Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Tottori

So I realized, I don't think I ever wrote about any of my trips to Tottori, the prefecture north of Okayama where I was staying. Surprisingly, (since Tottori is considered one of the least two populated and one of the two most rural prefectures I believe?) I've actually been there several times, though all different places.

One of my friends from undergrad was posting on facebook on how she was on a train to Tottori, and I couldn't help but feel nostalgic. I actually really enjoyed Tottori, and kind of wish I had spent more time there despite our initial assessment that it was totally the perfect weekend trip spot. In theory, a weekend is enough to hit all the big "to do" spots around Tottori city, especially if you're relying on public transportation to get everywhere. That's not even including the other larger city to the west, Yonago, and the area around it. And Mount Daisen, one of the tallest (also ski-able in the winter) mountains in the region, as well as I'm-not-sure-if-it's-okayama-or-tottori-but-it's-pretty-much-in-between-Hirzuen, where all the delicious milk products come from in my area (and beef -- also, I'm still referring to the region like I live there but I can't help but feel like it's my adopted area still).


The big things to do in Tottori, anyways, are the sand dunes and the sand sculptures when they have the exhibit there. I think I always meant to post about those... and then forgot. I have those pictures somewhere. Maybe that'll be my new summer project, for the short duration of summer we have left. Upload pictures, finish reading for my independent reading course so that my adviser doesn't think I'm a slacker (so much for an actual summer vacation). Other than the sand dunes... the curry. It's a weird thing to go to a prefecture for, kind of, but Tottori has the highest per capita consumption of curry (keeping in mind as well, that Tottori has one of the lowest populations, though in my opinion, that's still pretty impressive).

I was journeying with one of my JET friends at the time specifically to see the sand dunes, and when we arrived at the station, we were perusing the information booth with the million fliers and brochures, when one caught our eye. It was something like, "the curry walk" or "curry street" or something like that. Basically, a guide to the top curry restaurants in town and places that you absolutely had to try if you were in town, as well as rankings and everything for which curry was the most popular, sweetest, etc etc.

Seriously, at that point I think I knew that Tottori was going to be a place I liked (as a kid, Japanese curry and rice was my favorite food, and only sophomore year where I consumed like, at least three packages of microwavable curry a week changed that). Actually, if I think about it, if I were to choose a place to live again in Japan, Tottori would be in my top 3 list, possibly even tied three ways for first with Kobe and Yokohama.

We ended up trying this pear curry close to the sand dunes, along with pear gelato. Oh my god. It was amazing. I was highly skeptical of putting pears (and fruit in general) into curry, which usually is pretty savory and not very sweet). Also though, by pears, really I mean nashi which we identify as "Asian pears" though my whole life I've always considered them more apple than pear. They're that kind of yellow or golden color, with the small white spots and the crunchy insides that almost snap as you eat them? They're really crisp and delicious. Also, now I totally understand why we call them Asian pears. Cause they're actually called pears in Asia.

They had a TON of pear flavored products in Tottori (as Japanese places with local flavors and specialties are wont to do). Pear cider, pear wine, pear candy, pear soda, pear curry, pear soft serve, pear... pears, and my absolute favorite, pear shaved ice. Holy. Cow. Best flavor syrup for shaved ice ever. It tasted exactly like pear, and not like some overly sweet syrup, and was also light and refreshing to taste. Paired (or "pear'd." as several of my friends would say -- also oh dear, they're rubbing off on me) with the cool yet light and almost fluffy ice, it really made the pear flavor come through more clearly than it had in the soft serve version. Also, I love shaved ice.

The sand dunes themselves were also pretty cool, while still being not quite what I had expected. In my head, when I hear "sand dunes" I think something like, "Sahara desert" or "those amazing sand dunes in Journey" (Journey is a PS3 game with an amazing soundtrack and even more amazing visuals where you go on... a journey... through this desert like world. It's really an amazing game that's not quite what you would think of as a "game"). In reality, it is much much much smaller than that, but still surprisingly energy consuming to walk across. They also had camels that you could ride around on too (and, walking back up the hill on our way back, we wished we had a camel). Running down it was surprisingly fun, and somehow, walking around to make paths and tracks never got tiring, nor was it only enjoyed by young people. They actually (they being the sand dune volunteer group thing) had a dude stationed at the bottom of the giant hill to make sure people didn't run graffiti into the side of the hill, not that people didn't try. We actually watched him stop several groups. One group was walking around in a circle. Another couple was trying to make a heart. They almost got it too, but he made them walk down. We spent a good portion of time scheming ways to distract the watchman with one group while the other completed a picture behind his back while he was busy scolding the first group. It would totally work too.

The hills were also surprisingly steep. On the way back down I ran back part of the way, and it was kind of exhilarating in the "OH MY GOD I CAN'T STOP" kind of way, though running at an angle helped.

On the other side of the giant hill though, wasn't more sand dunes. It was the ocean. Or well, the Sea of Japan (so technically not ocean, but large body of water). Tottori is actually home to a really awesome looking geopark a couple miles down from the Sand Dunes; regretfully, I ran out of time to go before we left and I never had enough time to return. The dunes overlooked a small beach, which you could run down to from the dunes at an abrupt and steep angle. Running back up however, was much more difficult. We chose to not run down to the water, choosing instead to just sit there and snack on our conbini sandwiches (and the inevitable sand that got into them) and enjoy the view. Mostly I think this is because neither of us wanted to have to walk all the way back up hahaha. We were kinda short on time as well. Buses, and all that.

Pretty much right next to the sand dunes was the sand sculpture museum (kinda). Every time they opened it, they invited people from around the world to create sand sculptures around a certain theme, and after they were done, they'd build walls around the sculptures. Every time. New walls. They also didn't look quite as janky as some fairs in the US that come around once a year and then close shop and come back a year later.


In 2012 (a whole year ago now), the theme was the UK. So there were a bunch of kind of medieval sand sculptures, one with the Globe and a play going on, the Tower of London, one of the Queen, one that was a scene of rainy times and people walking around with umbrellas, another of Galileo I think? And some other famous scientist, I don't remember. They were really awesome sculptures. There was also one of King Arthur and the sword in the stone... I think.



Oh wow, I just realized it's been almost a year since I've been back in the US. Technically a few days short, but wow. I haven't gone anywhere since I've been back, nor have I traveled nearly as much as when I did over there. I have, however, gone home WAY more often than when I was living in Japan. Ahem. Anyways.


Those things were all part of day one, and I want to say we went somewhere else too... but honestly, I don't really remember. We stayed at a business hotel though, I can remember that much. The day after, we decided to split up. My friend went to see a castle I think and went to the Detective Conan (a really popular manga/anime about this high schooler detective genius who gets turned into a little boy but retains his deductive genius) museum, while I, on the other hand, couldn't resist the siren call of large bodies of water and the beach, and went off to find a beach to go to, along with the other thing I couldn't resist: an aquarium called 鳥取かにっこ館 (Tottori Kanikkokan).



This aquarium though, was by far the most specialized of them all. It was a crab aquarium, and I think literally, they had over 70 species of crabs there. It was actually a pretty small aquarium, with this really awesome touch zone for small children that had a ton of those small crabs and like, hermit crabs and stuff there for people (ie: kids) to touch. There was also a couple of small tanks with examples of the wildlife found around Tottori (which honestly, is why I like to visit so many aquariums, because they all showcase the local marine life) as well of course, as the crabs that could be found in the area. Apparently, the crab was supposed to be delicious.


Right next to the aquarium, they also had a bunch of seafood restaurants as well as a fish/seafood market -- you know, just in case you started to crave the things you were looking at. I mean, I think we do that here in the states as well, but Japan takes these things to a whole new level that people here I think, would be shocked at haha.


Fortunately for me, also next to the aquarium was this amazing small beach that wasn't really that crowded, though regretfully, I had not brought along a swim suit. Instead I walked along the beach where the waves break and the sand is wet (since if you didn't you risked burning the soles of your feet because the sand was so hot), walking in and out of the water. It was super refreshing, and I really regretted not bringing a suit. The further away you got though, the fewer people were around until I was in a small, almost cove-like area by myself with the closest people a good 200-300 feet away. I think I took a nap there until it was finally time to go back and meet up with my friend so we could return to Okayama, a trip that would take at least 3 hours, if memory serves me correctly. Plus another hour+ to get back to my house from Okayama.


But just being able to reconnect to the sea again was energizing and invigorating. I felt completely recharged after that. :) I'm definitely a water kind of person haha. Walking up and down the beach is still one of my favorite activities. It's kind of therapeutic. No land locked places for me... even being here at Stanford feels like it's too far away from the ocean lol, though really, it's like a 40-1 hour drive to the ocean and even less if I'm okay with settling for a smaller body of water.



My first trip to Yonago on the other hand, could probably be classified as a disaster, but also as awesome. I swear I thought I posted about it, but I've been trying to look, and I can't find anything. The night I arrived/the day after, a typhoon decided to BLOW ON THROUGH THE CITY and it poured super hard, rendering it kind of difficult and miserable to do any sort of site seeing around the city. I did, however, the following day, take a day trip out to this place called Mizuki Shigeru Road, a like... 1.5 hour trip from Yonago by train I believe? I went because I heard there was a museum about 妖怪, yokai, which are like fantastic creatures like ghosts and goblins and supernatural spirits in Japan. They're kind of fascinating to read about, and there's a super popular comic in Japan called Ge Ge Ge Kitaro which is about, to the best of my knowledge, this kid (I think he's also a "good" spirit... maybe... I honestly am not too sure) and his interactions trying to help others and keep the bad spirits from being too evil. I think. I watched one episode, but I kind of forgot what happened. Minor details. But this city is the hometown of the author to Ge Ge Ge (Mizuki Shigeru) so they decided to honor him by commercializing the hell out of their city and installed statues all along this road complete with stamps that you could get of each of the yokai in the book (which you could stamp in this handy passport booklet they sold, which then semi-obligated you to finish and collect all the freaking stamps).

There was also a museum for the yokai and a museum-- wait. Wait. I think I remember posting about this. Because in addition to the yokai museum, there was also a museum that had "living" in its title and I thought I was going to see a real sunfish and SURPRISE it turned out it was a TAXIDERMY museum and everything, including the giant sunfish, was STUFFED and I was horrified and incredibly creeped out by it. I remember writing about that. I remember the picture I put up of this one room that had at least a hundred small tiny pufferfish that had been preserved. Hanging from the ceiling. Some of them had googly-eyes glued on them. Creepy. As. Hell. This picture:


It looks upon museum patrons with murderous eyes
I can't find the post associated with it, but google says I posted it? I can't seem to find the post though. :x Actually, that was when I was still writing my newsletter home, so it might have gotten put into that. Alas, I take way too long to write about things. As proof, I sat down to write this post an hour and a half ago, and I'm still typing. This is actually getting kind of long huh. I should probably go to bed. This is what happens when I have nothing to regulate my sleep schedule... ugh.



Oh, I also realized this now, but my astrological sign is Cancer... the crab. Hahaha. Maybe that's why I felt so relaxed and enjoyed myself so much there, both at the beach and at the crab aquarium. Coincidence? I think not!

Anyways, long story short (or the TL;DR version), Tottori was awesome, had a crab museum and pear everything and a beach in addition to sand dunes, and I want to go back some time.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Tourists at Stanford

One of the most surprising and different things about going to Stanford are the sheer number of tourists who visit the campus on a daily basis. This number, unsurprisingly, increases during the summer. I'm not talking about "knows someone who goes to Stanford so we're touring the campus since we're visiting them" or "prospective high school student who is probably not a senior but is probably a freshman, sophomore, or junior" or even "parents of a prospective student."

Oh no. I'm talking about literal tour buses (those big huge ones with a toilet in the back and cushy chairs) that arrive on campus with tour guides who wave around little flags and whatnot. A lot of them (though not all) are Asian (specifically Chinese). They walk around campus, which is kind of annoying since it's already crowded with campers for the summer and whatnot, but whatever, that's fine. They visit the big spots around campus like Hoover Tower, the Oval, Cantor Arts Center (which is admittedly pretty awesome), and Memorial Church (which I have NOT been to yet, though to be fair, I tried to go with a friend and it was CLOSED probably because someone was having a wedding in there, so I did try at least...). That's fine, whatever, those are awesome places around campus to go and among the "must see" kind of spots. Like, if you only had a limited amount of time to spend on campus, those places are the big ones. The cactus garden, masoleum, and angel of grief are really awesome, but they're also really far.

So I don't mind people going around and being tourists and looking at those things. Or well, I only get mildly annoyed when they block the entire road and make it impossible to bike through or around.

There is one thing though, that the tourists do that piss me off to no end though. And, I will say, it's primarily the Chinese tourists that do this (though I think there's a partial reason for this), which does not help the image of Chinese tourists. Our classroom is right next to memorial church. Tourists will walk by and glance into our classroom since we have the windows open for ventilation, as it can get pretty stuffy in the classroom (and it lacks an ac). What makes me want to kill someone though, is when the tourists actually stare into our classroom, and get their face super obviously close to the window and poke their head in. Um, hello? We are obviously in class. Also? WE CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU. There's no one way mirror, so we can see that you're staring at us and at our classroom and it's really really distracting and disturbing.

Like really really distracting. I can't sit on the whiteboard side of the classroom because I would seriously, probably get super pissed if I sat there since that side is the one that you can see from the window really well.

That's not even the worst of it either.

So when they stare, I just get really really annoyed. However, some tourists have pulled out cameras and taken pictures of us in our classroom while staring at us through the small gap in the window. What. The. Hell. Is wrong with these people. What corner of the planet is it okay to take pictures of students in a classroom as they're watching you without even asking if it's okay? SERIOUSLY. I mean, I think most cultures would find it rude if you went up in their home country, less than ten feet away from them, and take their damn picture while pretending like they couldn't see you.

Dear Chinese tourists: this is not okay. Dear other tourists: this is still not okay, no matter if you're in a different country or not.

I swear to god, if I catch someone doing that, there are two things that may or may not happen. One, I might pull out my phone and take a picture of them. This, however, disrupts the class. Two, I might get up, lose it a little bit, and tell the person to stop taking pictures because it's EFFING RUDE AND I DON'T WANT MY PICTURE TAKEN. Who takes pictures of students anyways? I mean, we're not exactly kids any more but still. It makes me feel like I'm on display in a little box; an uncomfortable feeling.

Though speaking of taking pictures of kids, maybe it is a cultural thing after all. There's a student in our class who's from China, and we were talking about how cute Japanese elementary school kids are and stuff, and somehow we were talking about them walking home and stuff and the Chinese guy casually mentioned that he would/wanted to take a picture of the elementary school kids, and justified this by saying that of course he would ask the child first.

We pointed out to him that a) they're still kids so asking them doesn't really do much b) he's a stranger and c) he's a man taking pictures with little kids and oh yeah, d) society kind of frowns upon this both in the US and in Japan because these kind of actions are things that pedophiles do. I mean, I will not disagree that those kids are really freaking cute, but to go up and ask them to be in a picture with you? SUPER SHADY. You never know with intent, and it's not the same as going up to someone with a dog and asking them if you can pet it (though I have seen times when there's a cute kid and there might be a comment of "you're kid's cute" but I feel like people generally don't ask to hold the baby, and they certainly don't go over and pick up the small child. Those kind of things get you arrested.

On a more random note, we had a pretty cool cultural event on friday. We did tea ceremony, which was super interesting to do though I think I got too embarrassed by my Japanese slash the woman didn't understand what I wanted to do slash I didn't think about passing my cup to the other person to pour slash I used the wrong form to ask and then lost confidence but whatever. Sadly though, the lunch place we were going to get bento boxes from was closed for renovation, so we had to order from a different place. I'm kind of sad now that we canceled that one culture day so people didn't have to come in and commute and blah blah. That cost me excellent free food that we missed out on two weeks in a row. But I guess I shouldn't complain, since free food is free food... but they had good tasting hamachi. Sigh.

Only two more weeks of classes. If that tourist peeping business happens again, I'm requesting to change classrooms. :x

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Spiders!

It has finally happened. Japan has broken me of my deep fear and extreme dislike of spiders (but not other insects). (Or maybe other insects a tiny bit).

There was a spider in the bathroom, and while they're actually kind of small (compared to Japanese spiders) (though by my old standards it was still kind of large for a spider, like at least as big as my thumbnail) I did something I never thought I'd do in a million years.

I was actually able to trap it under a cup (which got washed very thoroughly afterwards). I got as far as sliding a piece of paper underneath the cup, but when it came to actually removing it from the floor...

yeah, I kind of failed at that. Still haven't gotten over the whole idea of being able to feel the spider through the paper. Maybe if the paper I had used was a) not flimsy and b) thicker -- like cardboard or something, or poster paper -- maybe then I could have been able to actually pick it up and take it outside to set it free (and then run away screaming).

Instead I messaged a friend who happened to be home, and he was nice enough to come over and take the trapped spider and dump it outside. I felt kind of silly having gotten that far, but hey, progress is progress right...? I never would have been able to do that. The thought occurred to me after that I should have taken a picture, cause I'm pretty sure my family won't actually believe that I was able to do something like that without picture proof.

My nails are this kind of... gaudy almost blue color that reminds me of Sailor Mercury. They're sparkly and make me feel like I'm 15 or something. Also like thrusting my hand in the air and screaming "MERCURY STAR POWERRRRR"

Really though, they're that color so that I don't go on a stress-induced rage and destroy my nails completely since I've kind of done that in the past, especially when close to tests and stuff. I always cut them way too short. This was the only nail polish I had that (probably) looks okay by themselves. Everything else I have needs both a base color and then a topcoat color/shatter thing/sparkle thing/etc. So this was just the option that took the least amount of time. Anyways, enough about nails.

There are two posts I want to make in the future when I don't have a test the next day or things due. One of them is a short one on stickers. The other is on the crazy (awesome) weekend I had this last weekend in July (with a conspicuous lack of studying). But since I have a test tomorrow, that shall have to wait. But this is a mental promise to myself to actually write about those things when I have more time stop procrastinating start using my time more effectively.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

A long long long overdue post - Monitors and "studying" Japanese

So in the time between this and my last update, an entire quarter has passed by. An entire quarter. People have graduated, and semi-permanently left my life (or at least, it's immediate proximity). It's not even like I had a super crazy quarter. Or well, okay maybe I did. Especially socially. Also the fact that it was spring quarter and my macbook's backlight went out didn't help either. But yeah, those are just excuses. I've been not balancing time with what I need to do with typing and things. 

I finally got a monitor to hook up to my old macbook after trying out one of the new retina display macbooks (thank you mom and dad for the birthday present), so I can finally use my old macbook again! Hooray! I can delay the process of buying a new computer just a little bit longer now...

Having this giant monitor is super nice. :D That doesn't really change my desire to get a 15'' macbook pro; I'm not in my room often enough doing work to settle with a 13" small screen (I prefer to work in other spaces like the library or the East Asian Studies building, where there are infinitely less distractions and less of a likelihood that I'm going to get into an hour conversation with my roommate). I tasted the sweetness of having a 15" and working on it for a little bit, and I don't think I can go back to small. I mean, if I was doing purely typing things and stuff on my computer, sure. But my work habits include opening a crapton of windows and tabs (like around 80) and I do all my research on my laptop so having the ability to look at two windows at the same time is really nice.

Speaking of nice, so is this giant monitor and typing on my laptop. God I love the F1 key; when I was setting up the computer with the monitor it was on the setting that extends the display... or well, actually, I had forgotten that I had to actually log into my computer at first so I spent a good five minutes trying to figure out how to open the display settings so I could change it, and then google gave me the glorious power of mirrorring via F1 key and I felt dumb because I hadn't yet put in my password haha.

Anyways. I have been failing hardcore at any type of regular typing, both on here and something I was trying out as a kind of daily journal. Yep. I think I lasted a good... three days before I forgot and then it was all downhill from there.

Recently it's felt like I haven't had any time for doing writing outside of the reading I'm supposed to have already done and the workload for the Japanese class I'm taking. It's an intensive course, so it's four hours a day from 10-3 with an hour break for lunch... but then they expect you to do just as much work outside of class.

And like, you really need to do at least a solid four hours outside of class to be able to retain anything that class has been teaching, and to practice vocabulary (it's a LOT of vocab). I mean, you're squishing a whole year into 8 weeks, so that much work is understandable...

...except to friends who are planning things and doing things because hell, *they're* not being crazy and taking a huge courseload over the summer. Most of the grad students who are still here are doing research or something of the sort (though most the people in my program are in Beijing, and the ones who are still here are in language programs).

And I'm really grateful that people are inviting me to things, truly. But I think the largest challenge I've faced in graduate school thus far is managing my time, and managing what I do with it and balancing work with play. Because I've been playing pretty hard recently. I also got a new tv recently (thanks millions of accumulated points via credit card!) that was pretty much free. ...so I've actually been able to play my Japanese games because I can now read the kanji on the screen. Seriously, that was an actual problem, not being able to even make out what the characters were. But now... hooray, I can pass it off as Japanese studying! I mean, it kind of is right? Listening practice and then also vocabulary...

....and before you say to yourself, "Ha! Japanese practice. When is she ever going to use the words in video games? That's silly," actually, I've seen a number of vocabulary words that have shown up in class recently in the video games I've played. Never going to use the word for attack? Read an article that mentions world war II. We read one that touched on the Tokugawa shogunate's decision to close the country... and hey what do you know, the word for army 軍 showed up. Aw yeah, chalk one up for playing historical Japanese games. Well, you might say, that at least vaguely has to do with japanese history, so that might be slightly useful. But what about Pokemon? Fear not! The word used for opponent, 相手 and the word for items/tools 道具 ? Totally came up in class lat year. The inner child in me was like, BOOYAH.

But those are like, useful words and stuff right? What about games like the Hack'n'Slash Gundam version of dynasty warriors that I have recently sunk more hours than I should into? And the recent unit we've had talking about things like 期待 (hope, anticipation) and 責任 responsibility/duty? COVERED. Gundam has my back. Plus I look up words that I don't know (or at least some of them since there's a lot) and my reading speed actually seems like, at times, it's gotten better. Either way, I think I've proven to myself (and justified) the hours I've been playing these Japanese games recently ahaha...

Yeah though, more studying needs to happen on my part.

I forgot how much I like typing though. It's actually a lot of fun. I like the way the keys click on the keyboard when you type. At least, as long as you're not in a super quiet library.

I also got these sweet speakers... which I still might exchange for something like headphones since like... I live in an apartment and blasting music on my speakers probably isn't going to make me too many friends. Or put me on good relationships with my roommate.

...though I wonder what people walking by outside think when they hear Winnie the Pooh -- the DDR dance version - yes, I totally have it, and it's awesome -- blasting from this room haha.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

MSG

Oh monosodium glutamate, you wonderfully delicious additive that has been demonized so much.

So MSG has a super bad rap as being awful for you and an additive and blahblahblah - and I'm not saying it's not. Oh wait. I just looked around online. Pretty much everything I've seen so far that cites scientific studies report that there is NO correlation between MSG and the side effects that people claim to feel. These side effects have been rigorously tested; the only effects ever discovered were from a placebo on a self-identified MSG sensitive person. Is it lethal? If you stuff a whole bunch of it in your face by itself (like we're talking a ridiculous amount)(or if you're a mouse), then maybe. But eaten with food? Not at all.

Clearly, the link we should be exploring more is the mental one between our attitudes towards food and the way that we actually experience taste; how our brains and mental activity mediate and alter the signals we get from taste receptors in our mouth. That'd be a pretty interesting thing to investigate, actually, if there isn't research done on it already. I mean, that study, and the whole existence of the placebo effect, validate the fact that how we actually perceive an experience can viscerally and physically effect what we're experiencing.

This whole "holy crap I feel tingly and numb because omg too much MSG" is actually known as the Chinese Restaurant Effect, because of MSG's close association with Chinese food (though, whether it's used or not in Chinese food... I'm not sure.)

Kind of ironic though, because contrary to what it seems like, MSG was actually created initially by a Japanese scientist and distributed by a Japanese company - Ajinomoto - around the turn of the century (so MSG is like, a hundred years old about). Ikeda Kikunae was working on isolating the "savory" flavory - also known as umami in Japanese (and gaining more attention as it is touted as the sixth taste). That savory flavor is the kind of thick, meaty flavor found in... meat. Or in mushrooms, as it's often explained. It's also found in konbu, a type of kelp that's used frequently in Japanese kitchens to make things like stock. Other notable foods with glutamic acid (the stuff that MSG is an artificial reproduction of) include parmasan cheese, marmite, vegemite, and soy sauce. Ajinomoto, which means "the essence of taste" started to produce MSG around 1909. Of course, it wasn't very long before China was able to produce an imitation, since this savory flavor was something the Chinese had been searching for as well. Around 1920, a man named Wu Yunchu was able to replicate the way the Japanese company manufactured MSG and called it weijing and applied for a patent on it, despite Japanese protests.

The relationship between Japan and China during the 1920s was not a productive one for Japan. Chinese people were boycotting European and Japanese goods, prompting the demand for weijing to outstrip supply - so much so that the company actually started to buy Ajinomoto and then relabeled it, repackage it, and then sold it under its own brand as "100% Chinese" (Kushner 153).

Oh China. Never change.

The whole reason I got interested in this though, is from a couple readings I was doing for class. One of them is the manga, Oishinbo, a food "gourmet" comic about creating the Ultimate menu. I just got it in the mail! The English language versions are "bite sized" chunks of story separated by theme into different volumes (e.g. volume one is "Japanese cuisine"). The one I was reading was "Ramen and Gyoza" so naturally, there's quite a lot of talk about China, and inevitably, the use of MSG. As expected, it was one of the things that the characters used to distance Chinese food from Japanese food ("Western" foods I've found, often try to do similar things). Ironic, no?  

Works Cited:
Kushner, Barak. "Imperial Cuisines in Taisho Foodways." Japanese Foodways: Past and Present. Ed. Rath, Eric C. and Stephanie Assmann. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Butter rice~

Right before my last Japanese midterm, our sensei (Japanese for teacher, and often used as a suffix kind of for addressing teachers/doctors/"masters" - I use it so often for my teachers that it's pretty much become a habit for me to think of teachers as blahblahblah-sensei rather than Mr./Mrs. Blahblahblah ) introduced this show to us called Shinya Shokudo (roughly translated as midnight canteen/eaterie).

Talk about cruel and unusual punishment man. "Hey students, your midterm is like, in a couple days BUT HERE'S THIS SUPER INTERESTING DRAMA ABOUT FOOD good luck studying lololol."

Obviously, since I haven't failed yet (or watched the entire series yet) I still have some modicum of self control... but tonight since we have a long weekend, I figured it would be perfectly alright to practice some Japanese listening and play an episode (or two...).

The episode I was watching today was episode five: Butter Rice. Oh man. Butter rice. Totally like... my thing.

Butter rice has forever held a special place in my heart. There's something that's so nostalgic about it (or, as they'd say in Japanese, natsukashii) that keeps me coming back despite the oh my god this is unhealthy kind of feeling. But I mean really, how unhealthy is it when you consider the fact that a lot of other sauces that you'd put on it anyways probably aren't that much more nutritious than butter.

I like salt on my butter rice, rather than soy sauce. :) My grandpa used to eat it that way (my dad too) and one of my special skills is picking up the really probably not healthy but rather simple dishes from my grandfathers. Butter rice was one of them (oatmeal, salt, and butter is another one I think, and mizithera pasta from the Old Spaghetti Factory I picked up from my other grandpa).

Butter rice is also ridiculously easy to make. It's a good go to food for leftover rice when you're like, "crap, I have all this leftover rice but I need to use it up somehow but I'm pressed for time so I don't want to cook anything-slash-I just plain don't want to cook anything HEEYYYY butter salt and rice.

Pretty sure I'm going to die of a heart attack. Or clogged arteries. Or high blood pressure. One of those.

This week, the freshmen from the seminar I'm TAing asked if I could talk about Japanese food. I was shocked. They asked if I could talk, on a day that they didn't have class. A good number of students showed up too. ...I kinda got too excited by all the random random stuff you can talk about with food though, so I'm a little worried I was a bit too unorganized. Oh well. Hopefully it was interesting. Seriously though, I could talk about that stuff for hours and hours and hours and hours....

That reminds me though. I have Japanese homework due this weekend. I suppose I should go do that and stop thinking about food hahaha.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Shark fin soup

Taste for Shark Fin Fades Slightly in China

For something that doesn't really taste all that great, shark fin soup is a ridiculously popular and prestigious dish in Chinese culture. I had the chance to taste it at my uncle's 80th birthday at a restaurant that still had some fins from before they banned it in California. I shudder to think at the cost, but then again, that's how it should be. Expensive, so that fewer people can buy it, thus decreasing the demand for shark fin, hopefully. The shark fin in the soup is pretty tasteless; it's really just there for texture. The majority of the taste comes from the broth it's in. I think when I ate mine, I tried a little bit of it, then gave the rest to my parents (or someone) because I didn't care for it much and was already full from the ridiculous amount of food that had already come out.

Personally, I don't have anything against the dish itself, nor the fact that it involves eating shark. I do not, however, condone the practice of finning - the practice of just cutting off the shark's fin and dumping the body back in the ocean to die - and the fact that, in order to keep up with the demand, suppliers are depleting the shark population, which has huge effects on oceanic ecosystems. If there were a way to use both the fins and the body for the shark, instead of just dumping it, along with a way to contain overfishing, I don't think there would be too much of an issue with eating it; on the contrary, I think it's a part of the culture and perfectly fine to eat if caught in an ethical way.

But controversy aside, I wanted to take a look at why Shark Fin Soup carries so much cultural capital and prestige with it, and its history, and how it got to this point - and by quick look, mostly I mean looking at wikipedia and the links in the references and on google. Hooray, "research."

From what I've been reading - both on wiki and other sites like NY Times and Time Magazine - the soup itself originated during the Ming dynasty and was a delicacy only for the rich (presumably because it was pretty dangerous to catch, not to mention difficult). However, in the recent years, due to a rising affluent middle/upper middle Chinese population, more Chinese families can afford to splurge on the soup.

I'd also hazard a guess that as the number of affluent families increase, so too does the need to differentiate and to distinguish themselves from those families they consider beneath them in status. Doing so involves the consumption of not only foods, but other status symbols that carry cultural capital and prestige. Hence the increase in demand for shark fin soup. My hypothesis would be that if one were to observe the social status/class of the people who consume shark fin soup, the majority of these families would fall within that grey area of families who are trying to change classes, or whom are at the top of the middle class or bottom of the upper class. Those families are at the highest risk (or potential) of social mobility, and probably the ones that require the most conspicuous consumption of goods that will help them stay in their desired social class. Just a theory though. It could also be lots and lots of really rich people.

Also interesting, and slightly tangentially related, according to someone interviewed by the Times, is that the three treasures of the sea in China are abalone, shark fin, and sea cucumber. I never would have expected sea cucumber to make that list on account of... how easy it is to catch them. Unless sea cucumbers secretly had these mouths with rows and rows of teeth. That would be terrifying.

Further reading:
Bird, Maryanne. "Man Bites Shark." Times online. February 2001. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,100660,00.html?iid=fb_share

Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_fin_soup

Qin, Amy. NYTimes.com "Taste for Shark Fin Fades Slightly in China." (see link at top)

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Real NorNorCal

South Lake Tahoe :)
I still haven't been able to wrap my mind around the fact that it's 2013. It's kind of like.... what. What do you mean it's already 2013. Oh crap, I totally just wrote 2012. Let me add a little loop to the bottom to make it 2013.... just curve the end around a little bit and FIXED.

I'm going to be doing that for months. Sigh.

Winter break was too short. Way way way too short. Despite it being like, third week into the quarter and over halfway through January, I'm still like "what do you mean, winter break finished?" Sigh.

It probably felt like that because my family was all over the state. I went up with my dad and brother to Tahoe, picked up my grandparents and sister from Reno and went skiing. Lots of fun, but I fell so many times. So. Many. Times. We skiied the whole time at Sierra-at-Tahoe, close to South Lake Tahoe. My brother and I went three times and oh man. Skiing uses a completely different set of muscles. I hurt so much after the first day, despite only getting four runs in, because skiing is like doing a squat the entire time you have your boots on since you're generally unable to stand up straight. Also I haven't skiied in over three, four years. ...and I'm out of shape.

It was absolutely beautiful though the first three days we were there. Blue skies, sunny, fresh snow. Got a bit cold, but with enough layers that wasn't much of a problem. The weird thing is that when I was in Japan - with equally cold weather - I wore waaaaay more clothes and had layers upon layers upon layers, even when I was riding my bike and walking to work. So "but you're constantly moving and will be warm that way" wasn't really like, a thing, especially since whenever you ride on the ski lift, you're sitting still for a good while anyways.

My brother probably wasn't the right person to get back into skiing with. He's the kind of person that's like "so what, you fall down, you get back up. You're going to fall down, so whatever, take risks" kind of dude. Which is cool. I wish I was like that sometimes. But I'm not. Not when it comes to things that are painful like falling down mountains (or falling in general). That's kind of why I never really wanted to learn how to snowboard, and why I walk so freaking slow on ice and snow. I don't want to fall. It's not afraid so much as overly cautious.

Maybe a little bit afraid too.

The "warm up run" my brother allowed me to do wasn't the nice easy bunny slope I wanted to remember how to ski on. Oh no. We went to the second highest ski lift and took the beginner green runs the whole way down. About half way down, the trail splits from the "EZ way down" course, Sugar and Spice, to this ridiculously annoying, full of turns run appropriately called Corkscrew. I can't turn for crap. D:  My approach to that run was "come to an almost complete stop and then kind of very slowly turn" that occasionally turned into "fall down so you don't fall off the mountain, then get back up and turn" turn.

SNOW DINO
The whole "fall down and then turn yourself manually" turn is something I've gotten quite good at. When my sister finally joined us on the slopes two days later (my brother and I took a day off to uh, recuperate. I made this super rad snow dinosaur, since making a full blown snowman seemed like way too much cold at that point since I was barefoot lol.) we - still at Sierra - decided after my sister had gone a few runs to go "exploring" some of the other runs since my brother was getting bored of Sugar'n'Spice and Corkscrew. He managed to get me to go down a blue medium slope, since it wasn't *too* terribly steep, so I figured, why not try this other one. It was called "Upper Sleighride" and we figured, "how hard could it be?"

I think I was stuck at the top of the incline for a good 15-20 minutes. We came out of this rather pleasant area with some hills, and then BAM it was like HELLO SHARP STEEP HILL. Like those kind where when you're at the top and you look out and you can't actually see the rest of the run. There was another section across the way that looked vaguely less steep (but still pretty steep) so after running into some ski patrol guys who offered the solution of waiting for 45 minutes until the slopes were closed and the run clear, I figured that perhaps this way would be an alright way to go down.

It generally involved falling every time I tried to turn on my right foot (so turn... left?). Personally, I think I would have preferred to have a snowboard at that point, since at least with a snowboard, you can turn the board horizontally and kind of feather your way down; at no point is your board pointing straight down the mountain. You can also face down the mountain and kind of slowly make your way down (I watched another woman do that. She told me that normally that run wasn't as steep, but for some reason that day it was extra steep. Hooray). Skis on the other hand, when you turn, at some point in time, your skis are pointing directly down the mountain. It's fine if you can turn them in time (though you still pick up speed I think) but I generally... can't, which leads to a few terrifying seconds of OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHCAN'TSLOWDOWN in the case of my right turns, and OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHHHCAN'TGETFOOTALIGNEDAHHFALLING falls on left turns. My brother claims that skis are easier, and to some extent, yes. But for steep slopes, I would have to disagree, especially since my weak point (or well, one of many) is having control in going down steep parts. Barreling down is kind of dangerous, not just for yourself but for others as well. With skis, sure, you can take up the entire run to criss cross your way down, but at some point in time (every time you turn really) your skis need to point down, and you pick up some speed. There are a bunch of other points too but yeah... for me this is a big one. I've always heard that skiing is easy to learn, hard to master, while snowboarding is the opposite; hard to learn, (relative to skiing) easy to master (as easy mastering things go anyways, which is never simply "easy").

Not-so-great skiing conditions

Our last day of skiing was right as the winter storm was hitting Tahoe (we drove out in the middle of the winter storm. Smart...). So while the day started out alright, it quickly was reduced to a super crappy visibility with a lot of snow and wind. So much wind. But I mean seriously, how are you supposed to be able to ski and like, not hit people/trees/know which way to turn for runs/not fall off the mountain when your visibility looks like a huge patch of white?



I spent some more quality time contemplating how cold I was and how to get down the mountain during that run. I had better visibility diving in San Diego (which has really really bad visibility because of all the sand that gets kicked up). I think I contemplated taking off my skis at one point, since I did not want to miss a turn and end up tumbling down the mountain... but I don't really remember how I got down. Lots of "AHHHHHHHHHH" and probably a significant amount of swearing and praying. Also, lots of going really really snow. Good control work I guess?  My brother said he almost was going to ask them to send a search crew for me, it took so long.   (._.);  I felt kinda bad too, since both my siblings were waiting for me at the bottom for like... a while.


Hooray, sibling bonding. After that though, I think they did one more run while I sat in the lodge, since I decided that I liked living and disliked stress. They did agree though, that we were ending the day early due to the ridiculous amount of snow and wind. I did discover at least, that Sierra actually has really good mochas (and chili cheese fries).

Actually, I'm going up again next weekend with a bunch of people from my housing area. Stanford really seems to like planning ski trips (which I guess makes sense since we're pretty close...ish...) but I swear, most of the mailing lists I'm on are like "SKI TRIP" or I keep seeing things for "DORM SKI TRIP" and I'm just like... dang. We didn't have anything like that at UCSD.

...then again, we didn't have PE classes like Polo and Equestrian (though, I think we had rec classes for surfing).