In our never-ending quest to try all that Japan has to offer, I present to you… natto.
It’s been sitting in our fridge for a week while I’ve tried to figure out what to do with it. I thought I’d start out easy and use it as a filling in gyoza. Technically, natto is a soybean that has been fermented with hay or grass bacteria. However, I’m quite certain based on its quantity of ectoplasm, that it has some relation to this guy.
Slimer from Ghostbusters… a distant relative of natto?
As usual, I wish I’d taken more pictures of the unboxing process as the packaging itself was impressive. Sealed in a styrofoam box, I feared the worst. Natto has a reputation of being stinky and slimy. As I opened the box, I took a good whiff. The smell didn’t bother me at all. We’re greeted with a small packet of hot mustard and another small packet, which the internets tell me contains a fish-based sauce, so I tossed that.
Then the natto.
It’s covered with a layer of wax paper, which when peeled away reveals the true nature of the beast.
Natto, or to summon the 8-year-old boy in me, “snotto”
Apologies for the close-up. It seemed necessary.
I tried it by itself first. Not an overwhelming flavor, but certainly not anything I’d want to eat plain. It has a maple-esque flavor as an aftertaste, which might be why it’s a popular breakfast food in Japan, spread on toast or rice. After mixing it with the hot mustard and some soy sauce, it was actually kinda good.
Then I touched it.
Slimy indeed. I tried to use a spoon to fill the gyoza wrapper, but the natto stuck to it. So, I’d take a pinch with my fingers and stuff it in the wrapper. I looked like a first grader elbow-deep in rubber cement (do they still let kids use rubber cement?) as the sticky strings connected my fingers to the beans for a good 12 inches. When I washed my hands, the water mixed with the sticky made a slime that required a lot of washing and a strong stomach.
It came in a three-pack, and I’m not disappointed. Natto spaghetti is also very popular and I found another recipe for natto veggie burgers. Can’t wait to give ’em a go!
Update: So, after eating the natto gyoza, I’ve had a change of heart. There’s something just… off about it. Not sure I’m quite ready to be a fan of natto quite yet.
Happy Showa Day! It’s officially Golden Week in Japan. I only discovered this after two failed trips to the post office…
Why is the post office closed on a Tuesday?!
The national holiday schedule in Japan is pretty awesome. It has things like Golden Week, which is four national holidays within a week of each other, effectively closing most businesses and sending Japanese people scattering toward, for many, the longest vacation period of the year.
In 2000, Japan implemented the “Happy Monday System,” which moved many holidays to Monday to create a three-day weekend. The charming innocence of the name of the law change certainly beats the United States’ Uniform Monday Holiday Act.
The young (Children’s Day) and old (Respect for the Aged Day) alike are celebrated and Mother Nature gets three holidays of her own (Vernal Equinox Day, Greenery Day and Marine Day).
However, not all the holidays carry a celebratory nature today.
Technically, Showa Day celebrates the life of Emperor Showa, better known as Hirohito outside of Japan, who died in 1989. Hirohito reigned over the empire during World War II and, as a result, left behind a mixed legacy both inside and outside of Japan.
Coming of Age Day celebrate those who have turned 20 years old and encourage them to realize that they are now adults. In a sign of the ever-changing Japanese society, celebrations have dwindled over the years as the birth rate has slowed and fewer Japanese youth consider themselves ready for, or supported in, the responsibilities of adulthood at age 20. A 2002 celebration was ruined by drunken youth.
Our current Golden Week plans are held hostage by the impending weather forecast, but hopefully we’ll be able to crowd the trains and parks with the rest of Japan to celebrate Showa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day and Children’s Day.
Old and new often mix in Japan. Temples built hundreds of years ago sit in the foreground of modern skyscrapers. Women in kimonos stand beside women in miniskirts at the train station.
I was lucky enough to witness such a dichotomy from the comfort of our living room today. Construction on two new homes started last week in the empty lots across the street from our apartment. Backhoes and jackhammers have been breaking down old concrete and leveling the dirt from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the last week.
This truck appeared with tents, tables and chairs.
This morning, there were more cars than dump trucks, which piqued my curiosity. A tent and chairs were set up and dignitaries began to arrive. While I’ve seen groundbreaking ceremonies for buildings or stadiums, I’d never seen one for a house.
The Japanese have a tradition called Jichinsai. Jichinsai is a Shinto ritual to appease the god (kami) of the earth when construction begins on a new structure. It is believed that the failure to ask for the blessing will result in a failed project, complete with crumbling structures and worksite injuries. It’s OSHA’s biggest nightmare!
The Jichinsai site is ready and waiting for its honored guests.
The setup of the tent and chairs took longer than the actual ceremony. I tried to respect the ritual by limited my own noise, difficult considering I was watching game 4 of the Portland Trail Blazers vs. Houston Rockets playoff series.
The ceremony itself consists of a kouton (the summoning of the kami), chanting and paying of respects to the kami, and finally the shouten (the returning of the kami). Everything from the placement of the bamboo trees to the lining of the area with sacred rope (which looked a lot like the twine we used for a clothesline) is consistent with the ceremony.
Watch the Jichinsai video to hear some of the chanting in the ceremony.
All kidding aside, it’s an honor to be able to witness the things we do in Japan. Coming from a country with only a couple hundred years of its own history and mostly inherited traditions, it’s impressive to see hundreds or thousands of years of customs carry forward to the modern day.
People have asked, Why did you move to Japan? Where are you? What are you doing?
We have been here for a month and I have taught for about a week, so I feel I can now answer such questions as a true expert. 😉
Why did we move to Japan?
From the beginning: Traveling has always been a passion of mine. I got the bug in college with month-long study abroad classes in Spain and Russia. I studied abroad for a semester in San Juan, Costa Rica. Robert and I have traveled to Mexico several times, exploring areas off the beaten path.
After I got my master’s in teaching, it was always my desire to teach abroad. But I was hired at a local school district and got swept up in a series of jobs teaching Spanish for four years. I wouldn’t change this experience for anything, mostly because of the relationships that I formed with my students. They are among my favorite people on Earth!
But, I felt like I hit the ceiling in my school district. I worked part-time and had been laid off twice previously. Year to year, there was no certainty. There was also a lack of professional development and leadership in my building.
So I reluctantly left teaching for a job as a trainer for the government, teaching adult abuse investigators throughout the state. This job paid twice as much as I made teaching. (Did I mention yet how underfunded public school educators are?) Again, I am happy that I was hired and I became proficient in the job. But still, this wasn’t the right fit for me. I applaud the people that I met who do this difficult work.
Lesson learned: high salary does not equal satisfaction. But, I have a master’s degree—couldn’t I have both salary and a position working with students?
In October, I heard about a few openings through a program at Willamette University that sends educators to a Japanese university to teach English. I had thought about applying for the position the previous year, but I was reluctant. After all, I didn’t speak Japanese and I knew nothing of the Far East.
Long story short, I took a leap of faith. I’ll never forget the phone call I got on November 30 informing me that I was hired. A chance to revisit a dream not yet forgotten!
What are you doing?
Before going to Japan, I started teaching in January at Tokyo International University of America (TIUA). TIUA is a part of Willamette University. Students from the university where I am teaching now in Japan come to Willamette to study abroad for a year.
Some of my students at TIUA. I’m in there somewhere!
At TIUA, I joined a cohort of other teachers that now has 10 members. We are the second group to be hired and we have signed contracts for two years. We join a group of 10 teachers who have already been in Japan for a year. The university is hiring four more teachers this September.
Teaching at Willamette was my first foray into the world of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). When my family came to the US, I was thrown (I think the technical term is “mainstreamed”) into public school long before there were English as a Second Language (ESL) programs so I know firsthand how difficult it can be to navigate the English language.
When I told people I was going to teach English, I think the response I got implied, “oh, just English? I know so-and-so who taught English in such and such. It was easy.” Um, no. I think most Americans (and all people really, no matter the country of origin) are ethnocentric and think their native language is easy and don’t know the difficulties learning a foreign language past taking Spanish for two years in high school umpteen years ago. More about this in a later post.
In late March, Robert and I moved to Japan and I now teach at Tokyo International University (TIU), a private university in Kawagoe, Japan. My position is called Global Teaching Fellow (GTF) in the School of Language Communication, Department of English Communication.
The GTFs on an advertisement on the train from Kawagoe. I am on the top row, second to last.
I teach six classes and their names are extensive, but mostly they focus on the following skills: reading, writing, speaking and/or listening in English. The students are divided into sections based on their TOEIC score. The TOEIC and the TOEFL are tests that measure students’ English proficiency, each with a slightly different focus.
I am teaching sections 5 and 12 of the freshman classes and 4 and 8 of the sophomores; a mix of beginner and intermediate students (well, mostly beginners—more on that later!). My class sizes are between nine to 12 students each. I have a total of 41 students. A huge feat considering I’d have these kinds of numbers in just one class in public school.
My weekly schedule
I work from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. most days and usually some preparation on Sunday. I have never had six “preps” before (six separate classes to lesson plan for) so this has been a huge lesson for me in staying organized. It is hectic most days, but I like staying busy and productive. I teach on the fifth floor of our building (our offices and the English Plaza are on the second floor). I am also very happy and thankful to be in the same classroom for all of my classes.
My classroom
In my schedule, I have weekly time assignments in the English Lounge. This is a modern, newly renovated area on our floor where students come and practice using English. They can play games, order coffee, check out books, etc.
Oregon Cafe and English Plaza
For speaking class, students are required to sign up for 10 sessions in the English Plaza per semester. I check to see which students have signed up to speak with me and then we have conversations on topics ranging from their hobbies, travel time on the train (most students commute between 30 minutes to two hours one way to school) and their favorite member of One Direction or J-pop (Japanese pop music) artist.
Where are you?
We live in Kawagoe, Japan. It’s about 30 minutes train ride north from Tokyo. The prefecture (district/county) is Saitama. Kawagoe is the Sister City of Salem, Oregon. I have about a 15-20 minute walk to work. I love my commute. I don’t miss our 90-minute daily commute at all! I think we live in the perfect location. Close enough, but far away enough from both work and Tokyo.
Kawagoe is a college town. There are advertisements for the university on most of the trains, including one with all of our pictures. The GTF program is under the Global Teaching Institute, which also includes the TIUA study abroad program at Willamette University.
Moving here has been difficult and quite a roller coaster. But I am excited to have the chance to teach again—in a university setting no less!
Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be sure to address it in a future post.
After a month in Japan, we finally have internet in our apartment. I never thought I’d say it, but I miss the low muss, low fuss approach of Comcast.
Our service window was 1-5 p.m. on this rainy Friday, which means they showed up around 4:30. After checking a couple things, the technician makes a phone call, then hands me the phone. The man on the other end wants me to try and set it up myself.
How, exactly, would you like me to do that? I don’t have any cables, equipment…
He asks to speak to the technician, who after a short chat, hands the phone back to me. The technician will return shortly with a CD and some cable.
NTT technician splicing our internet into the above-ground wires.
“Some cable” involves a roll of electrical tape, a lift truck and some serious cable splicing 20 feet off the ground. Not to mention his sidekick, a dude in a white hazmat suit with flashing red lights built into it, holding a red LED wand and directing traffic like some Darth Vader/Breaking Bad/air traffic controller hybrid.
To be fair, the NTT guy was not nearly as scary as this combination.
This was followed by a lot of drilling and banging as our internet, its lifeline securely strung over the street, was surgically inserted into our rented residence through the same slightly-opened window our air conditioning vents out.
All the while, the technician is perched on a wet ladder with wet shoes on our second-floor porch, inches from the railing and higher than he was when surrounded by the protection of the lift truck’s workbox. With each fumbled tool, one thought repeats in my mind:
We’re SO going to be on the news when he goes over the railing.
Fortunately, this seasoned pro dodges the precarious situation on the porch. It goes a little geek for a minute as he starts to set up the hardware and service, scanning QR codes with his phone, connecting the account to the modem.
Then he’s done. Gomenasai he says. Sorry. Basically, there’s no help for the English-speaking beyond this point. I have a stack of papers with various network names, usernames and passwords, labeled in Japanese. I have a CD with “easy” setup instructions… all in Japanese.
Pa-su-waa-do… Password!
Suffice to say, the CD doesn’t work. I start matching screenshots and kanji, navigating my way through the setup. Fail. Fail. SUCCESS! I have internet!
I hope that was all he meant by “we’d like you to try and set it up yourself,” because I’m pretty sure none of that other stuff was happening.
There are lots of little things that don’t warrant their own posts, but are fun to share anyway.
Chopsticks = next best thing to an actual whisk.
Chopsticks make a good whisk
I think I saw this on television, so I can’t claim credit, but it works like one of those handheld cappuccino whippers. Eggs, batter… if you can whip it, you can whip it with chopsticks!
Forget the Japanese. This schedule would be complicated in any language!
The trash system is complicated
We take garbage to the curb four times a week. General trash, known here as combustibles, goes out twice a week. Plastic packaging goes out once a week on Mondays. Paper goes out every fourth or fifth Wednesday. Glass bottles, cans, and plastic bottles go every other Thursday and each type must be separated into its own bag.
Instead of donating unwanted goods (or non-combustibles) at a Goodwill-style store, items are placed on the curb once a month. They’re up for grabs for anybody walking by. We’ve procured two nice overhead lights and our gas cooking range from the non-combustible piles around the neighborhood. We’ve seen golf club sets, furniture… basically anything you’d find in a donation store.
I have a spreadsheet and a Google calendar to help keep the garbage schedule straight.
Japanese television is just weird sometimes. Maybe no worse than American TV, but I get the sense that even if I understood the language, I still would find it odd.
Sometimes I stumble across a golden nugget that transcends language. It happened this morning.
Neko Taxi.
The central characters are a sad, pudgy, middle-aged taxi driver and his feline (neko) co-pilot. He treats his cat like a queen, sleeping on the couch next to her bed and tending to midnight feedings.
During the workday, the cat rides in the passenger seat alongside him. A young businesswoman, late for a meeting across town, enters the cab. She talks on her cell phone, rudely directing the driver to the location.
She’s startled when Taxi Cat crawls into the backseat and sits beside her, but after a few seconds, her icy exterior defrosts and she picks up the cat. Scenes cut in and out as the ride progresses, all along the young woman petting and snuggling with Taxi Cat.
Of course, we need a conflict. The young woman begins to sneeze and her eyes water. She can’t breathe. She’s allergic to Taxi Cat! The driver rushes her to the hospital. She misses her meeting, but doesn’t seem to mind. Her cold heart has been thawed in the Neko Taxi.
All along, the taxi driver narrates the show. It seems to take itself seriously as the dialog is somber. Hopefully, the translation is as ironic as the premise of the show itself.
As the closing credits roll, the driver pulls under a tree for lunch. He pulls out two bento boxes; one for himself and one for Taxi Cat. They finish lunch and Taxi Cat crawls on his chest as they nap the afternoon away.
In Oregon, the ringing of our doorbell usually yielded a predictable result. On the other side of the front door, we’d find a local schoolkid selling overpriced candy for a fundraiser or a pressure-washing/bug-killing/home security salesman reminding me that I needed to pressure-wash, bug-kill and secure our house.
It’s been a mixed bag when the doorbell rings here. Since we’re still getting settled, a lot of times the doorbell means added convenience. Gas service for hot water and cooking! Water pressure!
A couple times it’s been a salesman. I let one guy do his pitch for a few minutes before I finally got across that I didn’t have a clue what he was saying and that I probably wouldn’t be interested in buying it even if I did.
Sometimes, it’s just disappointment. Is it the overdue delivery of our foam mattress? Setup of the internet service? No… only the mailman with a pile of junk mail.
A couple nights ago, the doorbell rang after dark. Our hearts raced—probably more because we were in the middle of an episode of The Walking Dead than the actual tolling of the bell itself.
Who knows what’s on the other side of the door? (Walking Dead, episode 1)
One of our neighbors, an older lady, stood at our door. She spoke softly in Japanese with a few English words mixed in when it was clear we weren’t following. Dining table, chairs… is she asking to borrow a chair?
We pushed one of our dining room chairs to the door, happy to help. No, no… follow me she says. I slip on my sandals before stepping into our entryway, a big-time no-no in Japan, but my transgression is either ignored or forgiven.
I walk down the street making very small talk with my limited Japanese. She’s noticed that we’ve just moved in and has a few nice pieces of furniture that she’s giving away. A dining room table with four chairs. A coffee table. She’d put the items on the porch of the apartment complex next door, but she’s giving us first dibs.
Kicking back and enjoying the new coffee table
Since we’d already purchased a table and two chairs, we take a couple of the chairs for company and the coffee table. She sets each of the chairs on the porch, compares the fabric and makes sure the legs don’t wobble, selecting the two best chairs for us.
We use our combined vocabulary to complete the deal, introduce ourselves and talk about why the heck these Americans are living in her neighborhood (most of the locals have cut us some slack when they discover a sensei is living in their midst).
It was good timing. I’d been thinking a lot that day about being an outsider. In Kawagoe-proper, we’re not that big a deal. There are a lot of tourists in and out of the station. But we live in the ‘burbs. We’re in a neighborhood where I can’t say that I’ve seen another non-Japanese person. We get stares… we are different.
But, every time it feels like we just don’t fit in, something like this happens and the world doesn’t feel quite so big. Random acts of kindness… a universal language.
When we first visited Mexico, I figured out how to say “I’m lost and I have lots of money” in Spanish. I joke that any time we go to a place with a different language, that’ll be the first phrase I learn. I’ll either get home or get mugged.
In reality, a more useful phrase is “I don’t understand.” The Japanese version of that is wakarimasen. However, that’s a hard thing for me to admit. I’ll nod my head and overpay for something I don’t want before I confess that I don’t have a clue what’s being said.
For the first couple weeks in Japan, I’ve been frustrated with my lack of ability to communicate. Speaking, understanding, reading… it’s all Japanese to me. I realized I needed to cut myself some slack. I hate being bad at something and I’m bad at Japanese, but we’ve only been here for three weeks. Heck, it took us all a couple years to learn our native tongues, right?
Still, most “conversations” involve piecing together a script from the phrase book, memorizing it and then reciting it. If the reply is anything more than hai or iie (yes or no), I’m screwed.
Last week, I accomplished something pretty big… I exchanged something! I purchased a few baskets at the 100 yen store to help organize our food cupboard. When I got them home, I unpacked the food shelf and organized the items nicely in the baskets. I put the baskets on the shelf and the cupboard doors wouldn’t close! The baskets were too big. I tried to figure out what else I could use them for and couldn’t come up with anything.
I needed to return them.
I pulled out the handy phrase book and got to work. I walked back to the store and recited my script along the way… Sumimasen. Kookan shitain desu ga. Ooki sugimasu. Excuse me. I need to exchange these. They’re too big.
I walked in the front door with an unexpected amount of anxiety. I delivered my lines like I was George Clooney. The clerk replied with more than hai and I got a little more nervous. So I repeated… ooki sugimasu.
She called to someone on the intercom. Her co-worker came to the register with a barcode, the clerk scanned it and the register opened! She counted out my refund and her co-worker took my faulty purchase back to restock. I did it!
Success! Our cupboard is organized.
It’s a good reminder to celebrate small victories. Even those as small as successfully returning 328 yen worth of plastic baskets.
I’d make a terrible food blogger. Last week, we made a miso hummus with naan in a lovely presentation. Today I made sweet potato ravioli for lunch using gyoza wrappers. A splash of shooyu and a drizzle of sriaicha made it look fit for a menu photo.
However, by the time I think about photographing these gorgeous dishes, they look like this:
An empty hummus bowl
You’ll have to trust that there was hummus in that bowl at one point and it was SO delicious that it was finger-cleaned once the naan was eaten.
One of the most common questions we received before leaving was “what will you eat?” We both follow an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, meaning we eat eggs and dairy, but fish, chicken, etc. are out. The Japanese have a seafood-heavy diet. Sakana (fish) sneaks its way into places you’d never expect to find it. Unagi (eel) and ebi (shrimp) are also common.
My somewhat flippant answer was some variation of “probably the same things we eat in the US?” Eating out is definitely more of a challenge, but we’re not tourists. We live here and cook at home the majority of the time. The produce is excellent and tofu was already a regular part of our diet at home.
It’s not without its challenges, but a little creativity goes a long way. For example, hummus usually has tahini in it, adding to the creamy texture. We swapped in miso paste instead. It gave a unique-in-a-good-way flavor to the dip.
We did capture some amazing meals:
Veggie gyozaSweet potato slider with all the fixinsFirst homemade-from-scratch miso soup
We’ve also made:
Black bean sliders
Soba noodle stir-fry
Soba noodle spaghetti with walnut meatballs
The cooking process itself has some challenges as well. We procured a gas stovetop, the common cooking tool in Japan, which has two burners and a toaster drawer, but no oven. This makes baking impossible, but presents another opportunity for originality. We’ve seen some pre-baked pizza crust and might try to make frying pan pizza in the near future.
The most frustrating one has been the lack of cooking spray. The aerosol cans can’t be brought on the airplane, but we didn’t expect that we wouldn’t be able to buy it here. It’s just not used.
“Non-stick pan” is now a dirty word in this household as we’re scraping eggs off of our frying pans most mornings regardless of the amount of oil used. Every opportunity for internet includes some variation on a search for “how the heck do I get my eggs to not stick without cooking spray!?!?”
We are definitely those weird people at the restaurant who take pictures of their food, so hopefully there will be more yummy things to share along the way!
