Life In Japan: Rice Balls

When Americans needs to eat on the fly, they grab a hamburger.

When Japanese need to eat on the fly, they grab a rice ball.

The basic rice ball — actually there are no fancy rice balls — costs around 98 yen [$0.68].

Hamburgers can of course be upgraded with an enormous array of options. In an upscale restaurant, they can be over $18.00, in that case with the hamburger experience significantly enhanced by having it delivered to your table — the one with a view of the city skyline — by a lovely waitress or handsome waiter, smiling ear-to-ear. Even at McDonald’s, a Double Bacon Quarter Pounder with cheese sets you back $6.99 [1005 yen]. The most basic hamburger at McDonald’s — meat and bun, no cheese — pictured above, is $1.59 [229 yen], almost 2 1/2 times what a rice ball costs.

Then again, you get a lot in an American hamburger that you don’t get in a Japanese rice ball. There’s the preservatives, the growth hormones, the antibiotics, the residues of pesticides and herbicides, the traces of antipsychotics, blood pressure modulators, sleep aids, cocaine, MDMA and other recreational drugs commonly found in the drinking water in the U.S., micro-plastics, maybe depleted uranium.

Both being fast foods, hamburgers and rice balls come ready to eat. Theoretically, you can start chomping them down as soon as you pay for them, right at the check-out counter. For certain, you can eat them in your car or even walking to your car.

Unwrapping them is slightly different. I’ve had friends back in the U.S. who actually don’t even bother unwrapping a McDonald’s hamburger. They eat the wrapping right along with the burger and say it tastes pretty much the same, nice and greasy.

Unwrapping the rice ball is a little more involved. Masumi patiently instructed me in what she calls the 1-2-3 method and with some practice, I managed to master it. Here it is . . .

Now as long as this went according to plan, the delicious rice ball is ready for consumption!

Every culture has its advantages and disadvantages. I really love a good hamburger but I was never convinced that McDonald’s hamburgers were actual food. A long long time ago, when I was a pimply 20-something musician, I confess to being hooked on Big Macs. I recall they tasted really good, especially sitting in a park listening to some other local band.

Nutritional advice was not so readily available back then, at least not to the dumb-downed public, of which I was a clueless member. The most profound meme — this was before the word ‘meme’ had even been invented — on eating was: ‘You are what you eat.’ Which was among the reasons I never ate truck tires or dog poop.

Now, everything you wanted to know and a lot you don’t want to know is available on the web. There are no excuses for the eating habits — and yes, they are habits — of people and countries.

I’m not going to preach. I’ll close by making a couple points . . .

First, the most delicious rice ball doesn’t come close to tasting as good as the most delicious hamburger. That’s just a reality.

Here’s another reality, a statistical reality.

The life expectancy in the U.S. is 76.1 and falling. The life expectancy in Japan is 85.0 and rising.

Conclusion: Choose what you eat as if your life depended on it.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Life In Japan: Rice Balls | John Rachel

Life In Japan: Shoes!

Japanese DO NOT wear their shoes inside their homes.

I can’t begin to tell you how difficult this was for me to understand and adjust to when I initially arrived.

Frankly, at first I thought the whole country was OCD, in the throes of some obsessive clean disorder, or perhaps all cult foot fetishists.

This led to some moments of intense embarrassment. I would tromp into someone’s house in my loafers and as politely as they could manage, be greeted with a look of total horror! No one wanted to offend me but I might as well be dumping a bucket of monkey entrails onto their floor. Their reaction was entirely reflexive. My reaction was oafish: “Uh, sorry about that.” I definitely didn’t get what a hygienic faux pas I had just committed . . . at least for a while.

Growing up in different cultures, we are each conditioned in different ways. I had never thought about it. Shoes were shoes. They go on the feet and they go where the feet go.

Then I did start to think about it.

Most homes in the U.S. are carpeted, at least the living and sleeping areas are. Recognizing that dust, dirt, hair, skin, pet fur, drool, eyelashes, belly button lint — whatever — tends to drop and accumulate, we regularly vacuum. Then once a year, every other year, or when it finally dawns on us “it’s time”, we either rent a carpet shampooing machine or we hire a professional carpet expert to give our floors a thorough wash.

But . . .

Have you ever looked at the wash/rinse water in the tank of a carpet shampooing machine after the job is done? It’s unbelievable! Disgusting! Horrible! Scary!

You see, regular vacuuming just gets the surface. And all sorts of truly ugly abominations, particles, chips, flakes, and strands sink into the nap and settle at the bottom in the woven base. Now, think about it. We Americans lay on the carpet, rest our hands on the carpet, let the baby crawl on the carpet, maybe even make love on the carpet, fractions of an inch from all sorts of unimaginable filth.

How does all this debris accumulate? Some comes from us and our pets, or from our own bodies. But a lot is brought in on the soles of our shoes. All day we walk around on dirty surfaces, streets, sidewalks, where dogs have pooped, cars have driven, people have spit, worms have crawled, birds have deposited droppings — I could go on but you get the picture — then track all this into our beautiful American homes. Not very smart if you think about it, eh?

Maybe the Japanese are onto something!

Back to my awakening. When I refer to my initial cluelessness about wearing shoes inside, I’m talking about only my first few months here. Rather quickly, I changed my habits, in the process turning my thinking around a full 180º about shoes and cleanliness. Now I’m fully rehabilitated from my Western ways, wondering why I never questioned them before.

No, Japanese are not pathologically obsessed with cleanliness — well . . . maybe a little — but merely prudent and protective of the sanctity and hygiene of their homes.

By the way: Notice the slippers in the photo at the beginning of this article. Every Japanese household provides slippers for their guests to wear after they’ve removed their shoes. For me personally the only problem is, most standard slippers are much too small and quite uncomfortable for me to try to squeeze into. But I do appreciate the gesture. Nice touch!

I’m sitting here in my living room writing this. I’m in my stocking feet. Those are my black sneakers in the photo of our foyer. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]




Life In Japan: Shoes!