The Living and the Dead

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After being here a month, I finally figured out how to plug in my computer (trust me, it was harder than it sounds), and I got internet access! Even local calls are expensive here, but I figure it should be good for about an hour a day. Well, you might have been wondering about the title to this edition. It refers to a festival that was held here and all over Japan last week to commemorate the dead. It’s called Obon, and it’s a Buddhist ritual, which welcomes ancestral spirits to the people’s home alters and consoles them. Even in my small town, there was a celebration. We danced in a constantly moving circle in an effort to console the spirits of the ancestors, which around us were hung lighted lanterns, which guided the spirits back to the other world where they belong. It was cool, but I sure it’s more impressive in towns with larger populations.
Other than attending festivals, I proceed very slowly with figuring my way around Japan. I learned how to ride a train, pay a bill (you do it at the post office), use a rice cooker, etc. Everything here has its own intricacies. Riding the train is rather simple, but if you don’t know the Chinese characters in the place name you want to visit, it becomes rather difficult. I took the train to Hagi, which ironically almost the exact same cost and length of trip as Plainview to NYC, meaning 45 minutes and very expensive. I met a friend there, and we went exploring numerous shrines and temples. If there are two things that Japan is known for, it is shrines and temples. However, although they might not sound interesting, each one is unique and they are mixtures of Shinto, a native Japanese religion, and Buddhism, which originated in India, developed in China and entered Japan through Korea! Most Japanese practice both; Shinto rituals tend to be happy occasions such as birth and marriage, while Buddhist ones focus on death and the afterlife.
I am sure that many of you are curious about food, so here we go. Japanese cuisine is still something I know very little about, but I thought it would be interesting to talk about both some foods I have tried and some I have only heard rumors about. The “rumors” are more interesting, so I will start will them. Like the French, the Japanese apparently will eat just about anything, from horse to whale and alligator. However, unlike the French, the Japanese are obsessed with raw food, or lightly cooked at best. I overheard a fellow American discussing how raw horse was a specialty in a particular prefecture. Of course, what is more normally associated with Japanese is fish. Sushi, or fish with vinegar-flavored rice, has become extremely popular in America, but here they have restaurants devoted to it. In general, the Japanese feel that any of their trademark cuisines should only be served in a restaurant dedicated to the task. Hence, there are literally dozens of different specialty restaurants in Japan. Other examples are eel and tempura which is seafood and beef deep fried, I think.
As for me, I have not been too adventurous as of yet, mostly for religious reasons. However, being that I would probably have to travel a hundred miles to find another Jew, I will probably relax my beliefs a bit. Pork I have no desire to have, but I am very curious about some of Japan’s seafood specialties which include octopus (not quite dead), a blowfish which is poisonous when it is the sea (the specialty of my prefecture) and quail’s egg. Another famous Japanese dish is called natto; not to gross anyone out but natto is fermented soybeans. My friend eats it every day, but most gaijin can’t stand it.
Although I have not been very daring with my selection of foods, there are a number of cool Japanese dishes that I did eat. One of them is called okonomiyaki. Basically, my friend and I sat down at a restaurant and decided the fillings for the dish, vegetables and egg for me, pork for my friend. Then the waiter brought the fillings, plus a sort of pancake mixture and seasonings and he proceeded to cook the concoction right on our table. We were handed chopsticks and spatulas and told to flip to “pancakes” after five minutes. To follow the Japanese custom, we drank beer to wash it down. Another experience I had was something called yakitori. That, also, was cooked at our table. There was an indentation in the middle of the table, and a fire was lit underneath. We threw pieces of meat and vegetables into the fire. When they were cooked, we used chopsticks to take them out and dipped them into a sesame sauce. Well, that's enough about food for now. I am sure I will delve into the topic quite a bit more.

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