Much Maligned

Natto is one of Japan's most infamous of foods. Amongst Japans foreign residents and the Japanese people alike, lines are drawn in bold when it comes to the eating of this supposedly healthy dish.

Though still no fan of Natto on rice, I thought that some of the readers of Japanese Light would be interested in a simple and tasty recipe that does for Natto what California did for Sushi. Natto, tomato and avacado salad.

Chop half a ripe avacado and put in a small bowl (miso soup size), then chop half or a whole tomato according to tatse and add to the bowl on top of the avacado. Now mix the Natto and add that to the bowl as well. Top with a little soy sauce and mix it all together.

The juice from the tomato acts to make the Natto less sticky and stringy, and the soy gives it that little salty kick and goes well with the avacado. It's healthy and tasty and, should you be at all bothered by that sort of thing, allows you to answer "Yes" to that question we all ask ourselves sooner or later; "Can you eat Natto?"

Mods

It's not that I'm short of new photos, it's just that every single one of them features my recently born daughter. Instead of playing the Oya Baka (fool for my child), here are some snaps from two years ago. Japanese Mods.

In his 2003 book Pattern Recognition, social futurist William Gibson wrote of the Japanese fascination with foreign trends:
"...Cayce's MA-1 trumps any attempt at minimalism, the Rickson's having been created by Japanese obsessives driven by passions having nothing at all to do with anything remotely like fashion."
(that book prompted the clothing company Rickson's to produce a jacket almost to Gibson's spec)
I have never seen such well dressed mods. Perhaps that comes from sitting in a bar that doubles as a bike & scooter outlet (Vespas and Lambrettas a go-go) and at about the time that the yearly Mods parade gets underway?

The bar's name is Smash Head, located near the Osu Kannon temple in Nagoya.

eMERGENCY

An interesting article today in the Japanese edition of the Yomiyuri Shinbun (newspaper) about the occasional misuse of the emergency telephone number 110 (U.K 999, USA 911).

The police received 950,000 emergency calls (with a small e) last year. These are some of the examples given:

• My legs hurt too much to move. Could you buy my ticket and bring it to me?
• Could you feed my dog while I'm away on holiday?
• It was raining when I arrived at the station, and I don't have an umbrella. could you give me a lift home?
• Could you tell me the dates for X`s concert?
• I'm in a public toilet, but there's no toilet paper. Could you bring me some?
• My new mobile phone won't charge!

In 2004 there were 9,530,000 emergency calls in Japan. The Yomiyuri article goes on to mention that although the total number of emergency call fell to 8,980,000 last year, the number of calls like those listed above are on the increase.

After the death of a woman in 1999 who was murdered after calling the police to ask for help with a stalker (the police did not intervene because there had been no crime committed up to that point), the police have tried hard to respond to all they can.

This example is given in the article:

• A man calls and says that there is a cockroach in his apartment and it's really horrible, and could the police do something about it. The police told him he should deal with it himself but when he called 110 again about the same cockroach, the police sent an officer over who 'dealt with' the problem forcefully and carried away the offending roach in a plastic bag!

My wife likened this attitude to that of some of the parents that her friend has to deal with as part of her job as a primary school teacher in Japan's state schools:

• My child won't wake up in the morning. Could you do something about it?
• My child won't eat at home. Could you make sure he finishes his school lunch?

The Yomiyuri article and the parental requests are not the norm. Most people do not rely on the police to deal with their infestations or on their school to educate the child in home matters.

The Crow

A photograph I did not take:

A middle aged lady carrying a Pekinese dog and wearing a black sweater, an A-line skirt and a pair of black sandals of the type favoured by nurses in Japan pokes warily with a packet of tissues at the corpse of a fallen crow lying on the sandy ground of the childrens baseball area in the park outside my house. For background audio, the faint hum of traffic, the occasional blast of marshal music from the black vans of the nationalists (today is Showa day, a national holiday) and the laughter of children as they play carefree and oblivious to it all in the sunlit park on the other side of the baseball ground's wire fence.

(visit the original meister of the non-photographic image here)

The Big Move

April is moving time in Japan. It's the time when university graduates are recruited and both new and established employees are re-located all over Japan by companies large and small. In almost all areas of work, new contracts are being signed, old contract reviewed.

The competition for the removal and relocation work is fierce, with the major companies advertising on national television promising 'meister quality', free gifts for the kids and after delivery services which include set up and fixing of the larger household items to secure them in case of earthquakes.

For those not moving, April means new neighbours. In my building I know of at least four appartments being vacated. Having only moved here last year I am still settling in, but with the imminent arrival of my first child due in early June we will be thinking about that extra room we wanted a little more.

Edit:
I wanted to add that Damon Coulter, whose blog site you can read here, is making the move back to the U.K from Japan. It's not so difficult to move to most places when you are single, but as a family of four...!
Good luck and safe journey Damon

Drawing Lines

Some similarities indeed. This is an article I never imagined I would write:

At what age do we become adults? In Japan people legally come of age at 20 years old. There are coming of age ceremonies for new adults all over Japan each year.

Now in the U.K as this article explains, former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has proposed a similar coming of age ceremony for sixteen year olds.

After the tube and bus bombings in London in July 2005, there was a lot of talk about the lack of national identity and cohesion amongst the modern youth of Britain. This proposal is perhaps a predictable institutional reaction to such sentiment, but is it without merit?

Aside from the affirmation of national identity comes the question of legal responsibility. As this editorial explains, the legal age of adulthood in Japan is a current hot topic. Should the legal age be lowered to 18?

There is the possibility of big change in both countries. There is also the proposed introduction of a registration card for foreign residents in The U.K which would mirror the much maligned 'Gaijin Card' system in Japan. Another similarity that I never imagined commenting on.

Lines are being re-drawn, with both countries trying to cope with internal changes.