens taught us and helped us to make the soba.

Water is added to buckwheat flour in a very wide, shallow bowl and stirred gently with just the fingertips. Once the dough comes together into little pebbles it is kneaded into a big ball and then rolled into a big, flat circle and folded in half. There are two tools used to cut the noodles. One is a kind of guide to make sure the knife cuts straight and even and the other is a big rectangular-ish knife. The goal is to cut all of the strands into uniform length but this was much harder to do than it looked (especially fast). Then the noodles were boiled quickly and then rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking and lower the temperature.

Typically zarusoba (this cold soba dish) is eaten accompanied by negi (a long, green onion) and strips of nori (seaweed paper that is used in sushi rolls). Often one or two pieces of tempura (delicately deep-fried battered vegetables and/or seafood) round out the meal. This day we had tempura squid, shiso leaves, shiitake mushrooms, pumpkin, green pepper and maybe some other vegetables.

Hopefully these photos will help you visualize this whole process. It should be noted that most people just used packaged dried soba that they buy at the supermarket just like we buy spaghetti. Also, soba noodles are eaten as a lucky New Year’s food because they are so long and are thought to ensure a long life. I also recently learned that buckwheat isn’t actually a grain it’s a ???? so a serving of noodles is not only a serving of grain but also a complete protein. One further side note: it was a complete novelty to Japanese people the first time I brought sesame noodles to a potluck– they never eat soba noodle salad here! Too bad for them because it’s de-lish!<a

We’re just about finished with Golden Week over here: Saturday was Constitution Memorial Day, Sunday was Green Day and Monday waclass=”alignnone size-medium wp-image-43″s Children’s Day. Because Green Day fell on a Sunday this year (which every already has off), Tuesday is a Substitute Holiday. Children’s Day used to be called Boy’s Festival and is often still referred to this way as a counterpart to Hina Matsuri (which isn’t a national holiday, btw), often called “Girls’ Festival” even though this isn’t the correct translation. These two holidays (along with Tanabata in July) are very old and traditional and always fall on the same dates 3/3, 5/5 and 7/7. This day is supposed to celebrate children’s happiness.

Rather than the Hina dolls being displayed, families with boys may set out a doll depicting Kintaro, a young samuri hero, or sometimes just his head, his kabuto (helmut) or other armor. I saw one of these at each of the nursery schools I visited these past two weeks, but I don’t get the sense that this is as pervasive as the Hina dolls are. Like the Hina dolls they are also very expensive. What is much more popular are koinobori, or carp-shaped windsocks. Families with boys will erect a huge flag pole often adorned with gold spinning whirligig type decoration.

The top banner is called the fukinagashi symbolizing the whip samurai used to carry into battle, followed by the biggest carp (the dad) that is usually black, then the next biggest that is red (for the mom), and then smaller blue or green ones for each of the boys of the family. They are usually really big flags and nicer ones have gold paint or something on them so that when they blow in the wind (and it is really windy here) they wave around and shimmer in the sunlight and really look like fish, covered in shiny scales, swimming in the breeze.

People who live in apartment buildings can buy smaller ones to hang from their balconies. Traditionally a boy’s maternal grandmother would gift the kite (often handmade) to the parents on the occasion of his birth but, now, often parents will just buy one. The carp signify strength and perseverance since they are one of the fish that swim upstream. Families will usually fly the flags every year after the first boy is born until the youngest is 10 or 11 or so.

As for Children’s Day food, red rice and (sweetened) beans is often served as it is for any sort of celebration. The typical sweet of Children’s Day is kashiwamochi- mochi (rice dough) filled with sweet bean paste and then wrapped in an inedible oak leaf (I think this is partly for looks and partly to avoid having to touch the mochi which can be quite sticky. Traditionally boys would eat this treat while wearing paper kabutos– there was a strong relationship between this holiday and military things to encourage the boys to become soldiers but this has lessened. There is still the idea of celebrating and encouraging strength, good health, courage and perseverance. I also read in a few places that there is also an element of the boys thanking the mothers for everything they have done for them but I don’t know anything else about this (and Mother’s Day is also celebrated here, to some extent, on the same day we do).

You hear all the time about how expensive Japan is and in some regards that is true.  Traveling around within Japan is pretty expensive.  The trains are great and everything–clean, safe, punctual etc– but it comes at a cost.  You can buy plane tickets to most places in Japan for around $100 each way if you buy it 28 days before but this isn’t always the case.  There are really only 2 airlines in Japan (JAL, and ANA) and they control everything, even the “budget” airlines (although I think there is only one left).  

Hotels can be expensive and confusing since the charge is per person not per room.  Good food is expensive here but there are cheaper options (ramen, soba, Y100 kaiten sushi (depending on how hungry you are), some chain take-out bento places and the ubiquitous convenience stores [whose food by the way is much better than in the States]).  Produce can be expensive though, especially fruit.  People (ie housewives) don’t often cook with fruit here the way we do in the States (cobblers, crisps, pies, etc) partly because it is more expensive and partly because the fruit is such good quality it would be a shame to mar its beauty by chemically changing it.  

Nanae is known for its apples (at least locally).  In the summer and fall apple farmers line the ground under the trees with white plastic to reflect the sun back up onto the underside of the fruit so that the color is evenly distributed and no area is neglected.  They are also wrapped in newspapers and tape at some point to ensure a nice round shape(?).  And often they’re huge.  I’ve seen apples here the size of a newborn’s head– no joke.  They put a lot of care into the appearance of the produce here. (but I still like New England apples best– the apples here tend to lack that tart, sweetness that a good Macintosh or Macoun has).

One of the farmers who came to Concord with me in October grows flowers (I think carnations may be the number one crop here) and some vegetables like negi (sort of a cross between a leek and a scallion but usually about the thickness of my thumb or a little bigger). He grows the vegetables and then this organization called JA comes and picks up the produce and sells it at their grocery stores or distributes it to other stores so that the farmers don’t have to waste their time selling and finding buyers.  It is kind of a collective of farmers or something that was started maybe 10 years ago.  Anyway, this farmer, Hisayuki, said once that it was kind of a pain because they are required to bunch the negi in groups of 3 and they have to line up the part where the color changes from white to green.  This is all done so it looks more attractive in the grocery store but Hisayuki said it is kind of a pain.

On the other hand rent (at least in Hokkaido) is pretty cheap.  I have a one bedroom in a new apartment building (I think I may be the first tenant in my apt) and my rent is Y43,000 a month (about $430).  Lee lives in a city of 300,000 and has an apartment minutes from the densha (streetcar) line in an older building but better made than mine (i.e. it has as real hardwood floors and a tatami room compared to my laminate flooring) that is a 2 bedroom and only pays Y50,000 a month.  My understanding is that houses here depreciate in value.  In general houses don’t seem that well made and people don’t seem to care as much about them as in the US.  At home your house is your number one asset usually and there are countless magazines and books about making your house look the best you can afford.  I don’t really see that here– could be because I’m in Hokkaido, or because of ‘quakes people don’t want to risk putting that much money into something that may not last, or because of all the transfers (you may not be in your house for too long so why bother sprucing it up), or because people tend to be more frugal here. I don’t really know.

This was really all just lead up to say that I just read an ad for my local grocery store selling suika (watermelon) for Y1,580 — and that is in yellow print with a red comic-book-style-pow thing behind it to indicate that this is a good deal!  I’ve even seen good quality watermelons sell for over 30 bucks a pop in the summer and even square ones, too.  And there not even ginormous.

I just thought you’d like to know

Yes, I’m still alive. I know I was gone for a while… but I was writing a lot of posts in my head if that counts.

I wanted to show you a photo of the actual fugu, blowfish, that I ate– it didn’t much look like the puffed up fish photo I showed last time.

My understanding is that you have to be fugu certified in order to cook/serve fugu. I’m not sure exactly what that process entails but most of the deaths from eating fugu are from fisherman who try to cut it up and eat it themselves after catching one.

It was tempura-ed so it mostly just tasted like tempura-ed fish. It wasn’t so distinctive but then again it came at the end of a long meal so it is kind of hard to remember.

More coming soon…promise.

Breaking news:

I ate fugu and lived to tell about it!

Absolutely out of the blue the other day I asked Emi what happens in Japan when kids lose their teeth.  Apparently it depends on whether said tooth is an upper or bottom tooth.  In Emi’s family the upper ones are thrown onto the ground in her families barn (her dad is a rice farmer) so the new teeth will be as strong as the mice’s teeth that live on the floor.  The bottom ones are thrown onto the second floor of the barn (not sure why).  While lots of rice is grown in Japan (since they obviously eat a lot of it and have laws against importing it) certainly not every family has a barn at their disposal.  I was a little surprised that Emi didn’t immediately know what other families did but maybe its because all of the kids who lived around her were also the children of farmers.  Maybe it isn’t something that is talked about as much in Japanese culture?  We asked around the office and the guys told us their families threw the bottom teeth either onto the second floor, or from outside the house they threw them onto the roof depending on the house/family and the upper teeth were thrown under the house.   Just to be completely thorough I did some checking online and found that there is a saying in Japanese regarding what to do with baby teeth:“ue no ha wa en no shita e, shita no ha wa yabe no ue e nageru” which literally means “throw your upper teeth under the floor and your lower teeth over the roof”.  There was some concern in this article about what people who live in apartment buildings do.   I also found another site that includes some customs from other countries that gave a slightly different reason for the whole below-the-house/over-the-house thing.  It said this practice is done to encourage the upper teeth to grow towards the ground and the lower teeth towards the roof.  I say drink your milk, brush your teeth and get braces.

We tend to think of animal noises as falling into the language category of onomatopoeia — cats meow and cows moo– which is why I think it is so weird that different languages have different sounds to represent these animal sounds. Here are some for Japanese: 

• cat:  niya-niya 
• dog:  kan-kan  or wun-wun
• pig:  bu-bu 
• sheep: meh
• horse:  hi-hin
• cow:  moo-moo (this is how they spell it put it sounds like mo-mo)
• owl:  ho-ho
• frog:  gero- gero (with a hard “g” sound) 

 And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. 

Kiyou wa… O-Higan– or at least the Spring O-Higan. My Japanese English teachers’ calendar gives an English translation of “Vernal Equinox Day” but that isn’t quite right. O-Higan is the week that surrounds an equinox. The equinoxes (not quite sure if that should be “equinii” or something and dictionary.com wasn’t very helpful) are Japanese Buddhist holy days in celebration of the balance and harmony that the equinox symbolizes–not just in terms of hours of daylight but also in terms of a return of more moderate temperatures. O-Higan actually translates to “the other shore.” Buddhists believe that at these times of year conditions are optimal for crossing the shore from this world to the other shore, the shore of enlightenment.

To be honest, I just looked all of that up on the internet. I’m not sure how many Japanese people would really know that– they have an interesting relationship with religion here. What people do know is that the equinoxes themselves are holidays and these are times to visit the graves of deceased family members. Perhaps there is some link between the idea of this being an optimal time to reach the shore of enlightenment and for those of us in this world to connect to those who have already gone on. I’m not really sure.  Either on the actual equinox or anywhere from a few days before to a few days after, family members will visit grave sites and leave offerings of flowers, food and drink. The supermarkets have been selling flowers and special mochi called Ohagi that are mochi balls blanketed in a thick layer of chunky anko (sweet bean paste)–they are kind of inside-out mochi since usually the anko is inside.

Sorry for making that sound so unappealing–I’m sure the taste is pretty much the same as most other anko-mochi combos but they certainly aren’t the prettiest of Japanese sweets. There are some other kinds of mochi-esque treats like little balls of rice flour dumplings stacked in a pyramid and encased in plastic or bags of these same dumplings in pale, spring colors.

Some people even put out small jars of sake. O-higan is not as big a deal as O-bon in August and many people are not as religious about visiitng the gravesite every O-higan. Family members who have moved away wouldn’t necessarily come home for O-higan they way they would for O-bon.

I have driven past many of these small cemeteries (including this one multiple times a week) but never been inside one. I had never noticed before that it had its own trash box. I’m not sure whether it is just for when people come to visit and they remove whatever was leftover from last time or if there is someone who regularly comes to tidy up the graves. Either way it’s kind of funny.

Editor’s note: Click on the thumbnail images to see them a little larger.

I realized sometimes last weekend that my last post totally changed course as I was writing it. While everything I wrote may be interesting to you it wasn’t the post I intended on writing.

I spent most of last Friday (after the MRI) proof-reading a 10-page brochure (is that even still the word if it’s that long?) that the Tourism Section puts out about Onoma. Onoma is a quasi-national park (that includes a mostly dormant volcano) that is located in the Northeast of Nanae and has had a long history of tourism. The brochure was last printed in 2006 and was looked over by one of the other foreigners working in Nanae at the time but they wanted me to look it over just in case something caught my eye. Because the printing company people don’t speak English (I’m assuming) there were some little mistakes with spacing etc. that they didn’t catch. I also took out a few words here and there to make it more concise. When I was done Emi brought it down to the Tourism Section but returned a short time later with the marked-up brochure and a 3-page hand written letter. Turns out, a year or two ago a Japanese man living outside of Sapporo came across our broucure somewhere in Sapporo and found some mistakes . Apparently he is some sort of English expert and native English speakers who happen to live in the Sapporo area sometimes ask him for help editing. What?!?@#

So, he decided to write us a letter with all of the errors and corrections (quite thoroughly explained, I might add). Sounds nice, right? Well, then he “suggested” the town pay him ¥10 (about 10 cents) for each error that they changed. How weird is that? I’ll admit I was a little skeptical. I mean, English grammar and punctuation are notoriously difficult. He must have gone through that thing with a fine toothed comb– he found some inconsistencies that I didn’t even notice. For instance, one time the text referred to “Onoma Station” and another time to “the Onoma Station”. Another time he used a semi-colon that I wouldn’t have used and didn’t think was correct…until I looked up its usage and found that he was right! (I’ll admit I was a little embarrassed).

All of this led Emi and I to a discussion about punctuation. Japanese punctuation is actually quite simple. They have about 9 different punctuation marks: parenthesis, quote marks (ex.「何」と思いました。/”What?” she said.) that look a little different from ours, commas, periods (again, a little different), a dash, and sometimes a question mark. I’ve found, though, that often the question mark is omitted since all questions (unless they are asked in a casual, shortened version) end with the question particle か so you know a sentence is a question even without the punctuation. Isn’t language so fascinating?

I’m not saying the Japanese necessarily have it easier than us, English speakers– while we’re studying these punctuation marks in middle school and getting some practice using them in high school they’re still learning how to write their language.