Quirky Japan
January 5, 2009 By
One of the primary benefits I usually cite of living in Japan is the consistently high quality of the food. Whether munching on a late night burger at McDonald’s, sitting down for a nice Italian meal, or grabbing a bento box at the local convenience store, I can always rest assured that the food has been prepared with the freshest ingredients in the cleanest of environments.
Well, the flipside of such gastrological luxury is a painstaking and often silly dedication to preparatory rules. In order to assure the highest quality food, it would appear that the Japanese love for rules (and coloring inside the lines) extends to not only how they prepare the food but also to how they serve it. An example – I once ordered a club sandwich at one of the Western-style restaurants in the Grand Hyatt Tokyo. The sandwich came with bacon; however, I – being in the mood to conserve on the pork intake that day – asked that my sandwich be served sans-bacon. Simple request, no? Not so much. Below is a rough treatment of my exchange with the restaurant’s waitress:
Me: Can I have the club sandwich please? But with no bacon.
Waitress: But it comes with bacon.
Me: Yeah, I know, but I’d rather not have the bacon so can you please just prepare it without?
Waitress: Eto ne (Japanese equivalent of a grimaced “uhhh, I don’t know”). I’m sorry. It comes with bacon.
Me: Seriously? OK then. I’ll just remove it myself.
I revisit this glorious moment because I was reminded of such stringent adherence to the rules as I ordered takeout form the Hard Rock Cafe last night. As it turns out, the restaurant has a special takeout menu that reduces an otherwise diversified choice of options to a heavily streamlined version barely filling one page. Nonetheless, I was able to find what Lizzi and I wanted, so I ventured forth undettered. But I wasn’t out of the woods yet, as complications were right around the corner. The drama ensued when I requested that Lizzi’s veggie burger be served with a small side salad rather than fries. The guy I was ordering from was totally confused by the request (this was not a language breakdown, I assure you). After a frustrating few minutes of repeating the request and him responding with objections mixed with confused facial distortions, he decided that our logjam was cause for intervention from higher powers. So, along comes the manager, who kindly informs me of exactly what the first guy did – the veggie burger comes with fries. Again, I explain my small exception request. After a few more back-and-forths, the manager reluctantly confessed that they were not comfortable providing the salad because it would be “damaged” during takeout. Damaged?!?! Thinking about how ridiculous that statement was, I persisted. Finally, the manager acquiesced but not before telling me that they could not guarantee the quality of the salad. I responded by saying that I would happily bear the risk of the salad being handled roughly on the way home, thank you. After a special consultation with the cooks, my modified order was on its way to being filled. After all the handwringing, I was half-expecting the salad to be a monstruous concoction with some sort of special vegetable that immediately begins to disintegrate once introduced to open air. Alas, the salad was a ridiculously simple one – some lettuce, a tomato slice or two, and some red onions. Maybe a cruton too. All packed in a small aluminum box with a clear plastic top. Rocket science it was not, though I am convinced the manager lost a wink or two of sleep last night on the basis of the decision that was made.
And while waiting for my food, I got to take in some interactions between a married couple eating dinner. The man looked Western (probably American) and had tattoos sleaved on both arms, a shaved head and a goatee. He didn’t look threatening at all. Rather, he looked small, with a very slight build and the early signs of an emerging beer belly protruding from underneath his sweater. He actually looked like a dork trying to dress the part of cool. Meanwhile, the woman was Japanese in a very classic way – pretty, well-dressed, soft-spoken, demure. What amazed me more than the odd couple they made optically was their behavior. One of the things Western men often claim to love most about Japanese women is their subservience. After all, Japan remains massively machismo when compared to its Western counterparts. Well, sure enough, I watched in awe as the woman took the steak dish that the two were sharing and dutifully cut the meat and veggies for her husband, only to wait to take her portion until after he had multiple helpings first. Gotta love it!
Of Rice Bowls, Dukies and Thetans
January 5, 2009 By
This may very well be my most interesting post title. How could you not read on after a lead-in like the one above? Seriously!
In any event, most of us American sports fans are wrapped up in the NFL playoffs, but lost in the shuffle was the 62nd edition of the Rice Bowl here in Japan. This the Japanese national championship football game that pits the country’s college champion against the corporate X-League title holder. Yesterday’s game saw Ritsumeikan University defeat the Panasonic Electric Works Impulse 17-13 at the Tokyo Dome. This led me to have the following daydream – wouldn’t it be great if one of the X-League teams hired a former U.S. coach a la Bobby Valentine and Chiba Lotte Marines? I would love the unintentional comedy that would ensue when Lou Holtz attempts one of his signature pregame pep talks.
Speaking of sports, those of you interested in college basketball, particularly of the ACC variety, should check out my buddy’s ACC preview over at Dukeupdate.com. Well done, Keegs, but I’m wondering what BC’s upset of UNC tonight does to your predictions!
And finally, Tom Cruise recently claimed that Scientology helped to cure his dyslexia. Meanwhile, no mention of the psychoses one must naturally develop by subscribing to the beliefs of L. Ron Hubbard, including – but not limited to – hallucinations, delusional beliefs and disorganized thinking. Kind of like trying to be made to forget about your headache by inflicting pain on another body part, isn’t it?
Slice Of Awesome
January 4, 2009 By
Just a little quote from Winston Churchill to remind us why we shouldn’t lament all things America as we enter 2009:
Silly people – and there were many, not only in enemy countries – might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before – that the United States is like ‘a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.’
Taylor Mays Is A Beast
January 2, 2009 By
Watched part of the Rose Bowl yesterday. I really hate USC. Mostly for their excellence. Those dirty bastards just know how to win, which turns me green with Irish envy. Watching USC is like watching a tiger stalk a zebra calf (I still have Planet Earth on the brain). No matter how much you root for the little guy, you know the outcome isn’t in much doubt.
In any event, I couldn’t help but notice how ridiculous Taylor Mays is (safety for the Trojans). Dude is a freak. 6’3 235 and runs a 4.28 40-yard dash. And he’s mean. Just check out this hit he put on a poor Penn St. receiver yesterday. Nasty. Luckily, the receiver turned out just fine. One day, the Irish will have a player in center field with a mean streak such as Mays’, right?
The Snuggie
January 2, 2009 By
Any guy caught wearing this must either: 1) turn in his guy card straightaway; or 2) be subjected to multiple kicks in the nuts by anyone else who witnessed the incident.
Planet Earth
January 1, 2009 By
Recently picked up the BBC documentary Planet Earth. Described by its filmmakers as “the definitive look at diversity on our planet”, the show is an awesome tribute to our little world and the life on it. Five years in production, over 2,000 days in the field, using 40 cameramen filming across 200 locations, shot entirely in high definition. This is an awesome piece of work, best enjoyed on a large HD screen with surround sound.
Below is a clip from the film that shows a great white shark chowing down on some seals. The shot at around the 2:20 mark is breathtaking. While I appreciate the intensity of the shot and scene, I simply view it as yet another reason to avoid the ocean!
Plan B
January 1, 2009 By
Interesting article in today’s NY Times about former bankers who are taking their recent (and unfortunate) turn in luck to pursue careers that cater more to their creative sides. A nice silver lining to all the madness, I suppose.
“Everyone seems to have something else they would rather be doing than their 9-to-5,” [a former banker] said. “I think that people who are losing their jobs are being forced to pursue their dreams and, in a way, are being liberated from the golden handcuffs of Wall Street and venturing into something that might fulfill them.”
Some are pursuing stand-up comedy, some are writing books, some are working on screenplays. I would blog. And maybe write a book. And I’d try to teach myself to play the piano and/or guitar, until of course I realized that I have no musical talent whatsoever, at which point I would return to my keyboard and refocus my efforts on taking Eddyfication mainstream!
Carma
January 1, 2009 By
I’m going to coin a new word: carma. The definition will follow along the lines of one’s ability to successully navigate when placed behind the wheel of a car. Those considered to have a good sense of direction will, generally speaking, be said to have the gift of good carma. Those who routinely find themselves lost; or cannot operate a GPS device properly; or whose best-guess changes in direction end up being wrong the majority of the time; or who miraculously find new ways of getting lost in cities where they have spent a meaningful period of their lives will be among those deemed to have bad carma.
Lizzi, for all her general goodness, has terrible carma. For example, when she uses a car’s GPS to help navigate, there is a substantially greater than 50% chance that we end up defying the device’s orders by veering off course in a major way. Plus, when posed with the conundrum of whether to turn left or right, or take a highway north or south – forcing the dreaded shot-in-the-dark guess while the car remains in motion - Lizzi will invariably choose the wrong path. Of course, I can’t complain much because the reality is that I too have terrible carma. After all, the majority of the time, I’m sitting in the navigator’s seat offering little in the way of assistance, choosing rather to focus my time on the tunes or sports talk radio!
2008 – The Worst Year In A Generation
January 1, 2009 By
This wasn’t just a bad year for the economy. By some measures, it was the worst year any American under age 70 has ever seen. The loss of jobs in the U.S. may be the biggest since the end of World War II. This year’s declines in stock and home prices haven’t been exceeded since the Great Depression. The slump in holiday spending may set a record; foreclosures already have. Credit markets seized, halting the longest expansion in consumer purchases. Europe and Japan also sank as U.S. demand faltered, marking the first simultaneous recessions since the Second World War ended. High-flying emerging economies, such as China and India, weren’t immune, signaling the world economy is just as interconnected in bad times as in good.
Who woulda thunk that a presidential candidate running a campaign of “change” and “hope” would result in the largest victory margin for a non-incumbent ever (and sixth-largest of all time)?
