Life In Japan: Conveyor Belt Sushi

Posted on February 25, 2020 by johnrachel

Sushi and I have a long history.  I discovered the joys of raw fish on sticky rice back in the 80s, when I lived in Los Angeles.

I was a bit of a sushi snob back then, not because I’m class conscious, but because the people I was hanging out with at the time had a lot of disposable income.

Sushi scene in “Defending Your Life”

There’s a great romantic comedy film called “Defending Your Life” with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep.  The two sushi chefs in that film had a fabulous sushi restaurant frequented by movie industry types — moguls and celebrities.  They were the “rock stars” of the sushi scene in that area of town, which is why they ended up in the film.  These two geniuses were my initiation in perhaps the best sushi in the entire Universe!  That’s how I became a sushi snob.

When I moved to Portland, Oregon I was heartened to find one phenomenal sushi bar, unfortunately now out of business.  I was home free!  The competition wasn’t exactly stiff.  Portland’s unofficial motto is still to this day ‘Keep Portland Weird’. 

Predictably there were some very bizarre places that passed themselves off as sushi restaurants.  One was called Rock ‘n Roll Sushi.  I tried it.  It was horrible!  Other places were run by individuals who clearly had no training in the fine art of sushi making, weren’t remotely Japanese, probably thought miso soup was just bad English, as in “Me so glad to see you, Yoko!”

It was in Portland I first heard of conveyor belt sushi.  I immediately dismissed it as just more Portland weirdness, glanced in the window of the new conveyor restaurant only once — yes, it was the talk of the town and I was curious — and thought, what a stupid gimmick!

I was pretty confident I wasn’t missing anything.  Here’s what one customer said about it:  “Sushi Mioga may not serve the best sushi in town but for the price and with tons of options, this is my new favorite conveyor-belt-sushi restaurant for now.”

Whatever.  Sushi delivered on a conveyor belt?  Ha!  What a joke!

Of course, I was wrong about at least part of the story.  Conveyor belt sushi was invented by a Japanese sushi restaurant owner back in 1958.  His name was Yoshiaki Shiraishi, and he was looking for an effective way to get his sushi quickly to his customers.  A visit to a local Asahi brewery, which used conveyor belts to speedily move the beer through the process of bottling and packaging, was his inspiration.

So Portland wasn’t being weird or innovative or anything of the like.  It took someone there almost 50 years to discover and capitalize on this clever invention.  By then, Japan had entire conveyor belt sushi restaurant chains up and running across the nation.  The most well-known and successful is Sushiro, which has been in business for over 30 years.

Sushi tends to be very polarizing.  Either people absolutely LOVE IT or are nauseated by the thought of eating raw fish.

I guess I’m pretty lucky living here, since I’m a hard-core sushi and sashimi lover.  Both are as common here, both at home and when eating out, as pizza or fries are in America.  Masumi and I went to a cook-out at a friend’s house and along with the usual things that you’d see at a backyard barbecue, there was the huge plate of yellowtail sashimi pictured here.  That would cost over $100 at a restaurant in the U.S.  And here it was being served as a snack like you’d serve cheese and crackers.  I was in heaven!

We don’t eat out all that often — both Masumi and I love to cook and she’s certainly a genius in the kitchen — but on average we eat conveyor belt sushi once a month.  Our favorite place is in nearby Tanba-shi.  Usually we go with Masumi’s mom and her two daughters who live near us in Sasayama.

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It’s not only incredibly delicious and inexpensive but I frankly find it to be a lot of fun.  There’s always the anticipation of what the sushi chefs have coming down the belt next.  Sometimes some real surprises!

Since conveyor belt sushi is extremely popular, for the lunch or dinner rush hour it’s generally a good idea to make an online reservation a few hours in advance.  Last time we were there, however, it wasn’t peak time and the place wasn’t as crowded as is usual.

Even though they weren’t blasting Megadeath over the speaker system and the waitresses didn’t look like something out of Zombie Goth Apocalypse, we still had an excellent time!

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Life In Japan: Police Power

Posted on February 14, 2020 by johnrachel

I’ve been spending time in Japan on and off for almost thirteen years.  I’ve lived here as a permanent resident now for over eight.  I can’t ever recall seeing a police officer smile.

Then again, they’re not paid to smile.  Apparently they’re paid to serve and protect.

This story appeared as an article in this morning’s newspaper.  Yes, we have it delivered everyday.  It’s white paper with black printing, sometimes a few color photos, a pleasant way to keep informed, which my wife Masumi reads then we recycle.  The story . . .

Kakogawa is a town in our area.  There an 81-year-old lady’s disabled husband fell off the bed where he unfortunately spends most of his life now.  She was unable to lift him and put him back into the bed.  He himself could offer no assistance.

She called her son, who lives in Himeji.  He promised to get there as soon as possible, but Himeji is well over an hour from Kakogawa.

The lady then called the police.  Hoisting people from a fall is not really their job but they said they would get there as soon as possible.

Two policemen showed up at her house in ten minutes.  They were able to get the old man back into the comfort of his bed.  She was overwhelmed with gratitude.  As they left, they reminded her to be sure and lock her door.  I’m not sure why because crime is practically non-existent here in Japan, especially in the more outlying towns like Kakogawa.

To be honest, I have no way of knowing if the police officers smiled.  But they certainly went way beyond their official line of duties to help this distressed old couple.

Protect and serve.  Be human.  Be helpful.  Be kind.

When I lived in Los Angeles for 15 years, all of the patrol cars had ‘To Protect and Serve’ on them.  Regardless, it was well established that you didn’t talk to, call on, approach, or in any way engage the police.  If you did, you would be inviting harassment, abuse, even arrest.  That was back in the 80s and early 90s.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what it’s like now.

What happened to America?  When did public servants become the enemy?

Every nation has its pluses and minuses.  Maybe I don’t look to the police here for a smile.  But I know I can count on them if there’s a problem. 

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Life In Japan: Washlets

Posted on January 29, 2020 by johnrachel

The first time I ever saw a washlet, to be entirely honest about it, I was genuinely afraid to sit down.  To my unschooled Western eyes, it looked like an ejection seat in a fighter jet.  Seeing it plugged into the wall most definitely made me pause.  I’m not exactly excited about having 100 volts of electricity anywhere near the 2nd most important cluster of organs on my body — the ones responsible for both a great deal of pleasure, as well as relief from the build up of sludge and stinky fluids. 

The washlet is the technological evolution of the “bum gun”, a simple, standard approach to hygiene for the private parts, still commonly seen in Southeast Asia — Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar.

When I first saw a bum gun, I thought “how primitive!”  The real truth?  My disdain itself was an embarrassingly primitive, insular, knee-jerk reaction.  What do I mean by that?

Is this the best we can do? Seriously?

I imagine an advanced race of extraterrestrials returning from our beloved planet Earth, reporting to the Council of Wise Elders on their own beloved space rock: “Well, they’re an interesting but strange bunch there on Earth.  In some ways, they’re quite advanced.  But in others quite puzzling to say the least.  They actually cut down trees to wipe their asses.”

Yes, we cut down trees, process them, turn them into pulp, then toilet paper.  You know what happens next.

The bum gun does the job much more admirably and is much more eco-friendly, at least in terms of maintaining forest cover on our ravaged planet.

Just spray and wash.  Pat with a towel.  Get on with your life.  Frankly a thorough wash is much more sanitary than . . . you know how it goes.

Back to the washlet, a Japanese innovation I put on a par with the invention of the steam engine or artificial intelligence.

Washlets come in varying degrees of sophistication, accessorized to accommodate a wide range of tastes.  But they all perform the same purpose.  They wash you.  Men in back. Women back and front.

You can adjust the temperature of the stream, the intensity of the stream.  It can be just a direct stream or in “massage mode” a wiggling stream.

Some washlets greet you!  Some play music.  Some put the toilet seat up and down for you.

This borders on somewhat excessive for my particularly pedestrian world view and spartan expectations.  But there’s one feature pretty standard on washlets that is truly admirable.  THE TOILET SEATS ARE HEATED!  And you can adjust the temperature on them too.

Why haven’t these caught on in Western countries?  Has someone tried to market them to the wiping/smearing/stinky-butted round-eyed barbarians of Europe, the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the rest of the non-Japanese world . . . and gone bankrupt?  I don’t get it.

Yes, I admire much about Japan.  And every country has its pluses and minuses.  You can examine and study, compare and argue, go back and forth, weighing the pros and cons. 

Then some one thing comes along which is so phenomenal, so HUGE and AMAZING, so entirely off the charts, so beyond anything else on the table, it’s no longer a contest.

The simple unavoidable truth is . . . 

Washlets put this country in a class by itself!  

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Wild and Crazy in Chiang Mai, Thailand!

Posted on January 4, 2020 by johnrachel

What were you doing New Years Eve?  The usual.  Or the unusual.

As is standard operating procedure for us, Masumi and I were well off the beaten path . . . we certainly weren’t in Times Square.  We weren’t wearing a beer guzzler cap.  We didn’t do vodka jello shooters, smoke DMT or put magic mushrooms on our eleven-cheese pizza.  We never even got around to singing Auld Lang Syne.  

Here’s the very short, edited version of our New Years Eve celebration.

This was the climactic end to seven days in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

To put it mildly, it was a unique and highly entertaining visit to a country I’ve been to before, but always finding intriguing.  My wife Masumi, however, has never been to Thailand, so this short adventure was especially exciting for her.

Doi Inthanon National Park is about an hour drive from Chiang Mai, and is home to the highest peak in Thailand.  On our way there for two days in nature, we went through a Hmong village, where they happened to be having a New Years festival.

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The park and surrounds were outstanding.  Unfortunately, since Doi Inthanon Mountain itself shrouded in a cloud, while we were there the visibility at the top was limited.  But as the day progressed, the air cleared and we got to do some hiking and experienced stunning views of the countryside.  We stopped at a few villages sprinkled around and sampled “real life” in this rustic, relatively underdeveloped part of the world.  

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For easy access to the park, we did a homestay at Nongtao, a Karen tribe village actually within the great expanse of Doi Inthanon National Park.  People were shy but amicable.  Our host was truly superb, helping us decide what to do and how to get places.

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Not far from our homestay was an elephant park.  These were no ordinary elephants.  They had all been in the parade celebrating the recent coronation of the new King of Thailand.  You can sense from their regal bearing and sophisticated manners their royal blood lines.

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What would a visit to Thailand be, however, without spending time at a few of the literally tens of thousands of temples and shrines?  We capped off sacred site hopping by visiting the world-famous White Temple, a short distance outside of Chiang Rai.

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We were so comfortable and fit in so perfectly, I’m sure no one suspected for a moment that we were tourists.

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Life In Japan: Shinto Monk Home Blessing

Posted on December 18, 2019 by johnrachel

All of us at one time or another have had strangers come to the door.  Maybe it’s Jehovah Witness or Mormon recruiters; someone looking for a prior resident; a person whose car has broken down; a magazine salesman; one of those people who go around stuffing fliers in mailboxes, advertising a new gym, a sale on snow tires, a new restaurant opening down the street, a holiday sale; a person with Alzheimer’s disease who wandered out of the back door of their house down the street.

But how many of you folks can say they’ve had Shinto monks come by to bless your home, your life, and all of those in your immediate family?

Of course, they’re seeking alms.  But that’s really standard operating procedure here in Asia.  When I was in Myanmar, shortly after sunrise, young monks would fan out through the neighborhood where I was staying and ask for a daily contribution for their sustenance and the continuation of their spiritual work.  The community values their presence and what they contribute to the social equilibrium, and shows its appreciation with pocket change and small bills.  Is this so different than passing the hat, collection basket, handheld wireless ATM at a church in the U.S.?  I think not.

Besides, the Shinto monks who go door-to-door here put on a nice little show!  See for yourself . . .

It must be working.  No one around us that I’m aware of has gotten the plague, we’ve had no invasions of locusts, blood seems confined to the arterial systems of the hosts, we never get thunderstorms of hail and fire.  We have our share of frogs but quite honestly they’re cute little critters.  Noisy but cute. 

I’d say Japan is better off than most ancient civilizations.  Meaning, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  I’m certainly looking forward to another visit from the Shinto good fortune team when they run out of money.  Until then I think I’ll just levitate . . .

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Life In Japan: Harvesting Soybeans

Posted on December 12, 2019 by johnrachel

It probably seems late to be writing here in December about harvesting anything.

But soybeans are an interesting crop.

First off, soybeans are called kuromame — 黒豆 — here in Japan, literally ‘black beans’.  Because when they are left on the vine to completely mature, they dry, become very hard, and are a deep ebony color.

In actual fact, soybeans are harvested at two distinct stages.

The first harvest comes about a month after the appearance of the new bean pods.  These soybeans are green and fairly soft.  When the pods are boiled and lightly salted, they are called edamame — 枝豆 — which translates to ‘stem pea’ or ‘branch pea’.  Edamame is among my favorite treats both at home and at a restaurant.  It makes a great snack or an appetizer.

It’s right after this first harvest that our prefecture — a prefecture is the equivalent of what is called a ‘state’ in the U.S. and there are 47 prefectures in Japan, ours is named Hyogo — has our annual Black Bean Festival. 

Because our beans are reputed to be among the best in Japan, people come from all over Japan to buy them, or send them out as gift packages.

This first harvest either must be eaten quickly or frozen.  The green soybeans will spoil within a week of being harvested.

Which is in sharp contrast to black beans.  They will have completely dried out, are hard as a rock, and will last almost as long as most rocks, as long as they’re not attacked by insects or radioactive zombies.  At the same time, in order to make them edible, they must be boiled for hours and hours.

To arrive at this petrified state, black beans are left on the vine for two to three months.  They are monitored and at some point their stalks are cut and they’re flipped over and either left upside-down on the ground or hung up to dry out.  So here we are in December and many local farmers are just getting around to collecting their black beans.  Some will leave them out for another month or so.

Here’s an interesting side note.  Black beans taste very different than the early-harvest green soybeans.  They’re roasted to eat as a snack, boiled and made into a healthful soup, soaked in sugar and used for various desserts.  They’re turned into a sweet paste and used as a filling in dessert cakes, the way we Westerners might do with custard or whip cream.  Or sometimes the beans are sweetened and inserted in a cake or sweet roll the way we might do with raisins or chocolate chips.  This all seemed pretty weird to me at first, but I’m getting used to it finally. 

Actually, the Japanese have quite an array of splendid confections unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before: dumplings, starch balls, rice cakes, hakuto jelly, tokoroten, higashi, dango, dorayaki, mochi.  They have great affection for honey toast, sugar toast and every imaginable variety of crepe.  There are crepe shops and stands everywhere! 

One thing I definitely haven’t figured out yet:  Japanese love their sweets, love their treats, and in general love to eat!  But they’re so slim.  It’s not like every other building is a gym or there’s a raging pandemic of bulimia or anorexia.  If you could bottle whatever slimming mechanism is going on in this strange land — call it Svelte Fat Melt Magic Elixir #9 — you’d become a billionaire overnight!

Here are some photos, spanning both the early and late soybean harvest.

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Life In Japan: Jennifer the Cat, Media Darling!

Posted on November 16, 2019 by johnrachel

As an attention-starved author and overgrown baby, I of course am always trying to attract publicity.  Again, one of my kitties has humbled yours truly by being featured in our local newspaper. 

Maybe I’m approaching this wrong.  Do I need to learn how to purr to get noticed around here?

Of course, the selection of local pets for cameos is not random.  And since our kitties are the most beautiful in the world, what choice is there but to run their photos and say a few complimentary, if inadequate words?  I’m frankly surprised they don’t write them up on the front page with a huge eye-catching headline like . . .

JENNIFER THE CAT STEALS EVERYONE’S HEART IN SASAYAMA

. . . or create a special standalone section for them like the Arts & Culture Magazine of the New York Times.

You think I’m biased?  Check out these photos!

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Which gets to the heart of the challenge for me personally.  At least in the cuteness department, I simply can’t compete.  So I need to create my own separate niche.

I got it!  I’ll write novels!  Incredibly cute novels.  With cute covers.  And cute characters.  Cute story lines.  Cute plot twists.

Novels that purr!

Hmm . . . I may have gotten off to a bad start. Politics?  Satire?  Human trafficking?  Growing up in Detroit?  The end of the world?  Drug smuggling?  Eating giraffes?  

What’s cute about any of that?

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Life In Japan: Annual Neighborhood Curry and Bingo Party

Posted on November 12, 2019 by johnrachel

Curry is of course from India.  But the Japanese put their own spin on it and have come up with quite a few of their own variations, some spicy — but not that spicy — some mild, all quite delicious, at least to this Westerners palate.  Curry is extremely easy to prepare and is a very common everyday dish, one served at school lunches, outdoor markets, festivals and other social gatherings, restaurants, certainly at home for evening dinner.  Curry here is always served with rice.  Here we only use homegrown local product, often grown and harvested by the very people in my immediate community.

Bingo I assume was imported from the U.S. — though it’s roots are in Europe — and is quite the rage here.  When I used it as a teaching tool for my English students, it made sense.  Match pictures and words.  Build a vocabulary while learning to “hear” English. 

But I soon discovered that Bingo is played all of the time here.  It’s certainly fun for all ages and a good excuse to give things away, something else Japanese love to do.  Giving gifts is like shaking hands or breathing here.  Whether it’s a social obligation, heartfelt gesture, tradition, or habit, it’s always great to be handed a special gift by another individual.  

Every year our village of Noma has their curry-bingo party in November.  Last year I won some kitchen utensils and two years ago a kite.  I can feel your envy across the vast stretch of cyberspace!

There is so much community here in Japan, at least where I live.  Maybe this isn’t the case in the big cities, but certainly here, the folks living in Noma, the neighborhood community on the eastern edge of the city I reside in, get together regularly and work on some project, celebrate a holiday, hold a ceremony, or just have a good time.  It’s very charming!  More importantly, because of all of these social affairs, I feel like I belong here, as a member of an extended family.  The regular socializing also gives everyone a stake in keeping the neighborhood safe, clean, wholesome.  Friendly smiles and greetings are the norm.

I say sometimes I feel like I’m living in a fairy tale.  But maybe what I have is just the comfortable, civilized way things should be for everyone everywhere.  Life’s not just singing solo.  A little harmony greatly improves the song and the rhythm of life.

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Life In Japan: Festival of the Portable Shrines

Posted on October 24, 2019 by johnrachel

Every year during the third week in October we have a most unique and marvelous festival here called the Festival of the Portable Shrines.

I don’t exactly know either its “purpose” or how to describe it.  Hopefully the photos and video will offer some idea what an exhilarating two days we have here in Tambasasayama, as the streets fill with colorful costumes, huge shrines either on wheels or being carried by the heartier men — many of whom are extremely inebriated on local sake — and visitors from all over who come to enjoy the festivities.

We see a lot of unfamiliar faces.  This festival coincides with the soybean harvest, and our town is known for having the most delicious soybeans in Japan.  So we see Japanese from all the surrounding prefectures — the Japanese equivalent of states in the U.S. — even from as far as Tokyo, which is over 500 kilometers (320 miles) away.  There’s also a decent mix of Westerners in town.  ALTs — Assistant Language Teachers who typically teach English in the area junior and senior high schools — converge from the entire region.  This is also the time that the exchange students arrive from Walla Walla, Washington — which is Tambasasayama’s sister city in the U.S. — to experience a two weeks concentrated dose of Japanese culture.

Here are a few photos.

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And here’s a short video compilation from just last week.

See you next year!  Bring your smiles.

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Life In Japan: Harvesting Rice

Posted on October 12, 2019 by johnrachel

First, they prepare the soil.

Then they plant the rice.

The rice grows.

Then . . . 

[ DRUM ROLL ]

They harvest the rice!

Can you feel the excitement?

Granted it’s not as riveting as World Cup Rugby. . . or watching the Oscars . . . or having Vladimir Putin drop by for lunch.

But it’s what they do here in Tambasasayama — year after year.  It’s the cycle of farming, the rhythm of the seasons, the drumbeat of life.

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Being raised in a major city, a factory town no less, I find this whole business fascinating.  Almost magical!  Detroit didn’t have any farms back then, though I hear these days there are quite a few organic gardens in the empty lots remaining after the houses are burned down. 

To really do this right requires bringing out some industrial-strength gadgetry.

I tell people I live in the middle of rice and soybean fields.  Indeed we do.  They of course rotate the crops to keep the soil full of vitality.  And throw other vegetables into the mix.

Just a few days ago, quite late in the season, they finally harvested the rice growing directly in front of our home.  As you can see in the photo below, we have a forest right behind us.  That’s my wife Masumi’s Mazuda Demio sitting out front of our place. 

She thinks it’s funny I take so many “farm photos”.  I guess it is.

 

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