For Ben Folds Fans

When American musicians release CDs in Japan, they usually contain bonus tracks not found on the American releases. Last weekend at Rice Field, we were talking about music and Ben Folds came up. Somebody popped in "Whatever and Ever...Amen" and put on….a Japanese version of “Song for the Dumped.” It was hilarious!

The most laid-back place in Japan

If you ever find yourself driving through rural Japan on Route 457, keep your eyes open for a little restaurant called Rice Field. The name is appropriate—there’s nothing but rice fields around. It’s about twenty minutes outside of Taiwa and it’s possibly my favorite place here.

When you walk inside, you’re greeted by wood-paneling, Hawaiian shirts and guitars hanging on the wall, and the most laid-back people in all of Japan. I believe I’ve written about the harried lifestyle of most Japanese. This appears to not apply to the owners and workers of Rice Field.

The menu is small but the food is delicious. And about once per month they have a live music night. They call it Aloha night and wearing a Hawaiian shirt gets you a free drink. They set out some free snack food and you merely aught to buy some drinks (I highly recommend the oolong tea).

Last Saturday I met a couple friends at Rice Field for the live music night. Several musicians drove in from around Miyagi. As some nasty wind raged outside, the wood stove kept the small crowd nice and warm and spirits were high.

The music was entertaining. Toward the end of the night, several musicians decided to play together—or perhaps a few roped the other ones into it. During one song, my friend Alia and I got up to dance. The owner was also up and dancing and in the span of a couple minutes, we turned the entire place into a short little dance party. Everyone who wasn’t playing an instrument at the time was dancing thanks to Alia and me.

When the music ended, that didn’t mean it was time to go home. On the contrary, the staff of Rice Field, some friends, and the Gaijin-san (us foreigners) hung out in one corner talking and laughing. (The owner passed out at one of the tables). We ended up hanging out till 3 am. At which point everyone decided the weather was so bad that they would all spend the night in the restaurant…except us crazy foreigners who weren’t afraid of some wind and snow. We drove home despite all the worry and offers to spend the night. And we were told that if anything happened on the way home to call and those guys would come help us.

Those of you coming to visit will definitely be having dinner at Rice Field.

The World According to Children

I've spent several days over the past couple weeks teaching at an elementary school that I had never gone to previously. Since each lesson was the first time for the kids to have English class with the super cool, slightly crazy foreigner, I brought my huge world map and showed them where I came from.

The map is Eurocentric (like what all my readers are probably used to). This tends to throw the children off a bit, since most of their maps feature Japan front and center (Asia on the left and the Americas on the right).

"Where is Japan on the map?"--I have kids come up and point to it.

"No...that's Madagascar."

"Nope, that's New Zealand...you're getting closer."

Finding the US is even more fun.

"That's China."

"That's Russia."

"That's Australia. They speak English there."

"Mongolia?"

At some point I give a kid a little nudge over to the left. Or perhaps another merely started by staring intently at Africa.

"No. That's the Democratic Republic of Congo."

Sometimes I see their eyes on the correct hemisphere.

"Nope. That's Brazil."

"That's...what is that Cuba? [squints]. That's the Dominican Republic."

I felt bad every time they pointed to Canada...so close...especially since the US is referred to as simply America. And one time, a girl pointed to Alaska and I wasn't sure whether to give her credit or not.

Oh geography...looks like people are bad at it all over the world.

Home-made Sushi

Last time I was at elementary school, one of the teacher's invited me over to his house for sushi. He had previously mentioned that his wife can make sushi, which I thought was pretty cool. So on Saturday he and his two sons (ages 8 and 10) picked me up and we went to their house.

They live in a very nice, Western-style house. In the car, the kids questioned me about video games, so as soon as we made it inside, they showed me all their games. I spent the next hour or so playing Wii sports with them.

Before sitting down to dinner, the teacher's wife poured vinegar over the rice while the boys and I fanned it vigorously. I'm not sure what the fanning was supposed to accomplish, aside from possibly dissipating the smell. Once we sat down, the boys explained how to make sushi rolls. We had lots of fun ingredients, including various types of sashimi, cucumbers, avocado (called 'abogado' in Japanese, to my unceasing amusement), and even sea urchin. It was my first time trying sea urchin, and I wasn't particularly impressed. Aside from that, everything was quite yummy, making me very full and very happy.

More Japanese Snowiness

As if we didn't get enough snow festival fun at Sapporo Yukimatsuri, a few of my friends and I took a day trip on Saturday to Akita Prefecture, northwest of Miyagi, for the Kamakura festival of Yokote town. The kamakura is a snow-hut construction.

The western side of the country definitely gets harsher weather than the eastern side. It was snowing pretty harshly during our drive to Akita. Not having considered this, we had an Aussie and a Kiwi behind the wheel of the two cars we took. Although inexperienced at driving through snow (and whiteout conditions) they brought us there safely. The difference in the amount of snow along the roads in Miyagi and Iwate (eastern side) and Akita (western side) was astonishing.

When we arrived in Yokote town, we were even more impressed with the amount of snow they had. I’m no stranger to large snowfalls. After last year’s blizzards in Illinois that brought snow days to university students, I thought I understood what large drifts of snow were. However, in this town, there were drifts as high as my shoulders. There were whole untouched empty lots covered in snow as high as my elbows. The town had so much snow that they opened the sewers and were shoveling snow into them. And this appeared to be a normal amount. Had we been dressed better, it would have been the perfect snow to play in. As it was, we threw a few snowballs but quickly realized that we would become very cold if we continued with that behavior. More snow was falling down while we were there and in the 5 hours or so we had been parked, about 4 inches of snow accumulated on the cars. Since we spent that time walking around outside, my hair turned into a very interesting icy-dreadlock-y mess (which melted and made a huge puddle when we were at dinner).

As I said, a kamakura is a structure built out of snow and ice. Apparently this town has been building these things every winter for about 400 years. The townspeople who build these things then sit inside making a warm sweet drink (which traditionally has sake in it, but not anymore) and bean mochi. They invite the festival-goers into their kamakura and offer the drink and food. Of course, the kamakura is technically indoors and being Japanese, one has to remove one’s shoes before entering. This is no small feat, at least for me because I wear high-top boots that are rather annoying to put on and take off. This is exacerbated by the fact that you don’t want to step barefooted on the snow, nor do you want to step inside with shod feet. Therefore, I made quite a fool of myself when I got invited into one and spent ten minutes struggling with my shoes.

In addition to the kamakura that people sit inside, the school children also constructed miniature ones in front of their school. These were all lit up with candles and were very pretty.

Overall, it seemed like a very pleasant event because the festival was really local and relaxed. The kamakuras were in residential neighborhoods right outside people’s houses. Everyone was very friendly and inviting. It was surprisingly warm inside the snow-huts.

Winter Wonderland

You're probably thinking to yourself "Why is Rita writing a Christmas-themed blog entry in February?" But this post isn't about Christmas. It's about a much more exciting winter-y event--Sapporo Yukimatsuri (Snow Festival). Last weekend I (and seemingly every other JET in Japan) went up Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's 4 main islands, for this event.

The weekend craziness started with an overnight ferry ride from Sendai. This boat was so big it was easy to forget that I was actually on a boat. And there was a bath on the boat (the Japanese don't consider showers sufficient for getting clean). In the bath, the water rocked in the exact same way as the ocean, which was cool but not relaxing.

Sapporo's main streets were decorated with countless ice and snow sculptures. Many of the ice sculptures shared similar themes--birds, fish, etc. The snow sculptures were much more varied and interesting. Several of them were promoting new movies, such as the second installment of Narnia. Among the ice sculptures were ice bars. That is, there were beer tents surrounded by walls made of ice blocks. One evening we hung out at the Bailey's ice bar, sipping hot drinks outside.

On Sunday, several of us traveled to the winter wonderland outside of town known as Satoland. Everything was white as far as the eye could see. We wandered through a snow/ice labrynth. There was a huge field of little snowmen that people build. A fellow JET and I built one...but as it was the end of the day there wasn't much snow left and we had to cannibalize the eye pieces that had fallen off other snowmen. Still, we were very proud parents to our diminutive Cubist snowman baby.

In the spirit of trying new things and because this was Hokkaido, I went snowboarding on Monday! For some reason, the bunny hill was at the top of the mountain. The view was incredible. Despite the fact that I didn't feel like I'd gotten the hang of it well enough to go down harder slopes, there was no other way off the mountain. After spending the whole day on my butt in the snow, we went to an onsen. That was my favorite part of snowboarding.

I ate very well during this weekend. Hokkaido has its own famous style of ramen. One night we had an all you can eat lamb buffet/all you can drink dinner at the Sapporo Beer Garden (Sapporo isn't just a city--it's also a brand of beer). And after the snowboarding/onsen we went out for delicious crab.

To top off the weekend, four of us went out for a marathon all-night karaoke, returning to the hostel just in time to pack our bags, hop on the bus to the ferry port and sleep most of the long day of travel back home.

A Year Later: Interview Reflections

I interviewed for JET about one year ago. Recently I finally realized the answer to one question that an interviewer kept harping on. He asked me repeatedly how I would cope with the food situation, pointing out that the food I was used to would not be available.

Turns out that my solution to the unavailability of various foods is to make them myself. I've made my own pasta sauce, my own hummus, even baked my own bread twice. I'm getting really into making everything from scratch. Looks like after time spent in Japan I might become an expert in preparing all sorts of cuisines--except Japanese.

February Traditions

Last Friday I was at elementary school and I realized that the next day was Groundhog Day. Somehow this came up in conversation with one of the teachers and I explained the tradition. As it turns out, Japan has its own early February tradition.

On February 3rd or 4th the Japanese take part in a ritual called mamemaki in order to drive out the demons from their homes and offices and to usher in spring and happiness. Since the 3rd fell on the weekend, the school observed this custom on Friday.

One of the teachers came to the room where I was teaching in an "Oni" (demon) mask. The kids (and I) threw peanuts at him to drive him away. That's right folks. Mamemaki means bean throwing. Traditionally soy beans would be used (and then eaten) but the peanuts had those convenient shells.

The Japanese tradition is definitely MUCH cooler than Groundhog's Day!