In Kyoto, of course, they are more polite and don't say "no" at all, just pause for a long time and say nothing until you get embarrassed and ask a different question, or leave.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Here also are huge men having horns four feet long
At the start of June, my father comes to visit. I plan to take him to a sumo match. They are big folk, and if you would believe, it is all based on a diet of enormous quantities of cabbage soup. The all-you-can-eat restaurants frequently have signs saying "No Sumo" (or more literally, "Sumo Wrestlers are Politely Requested to Not Dine Here, Polite-Modifier(onegaishimas)", with a little cartoon of a man in a uniform with his hands crossed in the universal, "Sorry but no".
In Kyoto, of course, they are more polite and don't say "no" at all, just pause for a long time and say nothing until you get embarrassed and ask a different question, or leave.
In Kyoto, of course, they are more polite and don't say "no" at all, just pause for a long time and say nothing until you get embarrassed and ask a different question, or leave.
serpents also of such magnitude that they can eat an ox whole
Harpers occasionally brings me wonderful things - the rules of Texas Hold 'Em, commonly asked questions by recruits at an Al Q-- training camp ("Is it OK to poison the well of Al I-- as they have held the name of the prophet in vain and have just come here to play cards all the time"), the diary of an Argentinean rancher in the US (cows really taste better if they roam free in the pampas, like Australian cows) and now pigs.
Pigs, it seems, in the 90s, were heavily marketed as being "the other white meat" to health conscious folk who had settled on eating only chicken and fish. Super lean, super-fast-growing new breeds were used to achieve this, though with an unfortunate genetic predisposition to extreme nervousness. Hogs were known to drop dead of fright on hearing a car door slam shut too close to the barn. (Representative from Monsanto says, "But if a customer loses one of our pigs, we replace it"). And pigs that die stressed produce acid in their muscles, which causes the meat to lose its form and taste bad.
Look out for greyish meat with clearish liquid pooling in the supermarket tray. The Japanese, it seems prefer their pork to taste good, and are willing to pay more for it. Look for meat that is darker (the darker, the higher the ph, the less acidic) and has a fine edge where it has been cut.
Pigs, it seems, in the 90s, were heavily marketed as being "the other white meat" to health conscious folk who had settled on eating only chicken and fish. Super lean, super-fast-growing new breeds were used to achieve this, though with an unfortunate genetic predisposition to extreme nervousness. Hogs were known to drop dead of fright on hearing a car door slam shut too close to the barn. (Representative from Monsanto says, "But if a customer loses one of our pigs, we replace it"). And pigs that die stressed produce acid in their muscles, which causes the meat to lose its form and taste bad.
Look out for greyish meat with clearish liquid pooling in the supermarket tray. The Japanese, it seems prefer their pork to taste good, and are willing to pay more for it. Look for meat that is darker (the darker, the higher the ph, the less acidic) and has a fine edge where it has been cut.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Mass Consumer Goods
In Kamakura, home to the Daibatsu (Great Bronze Buddha) we stopped in a variety of antique shops on our way through the temples. Coming from Australia, where the antiques only reach back 200 years (well, and then back through a further 40,000 but you are not allowed to keep those), I find the Japanese antiques fascinating. Every antique store has a vast collection of blue and white Meiji (1868-1912) plates. The country has been producing china for export to the world for centuries after all.
In a recycled kimono shop (that is, recycled into bags, placemats, fans, etc), I found a plate with a whale design. Not having ever known anyone to put a whale in a plate before, I bought it, quite happy.
The following weekend, in another antique store in Shimakitazawa, Tokyo, among the usual piles of old white and blue china, I found... the same plates! in fact, in a wider range of shapes.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
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