Before moving to Japan, I had had exactly one cup of tea in the 18 years, 1 month, and 20 odd days since I was born. It was from a pack I bought in Montreal’s Chinatown the previous year and it tasted like wet cardboard. Regardless, while I was in Japan I had more cups of different blends then I could possibly count.

In one evening my host mom made seven or eight different types and we sat there sampling each of them for quite a while. They came from Asia, from Africa, from different regions and different plants. This was, however, still quite early in my stay, so it ended up being a lesson more in Japanese language than a tasting of world teas.

But by the time my year was out I was doing much better. I knew my regular ocha from matcha, my uuroncha from my mugicha. I didn’t know what any of these things were in English, but I at least knew what I was talking about when I used the terms. I was communicating well enough that I could not only ask what the tea was but also understand the answer.

There was one particular type of black tea I had while living with the Kusano family. It was excellent all by itself without pollutants of milk or sugar, and it did not turn bitter even when left to steep a little too long. It was light in colour yet rich in flavour. I asked what it was but did not recognize the word—it was not Japanese. Shown the silver tin I saw it written in English: Ceylon.

Upon my return to Canada in 2003 I still remembered this word and saught it out. All I could find for ages was something called “orange pekoe”. Bitter, dark, disgusting orange pekoe. My disappointment was only compounded by the failure of everything marked “green tea” to be anything like green tea. Sure, I found the occasional relief when I discovered Earl Grey, but the taste of Fruit Loops is always just a little less than desireable in my drink. (Can anybody confirm or deny that Kellogg’s Fruit Loops contains bergamot oil? If not I must be going crazy.) In almost four years I was only ever able to find one small jar of Ceylon tea, but overpowered with the flavour of orange rinds and only enough for a few cups.

Then, finally, a newcomer in the tea aisle at my grocery store! Ceylon tea, and lots of it. I considered getting the small 25 bag box, but who knew when I would have the chance again? Was Ceylon seeing a surge in popularity? Had it been here all along, avoiding my gaze year after year? Or was it just a fluke, a random stocking experiment to test market demand? I couldn’t take the risk. I bought the biggest box, carried it back home through the deep snow against cold winter winds, and prepared myself for months of warm delicious quality time with my old friend from the East.

I dropped the groceries on the floor, took my new box of tea, and went to straight for the kettle. Within minutes I was sitting comfortably on the couch warming my hands around the mug, and took my first taste of — orange pekoe! The box may have said Ceylon, but it was a far cry from the fine quality of tea I had shared with Kusano-san that summer four years ago.

So to this day I have still not found it, that perfect blend of tea to make a day complete. I know of only one place where it can be found in the entire world—inside a little silver tin, in a house on the side Kagashira Mountain, half a world away.

Lately I feel I’ve been playing Devil’s Advocate quite a bit. I just hope nobody’s been offended. I have a habit of disagreeing with almost anything anybody says. I do it for the sake of conversation, to flesh out the forgotten assumptions, and see how well people have really thought about what they say. And in the cases where someone is talking about something I actually believe in, I still do it, pointing out the same little problems that I struggle with to get some insight on how they might be resolved, for my own sake! I think I’m just being genuinely curious, but I have a feeling the other person sometimes thinks I’m just doing it because I’m an ass.

Here’s an extreme example but a real one, for the sake of argument if you wish. I only read this online (on a facebook group about the Rape of Nanjing) but haven’t had an actual conversation, electronic or otherwise, with a person about it so this is all new material.

Numerous powerful politicians in Japan have openly denied the incidences of wanton rape, torture, and unprejudiced slaughter. In fact, the current prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi still visits the war shrine that houses the souls of some of the leaders of the perpetration of the Rpae [sic] of Nanking. To put this in perspective, imagine someone like Angela Merkel, or any powerful German politician, denying the Holocaust. Or as in the latter example, Mrs. Merkel visiting a shrine that commemorated Hitler, Himmler, or Hoess. Ridiculous, disgusting, and immoral to say the least.

First of all I admit that as far as I can remember that I had not heard of this massacre before this past Sunday night, although while living in Japan I did hear about two controversies involving it: Japanese history textbooks glossing over the actions of the Japanese military during the war and Koizumi’s visits to the war shrine. As I said, I knew very little of the former, but I didn’t understand what the fuss was about in the case of the latter. This is in part because I didn’t know anything about it beforehand, and quite possibly because what I was told about it was told to me by my Japanese family and friends through an only semipermeable language barrier. My instinctive reaction to the above quoted paragraph was to disagree completely. Even now, having read more about the Nanjing massacre and the Sino-Japanese war in general, I still don’t see Koizumi’s visits to the shrine as either ridiculous or disgusting, and certainly not immoral.

I realise this may offend people, so let me reiterate—I am not saying that the massacre is nothing to get upset about. It was an incredible display of human cruelty to say the least. But (the problems of revisionist histories aside, which are wrong) can we really say that visits to the shrine are “ridiculous, disgusting, and immoral”?

Let’s look at the analogy offered of visiting a shrine dedicated to Hitler. This is fallacious in that Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine honours almost 2.5 million people who died in the name of the emperor, wartime or otherwise—it is not a shrine specifically to the architects of the Nanjing massacre or even the war in general. However, there are about 1000 convicted war criminals included in their ranks, so maybe it is a minor point. The question is this: Would it be immoral to visit a shrine to Germany’s wartime dead, Hitler, Himmler, and Hoess among them, just as we honour ours on Remembrance Day?

The difficulty is in that the Germans and Japanese were the aggressors in the war, fighting for a cause which we consider to be immoral today. But even with that, I would suggest that remembering the dead, regardless of who they are, doesn’t carry with it approval of what they may have fought for. Perhaps it just sounds like I’m preaching forgiveness for all sins. Maybe I am. At the very least we should remember that young men with families and friends and lives ahead of them die on the enemy’s side just as easily as on ours and that that loss is no less lamentable. I would go as far as saying that there is nothing immoral in visiting even a shrine to Hitler, the de facto archetype of immorality himself, if only to remember the atrocities he, like the Japanese military, committed so that we might better ourselves for it.

So, as Douglas Adams said (in an entirely different subject but a debate nonetheless), “That is my debating point and you are now free to start hurling the chairs around!” Or, since this is the internet, let the hate mail roll in!

My brain is capable of understanding a maximum of two languages: English and Other.

I took French lessons for an hour a day everyday for ten years as part of the New Brunswick public education system. That sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t really get you that far since, like most classes, most of the details are forgotten ten minutes out the door. Nonetheless, by the end of high school I could listen to two people (even two French teachers) having a conversation in the hall and understand most of it.

Then, I moved to Japan, and promptly forgot everything francais and replaced it with nihongo. By the end of one year there, I could understand and speak Japanese much better than I ever could French.

Living in Montreal has certaintly been bringing some of the French back, while the Japanese has been slipping away. The problem is, I sometimes forget which is which.

Comment sa va? Genki yo.
Bibliothèque wa doko desu ka?
Où est la ginko?
Métro de ikou.
Au revoir. Ja ne.

Those all sound perfectly natural to me. It’s all “other”.

Though I can’t speak, at least I’ve noticed that I can read French about as well as I can Japanese. While on the metro yesterday, I looked up at one of the ads and realised I knew exactly what it meant, despite being in French. I remember three or four years ago riding the densha through Nagasaki and having the same realisation in Japanese.

It was a good day.

In honour of all-you-can-eat sushi tonight:

I’ve only just discovered how great YouTube is for things like this. Sure I always knew it was there but there was never anything too fantastic. But now I can find almost all my favourite songs from Japan there.

• HY - AM11:00
• Sowelu - Rainbow
• ????? - ????
• BUMP OF CHICKEN - ??????
• SHAKA LABBITS ? 175R - Stand By you
• ????? - ???

These have some of those stupid little moments that I love but nobody else understands. In the HY video, I love the way the drummer says “Demo kimi ga suki” after the rap section, and the way Sowelu bats her eyes to one side about a third of the way through Rainbow. There are more but clearly nobody understands them but me. But oh god, the translation of the lyrics on the last one (Sakura) is so… well, not bad, but just weird. It just makes more sense to me in Japanese. Ah well. So it goes and all that.

I don’t know how you did it, Mr. Donut, but somehow that strange new doughnut you introduced to Japan back in the spring of ‘03 has made its way into the Tim Horton’s lineup. They call it “beigne étoilé au citron”, but as soon as I saw it I thought “Holy crap it’s a ring de pom!” I suppose I should have seen it coming. If it was new in Japan three years ago…

But alas, the resemblance is pretty much superficial. The Tim Horton’s variety only comes in one flavour (lemon), and it lacks that strange chewy quality that the ring de pom had. Mmmm… slightly chewy rice paste doughnut… It probably sounds gross to a lot of people, but it sure grew on me.

Home, Rutherford, Home.
Home, Rutherford, Home.
Home, Rutherford, Provigo, Home.
Home, Rutherford, Home.
Home, Rutherford, Rabinovich, Home.
Home, Rutherford, Home.

Living the first two and a half years of my university career in Solin Hall (about 20 minutes from campus by metro) and then in Verdun (30 minutes by bus), I never really felt restricted by the “McGill bubble”. Now, living one block away, things are a bit more subdued. In particular I miss taking the bus. I love that commercial for the Montreal Gazette with the woman watching people on the streets as they drive by on the bus because I always loved doing just that. That and the music is perfect bus riding music.

I think it was Anita who said that you could tell which foreigners lived in Japan and which ones were just tourists — tourists never took the bus. Nagasaki’s a much smaller city than Montreal of course, but it seemed bigger in that there was always a new street to explore. In particular when I lived in the Irabayashi district, there were probably no less than 12 different routes I could take to school. Up to Kazagashira Yama, down to Suwa Jinja, or through Teramachi. Up Oranda Zaka or through Minato Park… and so many more. I’ll never forget the day I tried to get from Hamanomachi to Kaisei Koukou and, because I didn’t yet know my way around, neglected to turn right at McDonalds (”Let’s Olympic!”). I knew I was lost when I could look out across the valley and see Kaisei’s characteristic bright blue roofs on the other mountain. You never really know your way around a city until you get lost in it a few times.

Maybe it’s because Anita’s been making me jealous with her Japanese escapades, because David had to bring up okinomiyaki at work yesterday, because it’s mid afternoon and I haven’t eaten lunch yet, or because I have a midterm tomorrow, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about all the restaurants in Nagasaki I want to go to again. So I made a list of my top five for anybody who might be in the area. I have no idea what any of these places are called, but I think I found them on this map of the Hamanomachi are, give or take a block (thanks Google).

Traditional Sushiya
This is a tiny little place that only holds about five or six customers, and never would have been found without the guidance of my okaasan, Irie-san. It’s the type of place where you sit at the bar (no other choice) and the chef makes the sushi right in front of you, places it on the wood counter, and you pick it up and eat it right there as it’s done. I recommend the red miso soup.

I love Unagi
Everybody loves an unagi donburi. Seriously. It’s one of my favourites. Contrary to the sushiya, this is a restaurant that I knew full well was there but would never have dared enter without my okaasan, Irie-san again, to foot the bill. Eel is their specialty, but I never did get to see the menu. As soon as I sat down (on the tatami floor, shoes whisked away to some unknown location by the staff) my host mom ordered for all of us. It was fantastic.

Hyakuen Ramen
Just down the street from the unagi restaurant is a little cheap place that’s very well known in Nagasaki for it’s raamen noodles. Nothing compared to Sapporo, I’m sure, but good nonetheless. Once a year, to celebate the anniversary of their opening, they sell bowls of raamen for just 100 en, or about $1 (give or take, due to the exchange). They come in droves, but I forget which day it is. Possibly March 8th (”Sanhachi Ramen”?). Down the street, at the corner of Kankodoori, is a place that sells Udon for 100 en year round, but in that case you get what you pay for.

Okinomiyaki
Okinomiyaki is one of those weird foods that I can never explain properly, because it is literally whatever you want it to be. I’m horrible at translations, but I’d say the name means something like “Fried stuff you like” or “Your favourite food” or something. Calling it “Japanese pizza” just confuses people. Oh well. This place was discovered along with Anita (and someone else… maybe Lars and Emi) in one of our wanderings around town, trying to decided where to eat. It’s on the second floor and you’d walk right by it if you weren’t looking out for their advertisement on the street. Tthe second time we tried to find it, we walked by it at least three times.) There were two other Okinomiyaki places Irie-san took me to — one where you make it yourself at your table and another where you sit at a big grill and the cook makes it there for you — but I’d never be able to find either of them again.

Aisu Kuriimu
Just need an afternoon snack on a hot summer day or dessert after one of the other restaurants, stop by this place for a parfait larger than should ever be believed. But be careful, as this is another tricky second floor place that you’ll walk by ten times if you’re not careful.

Honourable mentions, but ones I’ll never be able to find again, are that spaghetti place Laura and I went to and got free drinks at because one of my Juunshin Japanese teachers worked there, the all-garlic restaurant my first okaasan Kumazawa-san took me too (not as smelly as I expected), and that kaitenzushi place in Sanwacho that the Nishiyama family took me to (the best one I ever went to, to be sure).

For those less adventerous types, you could go to Chris’s Pizza near Suwa Jinja. He has crabs. Great pizza, too. Or, there’s always the McDonalds at the middle of Hamanomachi and two more in Yumesaito. But if you’re just going to eat a happy meal, you really shouldn’t be in Japan anyway.

Ok, so maybe I just posted an entry five minutes ago, but I just found out from another blog on yulblog.org that today is Setsubun, the day before the first day of Spring according to the Japanese lunar calendar.

????????

This time three years ago, having just moved into the Irie house a few days eariler, I had no idea what was going on. Sometime around 22:00, my host dad put on a devil mask and started throwing beans all over the house, including a few handfuls at me, laughing his little head off. My host mom tried to tell me what he was doing while wandering around behind cleaning up the mess, laughing her own little head off, but all I understood was “first day of spring” (in February no less), “keep the evil spirits out”, and “good for business”. Naturally I had thought I had moved into a house of lunatics! I was right, but that just made it more fun.

I still wonder what happened to their pet turtle…

Why is it that whenever there’s an earthquake near me, it’s never quite near enough for me to feel it. There was an earthquake near Montreal this morning and I missed it.

When I was in Japan, there was one between 4.0 and 5.0 that was centered either closer to Fukuoka or Kagoshima (I forget which). In Nagasaki we felt it around a 1.0, which is just enough to make you think that the cats are having a fight under your chair while eating lunch. Or, if you’re my host mom, to look at my host dad and say “stop shaking the table”.

This is probably a bit like my looking forward to the day they named the first ever Hurricane Alpha, but don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a big earthquake. Big enough to notice but not big enough to damage anything. A nice round 4.0 would be nice, I think.

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