Eat First, Ask Questions Later

We have been traveling for just shy of six months now.  Just before we left on our trip, on a whim I downloaded 16 episodes of Malcolm in the Middle onto my palm top.  Malcolm is sort of a live-action version of The Simpons and we have now seen each of these episodes on my tiny 3-inch by 2-inch screen a gazillion times.

Malcolm is clearly art imitating life, and increasingly it seems to be our life.  Do the writers of the show follow us around?  Are there hidden cameras that they watch us with?

To Katrina's horror, the woman place a little wiggling octopus in the middle of the griddle, cooking it into the pancake.

We have started to communicate with each other by quoting different lines from various episodes.  One of the big ones is when 17-year-old Reese is trying to escape from Afghanistan.  He is starving and hallucinating.  In this hallucination, he is conversing with a 6-foot tall Mr. Waffle:

"Reese, you can't give up.  These people don't understand breakfast!  They take leftover rice from the night before and cook it up into a thin paste!  Don't you want to taste my buttery goodness again?"

This gives Reese the will to keep going.  It has also been our mantra for Japan:  "These people don't understand breakfast!"  I love Japan, I really do.  But I can do without the food.

September and I lived in Japan for a year in 1993, before we had children.  I was representing my company at a Japanese customer site, and under the normal social expectations that come with working with the Japanese, I ate my share of sushi and sashimi and wiggly-squiggly sea creatures.

We have hoped that through our travels the kids would learn to expand their diet of plain pasta for dinner and toasted waffles for breakfast.  Katrina has come a long way, and with a resigned determination will generally throw anything into her mouth, but for her I knew Japan would be a test.  I have especially been looking forward to introducing squid & corn pizza to Jordan.

We hadn't been in Japan 24 hours before we had eaten at Denny's and McDonald's twice each, more than I have eaten at either in the decade prior to our trip.  In September's characteristically not-so-subtle way, she let me know I was a wimp when it came to eating beyond my comfort zone.

"You know, we are going to be here for two weeks.  You are going to have to face the fact that eventually, you will have to eat Japanese food.  Buck up."

I thought of George Bush Senior making the excuse, "I'm President of the United States and I shouldn't have to eat broccoli if I don't want to."  But I kept my mouth shut.

Succumbing to the pressure, I took the family to Enoshima Island, a small island 90 minutes south of Tokyo, to find lunch.  I had been to Enoshima Island before, and I remembered the vendors along the many walkways selling what the fisherman had caught that very morning.  (I also knew there was a McDonalds at the end of the pier, where I planned to sneak off when September and the kids weren't watching.)

As we ambled along, Katrina noted one sidewalk vendor making what looked liked very thin, crispy pancakes.  Mmmm. A pancake is almost like a waffle.  Lunch!

We watched the woman pour batter onto a griddle and then tightly close a lid, cooking the pancake.  But I knew that a plain pancake in Japan was too good to be true.  There would be a surprise inside; there always is.  In retribution to the kids for inflicting on me years of plain pasta for dinner, I pointed to the pancakes and encouraged the kids to buy one.

Unfortunately, Katrina was paying too much attention.  As we got closer to the pancake stand, Katrina noted that the woman poured the batter into the griddle and then placed something on top of it before she closed the griddle to cook it.  I tried to tell the kids that the "something" was probably just chocolate chips, or maybe apple filling, but they went in even closer for visual confirmation.  To Katrina's horror, she saw the woman place a little wiggling octopus in the middle of the griddle and press it flat with the lid, cooking it into the pancake.

They weren't interested in pancakes anymore.

Katrina started talking fast and excitedly about how she wanted to rescue those little octopuses.  We've known that we've had a Greenpeace recruit in the making since Katrina was about 2.  Now approaching 12, the die is cast.

I couldn't shake September and the kids and was forced in to a Tempura shop.  Tempura is usually pretty safe for the American palate; it's simply prawns or vegetables dipped in batter and fried, and is served next to a bed of rice. The shop had a picture menu, and when we ordered the food we randomly pointed to the four dishes that looked the most innocent.

When we got our rice, Katrina started to inspect it closely, wanting to avoid any surprises.  Being a quick learner can be a handicap.

"Katrina," I said, "you know that inspecting one's food too closely is never a good idea."  Katrina reminded me of the first time I ever told her that.  It was when September was on a long business trip and I hadn't been to the grocery store in ages and was desperate to find something to feed the kids.  The refrigerator was nearly empty, so I told the kids to go out to the garden and pick some broccoli.  Later, when the broccoli was on their plate, the kids started inspecting it.

"Dad, I am not  eating this!  It is covered in aphids!"  Katrina cried.

I replied, "Oh, you are exaggerating.  Any vegetable is bound to have some tiny bug on it.  It is cooked. Pick the aphid off and eat the broccoli.  You should never examine your food too closely, otherwise, you won't eat anything."

Problem was, the broccoli was covered with the critters.  I found myself forcing a smile because I had already eaten.  That is how I earned my reputation of "eat first and ask questions later."  Unfortunately for the kids, I was in a grouchy mood and made the kids eat every last bite of broccoli anyway.

Now, by the looks of it, Katrina was examining each individual rice kernel in her bowl.

"Eewww!  Some of these rice kernels look like tiny fish!  I am not eating this stuff!"

"For heavens sake Katrina, they are just bean sprouts.  They won't kill you.  Starving children in China would be glad to eat them."

"Since when do bean sprouts have eyes?"

They are not eyes!  It is a bean sprout, and that is the seed."

"I am not eating it!"

"Fine.  Pick out the bean sprouts.  I'll eat them."

With that, I ate a couple of bean sprouts to prove my point.  They were too little to taste like anything.  As the meal progressed, Katrina started to assign imaginary fish parts to her bean sprouts.  She could see fins and a mouth and a spine through each transparent little body.

By this time, I was praising her vivid imagination, telling her that it would take her far in life.  Too far, if she wasn't careful.  But with her adamant protesting ("Dad, I see gills!"), a little doubt started to creep into the corner of my mind.

Finally I said, "Give me a break!  Show me the mouth and tail!"

She did.  I took the tiny bean sprout and with my 45-year-old eyes tried to focus on it.  No eyes, no tail.  Bean sprout.

She persisted, "It is a fish!  You need your reading glasses!"

Ahem.  I don't really like being reminded that I need my reading glasses.  I searched out the best light and tried again.  To my surprise, I was holding a tiny, narrow fish, no more than a quarter of an inch long.

Youth triumphs over experience.  This is a new concept for me.  I'm not sure I like it.  Katrina made note of future "I Told You So" rights.

Even though one can still buy octopus pancakes and rice bowls sprinkled with little fishies, we nevertheless found that Japan has "sweetened up" a bit since we lived here 12 years ago.  Our experience then was that the Japanese, collectively, simply did not have a sweet tooth.  For example, once I had brought a plate of home-made brownies to the office and presented them to my Japanese co-workers, who immediately looked extremely distressed, and clutched their stomachs and groaned.  I ended up eating the whole batch with my American office mate.

Now we find Baskin Robbins and Mister Donut at nearly every train station.  And there is other subtle evidence that sugar is actually being consumed in significant quantities.  For example, we tried the desserts at Denny's and they didn't taste like sawdust.  That is a big improvement since 12 years ago.

Another Japan-ism is that the Japanese are obsessed with where you can wear your footwear.  It is well known that shoes are not allowed in the house, but that is really just the beginning.  Once in the house, you must wear slippers, but the slippers must not be worn inside a room whose floor is covered with the revered tatami mat.  Tatami mats are worthy of bare toes or stockinged feet only.

I knew all this, and had warned the kids in advance of our first night in a Japanese-style inn.  Unfortunately, the thrill of huffing four over-stuffed suitcases up two flights of stairs left my sense of recollection in a bit of a fog.  As I lugged the last of our suitcases into our room my host firmly reminded me to keep my slippers off of his tatami mats.  Oops.

This is not the end of the rules of wearing slippers in the house.  In order to use the toilet, you must remove your normal slippers and put on the special toilet slippers.  These are usually bright red or pink with the word "TOILET" (in English) emblazoned across the toes as if to warn the wearer to not even THINK of wearing them anywhere else in the house.

The Japanese are also obsessed with how you take a bath... not that you do or don't take a bath, but that if you do, that it is done in the time-honored tradition.  In my case this meant that my bath was supervised by a Bathing Coach.

After accidentally wearing my slippers on the tatami mats I had earned the privilege of getting a tutorial on Japanese etiquette at every turn, as I constantly found our host at my elbow.  When he spotted me on my way to the bathing area, he wasn't about to let me make the fatal error of, say, getting soap in the bathtub.  He followed me into the bathing room to give me instructions on the proper procedures.

A traditional Japanese bath is preceded by first taking a shower, or even more traditionally, soaping yourself up outside of the bathtub and rinsing off completely by pouring small buckets of water over yourself.  Only after you are thoroughly clean and free of any possible soap residue, are you allowed to get into the bathtub.

The reason for this process is that the water in the tub is shared by the entire family, or if you are at a Japanese inn, by everyone.  In this manner the water stays clean.  Or at least it doesn't get absolutely revolting.

To facilitate the bathing ritual, the tub and shower area is much different than it is in the U.S.  The drain is in the floor of the bathroom and one takes his or her shower right in the middle of the room -- there is no dedicated shower stall.  The bathtub itself is off in a corner, usually with a cover over it so the water stays warm and nothing nasty, say like soap residue, makes it into the water.

It is really unfortunate that we have spent the last eight years telling Jordan not to get the floor of the bathroom wet when he takes a shower, because in Japan, that is what you are supposed to do.

So at our Japanese inn, despite being told to be sure not to get soap in the bathtub, Jordan refused to stand in the middle of the bathroom and take a shower ("Mom might get mad if I did that") and instead hauled the shower hose over to the bathtub, climbed in, and took his shower standing right in it.  I suspect that the host at our inn resorted to cleansing the tub with acetone.  Or maybe he will have the tub removed and replaced.  I dunno.  I do know we are not on his Christmas card list.

Of course no description of Japan is complete without mentioning that the country is completely gadget crazy.  The ubiquitous gadget now is the Swiss Army knife-ish cell phone/camera/text messaging thingy.  Outside the Kyoto train station there is a beautiful Christmas tree at the top of a set of escalators, and when we visited, at least 50% of the people riding up the escalators were stretching their arms high in the air holding their cell phones up, snapping pictures of it.  On the average subway at least 50% of the people are furiously working the keypads of their cell phones with their thumbs, smoke curling from the tiny screens.  I should have bought shares in NTT DoCoMo years ago.

What's worse is when they don't put the blasted things away when they hop off the subway.  Anyone who has a bumper sticker on their car that says "Shut Up and Drive" should try walking on a sidewalk in Japan while they are in a rush to get somewhere.  There is always some teeny-bopper in high heels and a mini-skirt or a businessman in a suit inching along the crowded sidewalk furiously tapping in a text message into his or her cell phone constraining foot traffic in the process.  Where is my water cannon when I need it?

The prize for the oddest and most enduring gadget surely must go to the humble toilet seat.  These come in different varieties, from the simple heated seat to the nuclear-powered model looking like it came off of the flight deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise.  I don't know what all the buttons do, and I am frankly afraid to try them.

The first time I ever sat on one of these seats it was a bit of a shock because I was expecting cold plastic.  After the initial yelp, I learned to become quite fond of this arrangement.  In our very chilly inn, in which the owner keeps all the windows open even on very cold nights, Jordan has taken to, er, sitting instead of standing, warming his, um, buns in the process.  I tried to tell him the other boys would make fun of him if he didn't stop it.  I still see him sneaking off with his 956 page copy of The Order of the Phoenix.

Speaking of the boy with the lightening bolt scar on his forehead, ever since we read The Half Blood Prince, Harry Potter has been more or less a course of advanced studies as we have searched through books One through Five for clues to the identity of R.A.B. and the whereabouts of the missing locket.

This has actually made learning the art of serious studying quite a bit of fun for the kids.  And for Dad, too.  For those of you who know what I am talking about, and who also want a hint at who we are convinced R.A.B. is and where the locket is, open up Harry Potter Book 5, The Order of the Phoenix.

and re-read Chapter 6, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.