The 3rd Degree (Revisited)

It has come to my attention that since I switched the host for my blog, I have gained vast numbers of new readers who have unfortunately missed out on all the charming content buried deep in the vaults of my archives. In order to remedy the situation, I've decided to take some old archived blogs and blow the dust off of them. If you've been with me since the beginning, don't fret -- there's still plenty of new content to come -- but this should help new readers catch up and give me a chance to organize the promised new content so it can be inflicted on *edit* released to the public in a timely fashion.

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The 3rd Degree

originally posted 6/12/07

No matter who you are or where you come from, the Gaijin-in-Japan experience comes standard with a few essential pieces. This is so much the case that at least one semi-famous gaijin blog is written entirely in the second person because the author finds it safe to assume whatever happens to him in Japan might just as easily happen to any other foreigner. Perhaps that's taking it a step too far, but the truth is that some things are just part of the gaijin way of life.

One of these inescapable gaijin experiences is The Third Degree. Regardless of how many days, months, or years you spend in Japan, approximately 93% of the natives you meet will get to know you by asking you the following questions (with varying levels of English mastery): "Where are you from?"; "Do you enjoy Japan?"; "Can you eat Japanese food?"; "Can you eat nato?"; "Do you miss your home?"; and the king of them all, "Why did you come to Japan?"

This question is annoying for two reasons. One -- you have answered it seven thousand times already since your plane landed. Two -- you have no idea what the answer is and have to throw together some new bullshit every single time. After about two months of improvising, I actually sat down and tried to remember why exactly I did come to Japan and figure out how to express it clearly and eloquently. I gave up.

I went to Japan for the same reason most foreigners do: to be there. It doesn't sound like a very good reason, but it's the only real one. Jobs and studying and relationships and expanding cultural horizons are only excuses. I went to Japan because I couldn't stay away. Gravity, tides, and adventures -- there's no avoiding them. When the time is right, it is, and when you have to go, you do.

People very rarely ask why I came home, but the reason is the same. It was time. Time for a new season. Time for a different adventure.

In Search

i'm not sure if it's something i miss about japan or just something to do with growing older, but i'm in search of more quietness in my life.

Nabe, Stew of the Gods -- The Mono Chronicles III

in the midst of my very boring week of sickdom, i've been trying to come up with things to write about and i've been getting a little inspiration. what you're about to read is my first official comissioned piece of writing. i'm expecting payment in full by the weekend, adam.

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The Gaijin's Guide to Nabe

as the winter season approaches, you're probably asking yourself: what am i going to cook that's warm and hearty and will fill my dinner guests' tummies with culinary glee? unless you live in japan. then you're asking yourself: how the hell do i make nabe?

well, relax and settle in because you're about to be trained in the delicate art of this traditional japanese stew.

you will need:

a nabe pot (this is a heavy ceramic or cast iron pot with a lid. if you don't have one, run to the saty and buy one. if you don't have one or live in japan, you can use a heavy sauce pan as long as you keep the heat LOW. or you can order one from amazon.com)

a gas burner (a portable burner that can be placed in the center of your dining table is ideal. otherwise, you can do it on a gas stove, but NOT an electric stove. if you don't have a gas stove, call a friend who does.)

broth (in japan, there are a few varieties of nabe broth but basically your options are a salty seafood broth, which has shrimp or crab on the package, a creamy soy milk broth, or a kimuchi broth, which is spicy and usually in a red package. if you're not in japan, you might find these broths in a very good foreign food market OR if you live in nowheresville like me, you can actually use chicken broth as a substitute for the seafood kind. it's not perfect, but it'll do the job.)

meat (seafood is best. i like to combine crab and shrimp. you can also throw in chicken or, if you're in japan, look for white meatballs at the grocery. they're a sort of chicken sausage -- very yummy.)

veggies & such (cabbage is a must. beyond that, throw in whatever appeals to you. i, because i'm a gaijin, throw in a lot of gaijin things like onions/scallions, corn, broccoli, and even sweet potatoes. tofu's another good addition and clearly more japanesey. i'm allergic to mushrooms, so i don't use them, but you may if you want to.)

all right, now that you've gathered your supplies, let's get cookin'. you might want to turn on a little music. i like something kind of chill, but you can choose whatever inspires you. just keep in mind that the flavor of the music is likely to end up in the stew, so avoid anything too violent or depressing. (don't believe me? read "like water for chocolate".)

step one: put some broth in your pot and turn the heat on medium (or low if you're not using a proper nabe pot). i say "some" broth because you don't want to use it all at once. you'll need to add more later. i typically start with half the broth and add the rest as needed throughout the evening. (note the unopened package at my elbow. if you're in the big jp, that's what you're looking for in the shop.)

once your broth starts simmering, you want to add the cabbage. cabbage is the staple of this stew; you should keep plenty of it in the pot at all times. this is a good opportunity to throw in your onions or scallions too. i also add the sweet potatoes at this point, as they cook very slowly and need all the time they can get to be perfect. the same is true for carrots, if you happen to be a carrot person.

next, add your meats, keeping cooking time in mind. chicken and/or meatballs take significantly longer than seafood, so add them first. you may even want to put the lid on for a few minutes to give the chicken a head-start before you add the seafood (especially if you're using the meatballs, which are thick and cook slowly). if your shrimp turns pink almost instantly, turn the heat down! they'll be tough and rubbery if you overcook them! this dish is all about patience.

your other veggies and tofu can go in once the meat (especially the chicken) is well started. these things will just need to get hot, so they go quick. also, the yellow rolls in the photo are egg, which can be found pre-cooked in japan. otherwise, you can scramble your own eggs separately and add them if you so desire. once you have everything neatly arranged, put the lid on and walk away. entertain your guests with a rousing round of "would you rather" or invent your own embarrassing party game. (i have lots of suggestions for this if you need some creative help.)

keep an eye on your nabe pot to make sure it stays at a simmer, but avoid taking off the lid -- you'll let out all that yummy steam. if it threatens to boil over, turn the heat down ever so slightly.

once your guests are sick of playing games or some snarky comment has sucked the fun out of the room (typically about ten mintues), revive the party by taking the lid off of your masterpiece. expect a chorus of "ooo's" and "ahhh's".

serve up the goods in small bowls, keeping most of the broth in the pot. when everyone has their first serving, refresh the pot by adding more of all your favorite ingredients. replace the lid and let the party continue. nabe is the meal that keeps on giving -- as it gets low, simply keep adding and cooking throughout the evening. (this is why the portable burner works best; it's most convenient to have the stew cooking right on the table as you eat.) i usually poll my guests: "who wants more shrimp? more crab? egg?" etc. but don't ask them about the cabbage. just keep adding cabbage like i told you to.

like all japanese food, nabe goes well with sake and should be washed down with generous amounts of the delicious brew to ensure that the evening is a smashing success.

p.s.

nabe also comes out better if you wear a really cool shirt while you make it, like this "soul-stirring music" raven tee i picked up for a mere 7,000 yen at born free. yeah, i know, i got ripped off. (note: that web page is the actual born free shop in a-square where i bought the raven tee. the internet is magical, isn't it?)

Rigor Bortis -- The Mono Chronicles II

most people would consider two paid weeks off of work a real treat, but this is only my second day of being stranded at home with mono, and i'm already bored silly. i can't do anything but stay in bed and watch old episodes of "the office". about 11 o'clock this morning, i couldn't stand lying around anymore, so i got up and shaved my legs. immediately afterwards i had to lie back down because i felt light-headed and shakey. quite a removal from the daily six-hour long stand-up routine that is my job.

at any rate, being sick at home reminded me of the time i got sick in japan. everybody gets sick in japan at some point. our gaijin blood just can't handle those ninja bacteria, and we all spend too much time drinking and working and not enough time sleeping or eating. most foreigners have only themselves to blame when they come down with some strange asian malady, but i have someone else to blame. i blame dom.

samurai bar in kyoto, where we did lots of drinking and only a little sleeping.

it all started when one of dom's childhood mates came to visit. they decided to live on the wild side a bit, so they took off to thailand for a few days of drinking booze, getting cheap massages, and playing "penis or no penis?" with the locals.

when they returned, dom called me at work and in his most pitiful voice told me that they'd gotten food poisoning from some dodgey restaurant and had both been heaving since they got on the plane. they were back at his place, but they were both exhausted, dehydrated, and feeling very ill.

well, i'm a good friend, so when i finished my shift, i stopped at the 99 shop and picked up some crackers and soda for the little travellers. i hung out at dom's for a while, listened to all their tales of misadventure, and made sure they were comfortably tucked in for the night.

next morning at work, dom was out sick. strange, i thought, since food poisoning is usually pretty short-lived.

a few hours later, i was sitting in a lesson with a ten-year old girl going over all the things you can do at the fair. "i want to ride the merry-go-round. what do you want to do at the fair?" "i want to eat cotton candy." etc. suddenly, i started feeling sort of... not right. sort of clammy and sweaty and... yucky. i stood up and excused myself in my shit japanese, then i made a beeline for the teachers' lounge. a couple of my esteemed colleagues were on their lunch break. i made some kind of gesture towards the door and said something like "kid... lesson... room 10..." before i high-tailed it to the women's room where i spewed and started to topple over. thank god for mikey, who is gay and therefore unafraid of following friends into the women's room to make sure they don't topple over into their own spew.

as you already know, food poisoning is not contagious. however, the wicked thai flu those boys brought home certainly was. i was a train-wreck for three days, and i can't begin to adequately describe the awkward technical difficulties involved in spewing into a japanese toilet. they simply were not designed for it. and unlike the boys, who got to enjoy their vacation before they got sick, i didn't even get a massage to balance the karma.

dom did bring me a box of chocolates shaped like orchids though. that helped a little.

dom and his mate doing celebratory shots of tequila once their stomachs had settled (several days later!)

Keeping the Adventure Alive

When I was preparing for my blind leap into the Land of the Rising Sun, my mother had two reservations:

1) She was a little bit nervous about her innocent baby flying to the other side of the globe, into a foreign culture, with no knowledge of the language or customs, to a town she'd never heard of, with a somewhat sketchy job, all alone, for an indefinite amount of time.

2) She'd never gotten the chance to do something cool like that.

Before I moved overseas, I had always been a bit shy, a bit on the fringe of things. Some of my friends would strongly disagree with this, but they are only my most intimate of friends. The average classmate or coworker of mine knew little to nothing about me and had probably never had a conversation with me.

Then I moved to Japan.

Part of my motivation for going overseas was the need to stretch my wings. You know the feeling you get in your legs if you sit in a cramped back seat of a car for too long? That feeling that makes you want to do jumping jacks and run around in circles? It was like that, only it wasn't in my legs; it was in my whole life.

So I stretched.

I don't think I really noticed the change 'til one day i was at Starbucks with Don (our usual pre-work ritual) and he asked me a funny question: "So what's it like to be the only girl in the office?"

"I'm not the only girl in the office."

"Yeah, you are."

"No... there's Erica, and both our bosses, and the Japanese staff... There are lots of girls in the office."

"All right... What's it like to be the only hot girl in the office?"

"What?! Just drink your coffee."

This very brief conversation led to deeper contemplation on my part and, eventually, to a total paradigm shift. It was true -- looks aside -- I was the only girl in the office who ever did anything. because I wasn't particularly attached to my roommates, I was out with guys from the office every night -- 80s night once a month at The Metro; fish & chips at the pub; Bruce Lee movie nights; nabe parties; discovering new hole-in-the-wall bars in Shi-jo; karaoke marathons 'til 4 a.m.; Christmas caroling (my god, whose idea was that?!); a thousand beers in dimly lit izakaya; loitering around San-jo bridge when we couldn't afford anything else; and train beers every single night after work. Inintentionally and for the first time in my life, I was right in the hub of the social scene.

For the most part, this was due to the perfect balance of yin and yang that was my friendship with Don. No one alive is more unlike me than Don. We were therefore an inseparable and flawless team. He hatched a scheme, I hopped on board, and in three seconds flat, the shenanigans were in full swing and anybody who was anybody was with us -- the idea man and his hot sidekick makin' the magic happen.

Don is going to hell for being irreverent at the Kobe earthquake memorials... and several similar offenses. I'm going to hell for laughing.

You can imagine my dismay when I got home and had no Don and therefore nothing to do. Nothing to do. I now have to create all the trouble I get into on my own, which is an awful lot of work.

However, one thing I did decide was that I needed to share the new, adventurous me with my mom, who doesn't think she is adventurous at all. Today, my mom and I went white-water rafting for seventeen miles down the Hudson river. Seventeen miles. Go, mom!

:-)

Waxing Nostalgic

Looking through some old photos and waxing nostalgic about Hikone castle, one of my favorite spots in Japan.

Here's a little taste of a place I miss a great deal...

Wasting Away

Many factors, both personal and professional, influenced the timing of my return to the US. It's no secret that our economy is in a bit of a shambles, and teaching jobs are hard to come by. You can get a job pretty easily if you're willing to move out into the foothills of Tennessee or to a dark alley somewhere in New York, but why risk your health when you can move abroad and get a cushy chain-school job instead?

After several months in Japan, I heard a rumor that a position was opening up at my alma mater -- a bit rough around the edges at times, but a good school, close to my family and willing to pay me well. I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I had been planning a visit home anyway because one of my brothers was getting married, so I simply put in my notice at the chain-school and changed my round-trip ticket to one-way.

Well, it wasn't really that simple.

Moving anywhere, especially alone, is always a return to square one. You wipe out every aspect of your daily life and start building something new. I knew that would be the case when I moved to Japan, but I was surprised to find that startling sensation of the Blank Slate was even worse coming home, perhaps because it was unexpected.

My friends in Japan were a tight-knit group, boisterous and spontaneous and utterly free from self-consciousness and responsibility. I reluctantly left them behind and returned home to find that nearly everyone I knew had moved away or gotten married and dropped off the social radar. My parents were in town, but my brothers and sister were out carving their own niches in the world. My British boyfriend, who had originally talked about joining me in the States once he got the paperwork sorted out, ran into a million frustrations trying to get a visa. Combine that with the toll the distance took on our relationship, and we went down like a sumo wrestler made of nato and chopsticks. To top off the loneliness and listlessness I felt, the job I had come home for dissolved into legend. Perfect.

It is a well-known fact in life: if you are happy, stay where you are. Stirring things up will only leave you wishing you hadn't.

The Intro

All this happened, more or less...

I'm a teacher, sort of. Don't get me wrong -- by "sort of," I don't mean I'm that weirdo teacher you had for American history with the gigantic pink lips who pronounced Illinois "ill a noise." I'm a good teacher. And I'm frickin' hip.

I'm just not a lifer. This is one of many adventures I'm passing through.

My last adventure was to pack a bag after my college graduation and move to Japan. Lots of people from home acted like this was special, but if you do a quick blog search for something like "teaching in Japan" or "foreigner in Japan" or I''m a gaijin," you'll see that practically everybody and his red-headed cousin has lived in Japan. This is a good thing. I love Japan and I'm down with anybody who wants to live there or visit there or sit at home and have a vicarious gaijin experience through his red-headed cousin's blog.


However, what's unique about my experience is that... well, it's over. And now I'm back home trying to re-acclimate to the U.S. of A. I thought this would be a fairly quick and comfortable transition, like sliding back into bed after a shivery midnight jaunt to the toire. Turns out, it's more like crawling back into the womb. I'll let you think about that analogy for second...

The web is well supplied with blogs about living abroad. This is a blog about trying to come home.

Kansai at dusk