Life In Japan: Planting Soybeans

Sasayama, the traditional rural town I live in, is famous throughout Japan for two food items.
One is wild boar.  We even have a wild boar festival!  Can't say I get very excited about wild boar, either in the wild, or tearing up the local farm land, or on the plate.  Cooked it looks like pork but to my taste buds has a weird flavor.

The other item is black beans, better known as soybeans. 

Soybeans are eventually harvested in two stages.  When they first mature, they are green and relatively soft.  They are best eaten fresh, right off the vine, boiled for 12-15 minutes. 



When you go to a Japanese restaurant and order edamame -- 枝豆 -- this is what you're eating.  They are served in the pod, which is boiled and lightly salted, and you pop the green beans into your mouth.  Delicious!  And nutritious!

Many of the soybeans are left on the vine to mature to the second stage of harvesting.  They become very dry and extremely hard, and they turn BLACK!  The advantage is that these can be stored without refrigeration and used throughout the year for a whole variety of recipes.  Black beans are even extensively used in very sweet soups and pastries.

Regardless of whether they end up as "immature" young green beans or black beans, the whole business starts in spring with the planting.  My wife Masumi and I even get in on the action, planting a couple rows we rent from our neighbor.



Fasten your seat belts. The excitement builds fast as we make some holes, then insert greenhouse-grown seedlings, push the dirt back in the hole, wait, read a book, build an atomic submarine in a bottle out of used match sticks, wait some more, fertilize the plant a couple times in the summer, keep waiting (patience is very important in farming) as momentum on the soybean growing scene steadily keeps gathering steam.  Did I mention there's quite a bit of waiting involved?  Then finally sometime in October it all climaxes in a earth-shaking, rib-rattling, jaw-dropping, game-changing finale (I've dedicated a separate article to the harvest).

Whew!  I'm surprised they haven't made a Movie-of-the-Week out of it.

Anyway, sarcasm notwithstanding, the soybean fields are quite beautiful.  And the farmers are very hard-working folks.  Masumi and I are hobbyists.  The growers are the real deal.

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




Life In Japan: Planting Soybeans

Life In Japan: Annual Neighborhood Barbecue

Notice something about the barbecue in the photo?

There are two things. 

Typically in the U.S. barbecuing is open flame, either over wood, charcoal, or with more sophisticated high-tech grills, over gas.  In Japan, it can be any of those, but just as often barbecuing is done with a hot plate, as shown.  Conveniently, they have hot plates for indoor barbecuing, both at home and at restaurants. 

We own a high-temperature electric griddle so we can barbecue in the middle of winter or during a typhoon without filling the house with smoke or being asphyxiated.

Secondly, I'm used to seeing mounds of meat and only meat.  Yes, they also barbecue mounds of meat here: Unbelievably delicious beef, pork and sausages, though rarely hamburgers and hot dogs.  But the Japanese also love to barbecue just about anything else that can be barbecued!  The volunteer chef above is "barbecuing" -- actually stir-frying -- noodles with cabbage.  Later, he removed the plate and open-grilled the entire range of items for the day's feast.  Corn, squash, onions, eggplant, potatoes, different varieties of mushrooms, garlic cloves, squid.

It seemed odd to me when I first arrived.  Now it makes total sense.  Barbecued vegetables are fantastic!  And don't get me started about squid.  Squid is one of those things I thought was completely weird before I moved here.  Squid and octopus.  Now I'm totally addicted.
We have a village barbecue at our community center every year in the middle of July.  The neighborhood organization pulls out all the stops.  A splendid time is had by all!

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



Life In Japan: Annual Neighborhood Barbecue

Life In Japan: Shinto Monk Home Blessing

All of us at one time or another have had strangers come to the door.  Maybe it's Jehovah Witness or Mormon recruiters; someone looking for a prior resident; a person whose car has broken down; a magazine salesman; one of those people who go around stuffing fliers in mailboxes, advertising a new gym, a sale on snow tires, a new restaurant opening down the street, a holiday sale; a person with Alzheimer's disease who wandered out of the back door of their house down the street.

But how many of you folks can say they've had Shinto monks come by to bless your home, your life, and all of those in your immediate family?



Of course, they're seeking alms.  But that's really standard operating procedure here in Asia.  When I was in Myanmar, shortly after sunrise, young monks would fan out through the neighborhood where I was staying and ask for a daily contribution for their sustenance and the continuation of their spiritual work.  The community values their presence and what they contribute to the social equilibrium, and shows its appreciation with pocket change and small bills.  Is this so different than passing the hat, collection basket, handheld wireless ATM at a church in the U.S.?  I think not.

Besides, the Shinto monks who go door-to-door here put on a nice little show!  See for yourself . . .

It must be working.  No one around us that I'm aware of has gotten the plague, we've had no invasions of locusts, blood seems confined to the arterial systems of the hosts, we never get thunderstorms of hail and fire.  We have our share of frogs but quite honestly they're cute little critters.  Noisy but cute.

I'd say Japan is better off than most ancient civilizations.  Meaning, if it ain't broke don't fix it.  I'm certainly looking forward to another visit from the Shinto good fortune team when they run out of money.  Until then I think I'll just levitate . . .





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



Life In Japan: Shinto Monk Home Blessing

Life In Japan: Annual Neighborhood Curry and Bingo Party

Curry is of course from India.  But the Japanese put their own spin on it and have come up with quite a few of their own variations, some spicy -- but not that spicy -- some mild, all quite delicious, at least to this Westerners palate.  Curry is extremely easy to prepare and is a very common everyday dish, one served at school lunches, outdoor markets, festivals and other social gatherings, restaurants, certainly at home for evening dinner.  Curry here is always served with rice.  Here we only use homegrown local product, often grown and harvested by the very people in my immediate community.

Bingo I assume was imported from the U.S. -- though it's roots are in Europe -- and is quite the rage here.  When I used it as a teaching tool for my English students, it made sense.  Match pictures and words.  Build a vocabulary while learning to "hear" English. 



But I soon discovered that Bingo is played all of the time here.  It's certainly fun for all ages and a good excuse to give things away, something else Japanese love to do.  Giving gifts is like shaking hands or breathing here.  Whether it's a social obligation, heartfelt gesture, tradition, or habit, it's always great to be handed a special gift by another individual. 

Every year our village of Noma has their curry-bingo party in November.  Last year I won some kitchen utensils and two years ago a kite.  I can feel your envy across the vast stretch of cyberspace!



There is so much community here in Japan, at least where I live.  Maybe this isn't the case in the big cities, but certainly here, the folks living in Noma, the neighborhood community on the eastern edge of the city I reside in, get together regularly and work on some project, celebrate a holiday, hold a ceremony, or just have a good time.  It's very charming!  More importantly, because of all of these social affairs, I feel like I belong here, as a member of an extended family.  The regular socializing also gives everyone a stake in keeping the neighborhood safe, clean, wholesome.  Friendly smiles and greetings are the norm.

I say sometimes I feel like I'm living in a fairy tale.  But maybe what I have is just the comfortable, civilized way things should be for everyone everywhere.  Life's not just singing solo.  A little harmony greatly improves the song and the rhythm of life.



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




Life In Japan: Annual Neighborhood Curry and Bingo Party

Life In Japan: Jennifer the Cat, Media Darling!

As an attention-starved author and overgrown baby, I of course am always trying to attract publicity.  Again, one of my kitties has humbled yours truly by being featured in our local newspaper.
 
Maybe I'm approaching this wrong.  Do I need to learn how to purr to get noticed around here?

Of course, the selection of local pets for cameos is not random.  And since our kitties are the most beautiful in the world, what choice is there but to run their photos and say a few complimentary, if inadequate words?  I'm frankly surprised they don't write them up on the front page with a huge eye-catching headline like . . .

JENNIFER THE CAT STEALS EVERYONE'S HEART IN SASAYAMA

. . . or create a special standalone section for them like the Arts & Culture Magazine of the New York Times.

You think I'm biased?  Check out these photos!

Which gets to the heart of the challenge for me personally.  At least in the cuteness department, I simply can't compete.  So I need to create my own separate niche.

I got it!  I'll write novels!  Incredibly cute novels.  With cute covers.  And cute characters.  Cute story lines.  Cute plot twists.

Novels that purr!

Hmm . . . I may have gotten off to a bad start. Politics?  Satire?  Human trafficking?  Growing up in Detroit?  The end of the world?  Drug smuggling?  Eating giraffes?

What's cute about any of that?



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



Life In Japan: Jennifer the Cat, Media Darling!

Life In Japan: Tilling The Soil

I can't say that growing up in Detroit exactly gave me a strong agricultural awareness.  Though for five years my mom and dad had mobile home north of the urban sprawl and the trailer park was surrounded by undeveloped land -- literally fields and even a small forest -- none of it was farmed.  I think the first time I saw a tractor was at the State Fair and it was parked, sparkling clean, gleaming in the artificial light of an exhibition hall.

One thing I truly enjoy about living in a farming community now is that the growing cycle parallels the cycle of seasons.  Back in Detroit, it was the weather that marked the seasonal changes.  Truth is, it's more that the weather drives the growing cycle of food production.  This seems obvious now but simply never occurred to me.  When I was growing up, we got food at the grocery store.  How it got there wasn't anything we worried much about.  That's probably still true for most people.  I hear that urban kids -- at least up to a certain age, around 13 or 14 -- now are shocked to find out that Chicken McNuggets didn't magically show up at the Drive-Thru window of McDonald's, that someone raised real live animals, chopped off their heads, yanked out the feathers, carved the deceased into bite-size chunks.  This imagery is not exactly mouth-watering.

Anyway, as belated as my agricultural epiphany is, I'm finally aware of what's been going on "behind the scenes" for 20,000 years now.  Please don't laugh.  I know my ignorance is pathetic.  But better late than never.  Or is it?

I'll pretend you didn't answer that.

First stage in getting stuff to grow?  Preparing the soil!

Actually I can relate.  What boy doesn't like to play in the dirt!

Preparing the soil -- or more poetically, tilling the soil -- takes two similar but distinct paths here.
One is churning dirt in order to grow vegetables.  This looks the same as what they do in Ohio, Iowa, and Nebraska.

The second is what they do all over Asia, where rice is the main staple.  It is more about churning mud.

There you have it.  I make no apologies.  This may seem mundane, quaint, or even boring to most of you.  I've lived in farm country now for over ten years.  I find it . . .

Comforting?
Ennobling?
Spiritual?
Actualizing?
Holistic?

As a writer, words are important to me.  So I need to find that perfect word or phrase for capturing the cognitive and emotional essence of my reaction to all this plowing, turning, separating, blending, mangling and manipulation of dirt.

Ah!  I've got it.  I find all of this farming stuff . . .

Really neat!




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



Life In Japan: Tilling The Soil