Culture Day

   Living in Japan, I am surrounded by "culture". Japanese language, Japanese style TV, manga, food, history, fashion, transportation, morals, ethics... But really, culture is relative, and you only realize what you are experiencing is "culture" when you're out of your normal "culture". The line between my American culture and my Japanese culture is blurry times, and I find myself no longer starry-eyed over things I once was. Those elements of "culture" have become normal.

   The first weekend of November was a 3 day weekend, celebrating, betcha can't guess, Culture Day. Once upon a time-about 100 years ago- it was celebrated as the Meiji Emperor's birthday. The Meiji Emperor (given name:Mutsuhito. Fun fact: all the Japanese emperor's name's have ended in ~hito since forever ago) was head of state during Japan's transformation from a feudal nation to a highly industrialized world power.After the second world war, it was eventually reinstated as a national holiday. This year, I actually did something culture-y!

    Ever made sashimi? Neither had I, but I've lived here long enough that I now am starting to see the spare bits and pieces of fish at the market less as "Ick!" and more as "Hm, how could I cook THAT?". Sashimi is just another one of those things that I was too scared to try making by myself.

    Enter Junji, a friend of TG's, who was born and raised in the Shikoku region. He is a Renaissance Man, with a wide pool of knowledge and a generally uncle-ish manner. We went over to his house to be shown how it's done, Mind you, sashimi is the actual fish. All that "sushi" people are eating is actually the name of the vinegared rice. So delicious...

    Anyway, so the first stop was the fish market, where we picked out some mackerel pike, Japanese amberjack (yellowtail), and red sea bream. The fish mongers were nice enough to clean out the insides, but we had the joy of chopping the heads off ourselves.I'm not squeamish, so that wasn't an issue, but man I need to work on my knife skills. It was labor intensive: Remove the scales (if needed), hack off the head, slice in half around the spine, repeat on the other side, remove the ribs from both flanks, slice a skinless fillet. I was terrible about slicing the flanks off, but decent at taking the skin off. After we were left with out fillets, we then cut them into bite-sized pieces. For sashimi, it is very important that you NOT wiggle your knife back and forth while cutting the fish. It messes up the fat deposits. 

    Throwing the rice together was sticky, messy affair, but the end result was a feast! Coupled with the fish head soup Junji made, his homemade beer, and hot coffee when the wind picked up in the evening, it was a lovely day.I haven't made sashimi since that weekend, but now I know if I really want to impress any visitors that I have the perfect menu hidden up my sleeve!

Fall again

Time flies when you are incredibly busy. 

Here's what's been going on:

* I've been volunteering up a storm! I played one of several Mama Ducks to the new JETs who arrived in summer, am helping staff an American culture booth at an International Fair, and am part of a team organizing events within my prefecture for our ALTs. Next week, we are having a huge urban scavenger hunt- hopefully we don't lose anyone.

*I'm learning! Well, sort of. I'm taking a Japanese Linguistics & Pedagogy course that I (excitedly) passed the entrance requirements and now I am (not so excitedly) reading about dialect evolution and proliferation. I subsidize this with actual "learning" from a few fabulous non-fiction books I have read recently. For whatever reason, I've been on a Russian History kick.  

* I've been saving money like crazy! In part because I've been busy, I find that I am exhausted on the evenings and weekends and just long for a quite evening at home. 

* I survived several attempts on my life by Mother Nature. No, not really, but in the past few months Saitama had a freak tornado, a direct hit from a typhoon that I had to trundle through to go to work (It was "too dangerous" for students, but teachers were forced to come in), and Sakurajima, a very active volcano in Kagoshima Prefecture, farted clouds of ash in my direction for several days on end.

Sakurajima, what an ash hole.

* Halloween! It just passed and was much less crazy than last year. I didn't attend any parties- there was yet another typhoon, but even if the weather had been nice, I was in Okinawa with a girl friend trying to unwind.

I found a hermit crab. His very unorginal name was Hermy.

* Painting! With stress and a hectic lifestyle (apparently, this is the burden of being a 3rd year), hobbies and personal enjoyment are even more important to keep up. At one of my visit schools, the art teacher took a liking to me and we have passed many a free period chatting and painting. He is currently working on a portrait of me and my horse, Finnegan, as a Christmas gift. It's a really sweet gesture and I cannot to wait to see what it looks like when it is finished.