Americans don't eat fish

subtitle: Kill Me Now...

Ok, I know That Japanese eat a lot of fish. Nobody doubts this. Americans also like thier beef, and chicken, bacon, roast lamb and so on. But there is no law against eating seafood as far as I know. Every now and then a citizen of the US forces a bit of shrimp, lobster or mahi mahi past his or her gullet.

The Japanese find this hard to comprehend. As I've noted before, countries get only 1 or two things, end of story. Vietnam? Au dai. Next topic! Switzerland? Chocolate and Heidi. Finish.

And once such a thing has been established, it takes generations to change. "Snowboarding is dangerous"... "English Gentleman" / "Germans are like Japanese" on and on...

So Americans eat meat. And only meat. And nothing but meat and meat by-products. Heck even the inside of fruit is called "flesh" in English. Chocolate covered cow's tongue, bacon and turkey flovored orange juice for breakfast.

Okay so last week I used a bit of info I found in a newspaper. I made the lesson a little more involving by asking students to guess: which countries eat the most seafood per capita?

A lot of people said Japan of course, fair enough, some said Spain, France, Italy, even England because of "fish and chips" (see 'one thing' section above)

I was surprised how few of my students said India, or southeast asian countries such as Thailand or Vietnam. (Au dai!) These were my guesses.

okay here are the top 5 in annual per capita consumption, by weight:
1. Japan (big surprise)
2. China
3 USA (ehhhhh???)
4. Indonesia
5. Russia

I admit I was surprised to see the US in 3rd place, not because we don't eat fish but I figured Koreans or Thais ate more. I guess US portions are big... Russia surprised me a bit too, I must admit.

Anyway, we had JUST FINISHED TALKING ABOUT THE FISH THING when we moved on to the next topic. One guy who had been absent the week before asked me: "Kirk, what did we talk about last week?"
I said "Beaujoulais Neuveau (sp?)... as a matter of fact, Makiko (not real name) gave me a bottle!"
"Wow! Taste good?"
"Yeah, pretty good this year. I was lucky. "
Good natured laughter all around. Then the absent guy addressed makiko, the wine presenter.
"Did you give Kirk-sensei red or white wine?"

To which Makiko tilted her head and snorted a little.
"Of course I gave him red!" she said gesturing in my direction "He's American, --They eat meat!"

Waaaaaagh!
I like my job but sometimes....

Murakami- Kafka plot

A Turkish writer, I forget his name, won the nobel prize for literature. He wrote about persecution of albanians, I think, at the end of the 19th century. I think he even went to jail or at least on triel for it. Tricky topic in Turkey.

We talked about this in an 'International Issues" class. Student brought it up. Oh great, I thought, a chance to talk about persecution, whether ethnic groups like kurds deserve a homeland, why the focus on palestinians but silence about kurds, and so on.

No. The topic was the conspiracy to deny japan the nobel prize. Haruki Murakami recently won the Kafka award. Good job. Very prestigious. But apparently everyone (read: the Japanese media) expected him to get the nobel, and when he didn't, it was an example of the whole world ganging up on poor Japan to deny them the prize.

Much like sporting events. Before the olypics all the tv shows "We're gonna kick butt this year" Then one medal is won, that person is a star and everyone wonders why "foreign judges" are so unfair.

USA ice cream too sweet!

Student: American ice cream is too sweet! (she was adamant.)

Me: really? Have you ever tried it?

S: No, that's what I hear. Too sweet. I don't like. japanese don't like.

Me: How about haagen dasz? Ever had that? (very popular in Japan)

S: Mm, Good.

Me: It's american.

S: Eh? No! Europa ice cream.

Me: sorry, american.

S: Hmmm... It's sweet.

(Ok, now I know haagen dasz is owned by swiss food conglomerate Nestle which makes classy gourmet stuf like instant coffee and non-dairy creamer, but for the past 50 years or so, until about 5 years ago tops, it was a US brand. And the formula hasn't changed. Ben and gerry's another "sweet american ice cream" is owned by Unilever, that big bad american, oops I mean anglo-dutch giant. So let's say you think these are sweet, Hmm, that means, oh my god, british ice cream is sweet! Or dutch ice cream is sweet. But this never happens b/c comparisons invariably include just Japan and USA with the occasional 3rd country held up as a shining example of what the USA should aspire too. Eg, British gentleman, French justice, german work pride, korean thrift (until they got credit cards 10 years ago, oops) etc

USA ice cream too sweet!

Student: American ice cream is too sweet! (she was adamant.)

Me: really? Have you ever tried it?

S: No, that's what I hear. Too sweet. I don't like. japanese don't like.

Me: How about haagen dasz? Ever had that? (very popular in Japan)

S: Mm, Good.

Me: It's american.

S: Eh? No! Europa ice cream.

Me: sorry, american.

S: Hmmm... It's sweet.

(Ok, now I know haagen dasz is owned by swiss food conglomerate Unilever, but for the past 50 years or so, until about 5 years ago tops, it was a US brand. And the formula hasn't changed. Ben and gerry's another "sweet american ice cream" is owned by Unilever, that big bad american, oops I mean anglo-dutch giant. So let's say you think these are sweet, Hmm, that means, oh my god, british ice cream is sweet! Or dutch ice cream is sweet. But this never happens b/c comparisons invariably include just Japan and USA with the occasional 3rd country held up as a shining example of what the USA should aspire too. Eg, British gentleman, French justice, german work pride, korean thrift (until they got credit cards 10 years ago, oops) etc

NYC = garbage

Textbook topic: discuss your images of the following cities below: Miamai, London, New York, Sydney

student "The streets of New York are filled with garbage!"

(she's never been there, btw. Why? Too dirty. Crinkled nose when I asked.)

How about Tokyo? "Nice. Very clean."

auntumn color(s) short version

Student: only Japan has a mix of autumn colors.
Gaikoku (foreign country) has only one color, and not red like Japan.

Japan's Foliage and NYC is dirty

I remind myself thatthe perpose of this blog is to record ordinary Japanese people's perceptions about things... perceptions that will probably change over time. 50 years ago people probably had a very diferent opiion about wine for example, than they do today. Occaisionally i rant, but it's hard to explain situations without including the ocaisional "huh?" or "hmmm, doesn't that sound contradictory?"

Anyay, two things that came up on the same day... included b/c I feel they are common perceptions.

In the morning a student informed me and the rest of the room, that "only Japan has many colorful leaves in Autumn."
She understood that other places have autumn (believe me, a lot of Japanese are surprised to learn this.) but still, because Japan is of course, uniquely unique, **only japan has a variety of colors in the same place.*** She was adamant about this.

She explained that gaikoku (foreign land) has only one color, usually yellow or brown.
I said, well, there are lots of colors.

(Actually I find japanese autumn underwhelming. It's ok, but I dont know why they rave about it so much. It's like if you grew up in Niagara and went to some town with a medium sized waterfall, sure it's cool but you wouldt feel so excited about it. So yeah, autumn is ok here but it really can't compare to Vermont for example. But that's not the point...)

"no no no, foreign contries have only one color!"
"Well my hometown n New jersey has red trees, yellow trees, orange, brown..." (It's extra funny because when Japanese want to refer to autumn colorS in English they usually say "red leaves"... why? B/c Japan's autumn is 95% red maple.

"yes, but different places. Here is red, another place is yellow, another is orange. ONLY JAPAN has them together!"

I mean, where do people come up with this and more importantly, why?

"No, actually even my house as a kid had red and yellow etc together. Just in my front yard was a mix"
"No, no, no"
"Mikiko (not real name), come on, this is my house. I remember what it looked like. Lotsa trees."
Hmm, maybe she'd concede the mix thing but...
No, uh, well, ONLY JAPAN has all those colors together with green! Yeah that's right"
"No, you see these colors in the USA for example, I'm sure china or Europe is similar, occur in cooler places. Cooler places tend to have pine trees too. So If you look at a mountain, you can see red trees, yellow trees, and green pine trees..."
'No, ONLY JAPAN!"
It's like a drug -- she has to score an ONLY JAPAN fix or go nuts trying.
"Well, only Japan has red maple"
Now I think the Japanese maple is bautiful but I see them back home too. Probably imported i guess, so score one for Japan, but c'mon, most flowers n people's flower boxes here, such as pansies came from someplace else originally. Not to mention brocolli, tomatos, eggplant etc.

So in summary (all caps for people who are browsing) ONLY JAPAN HAS A MIX OF AUTUMN COLORS IN ONE PLACE