Japan is a society structured around conservatism and a universal refusal to break from the collective mold. Group exercise and regimented parallel parking is the norm and dining requires a legal almanac all of its own.
Serving up individual meal components in separate vessels, those who dare to mix are ostracised from society, doomed to spend eternity in solitary exile.
And using the wrong sauce is punishable by death. Gyoza poised in Ramen Family, the Oriental equivalent of a Blackpool seafront pre-smoking ban greasy spoon, the waitress scurried over to remove the pot of sauce I had just poured. Handing me a clean dish she pointed frantically at another bottle of an identical looking condiment at the end of the table. I was left with no alternative other than to do as instructed.
Putting anything in your rice bowl is more taboo than showing a video of anal-prolapse porn to a class of four-year-olds. After a year I have plucked up enough courage to sneak other food-stuffs into my rice when no one is looking but the guilt I feel burns me to the core, outweighing any level of satisfaction.
While sauce etiquette can be a very risky business, it is perfectly acceptable to make more noise than a pig suffocating on its own swill when eating your noodles.
The maths teacher in my Junior High School, who has taken the country's infamous 'noodle slurp' to a whole new level. Defying the laws of science, he manages to slurp cake, crackers and sticky rice with the same wet desperation of an attention seeking St Bernard.
I digress.
Despite all this, and much much more, the Japanese do have a childish streak and burning desire to find an excuse to celebrate pretty much everything.
Cherry blossoms trees blossom, they sit beneath the branches and get drunk off Sake.
Fireflies hatch, they sit by the river and get drunk off sake.
Spring “Setsubun”, they make sushi and get drunk of sake.
Rainy season comes, it’s time to plant the rice, they climb into a water-filled muddy paddy field to play ‘Mud Olympics,’ and get drunk off sake.
There seems to be a running theme here.
Returning to the mud athletics which, nine months down the line, still ranks as one of my favourite events on the Japanese calendar.
From the second I could focus my one passion has been mud. This led to a tirelessly angry mother, who spent too many years ordering her grotty swamp monster to strip at the doorstep, before hosing it down and ushering it into the bathroom.
With no disapproving mother on the horizon I took full advantage of the annual mud event in a rice paddy just outside of Tsuyama.
Events at what transpired to be a more vicious version of Takeshi’s Castle included wheelbarrow races, flag dashes and a three legged-race with granny stockings yanked over the flour doused heads of the losers, inevitably the less able foreigners.
Other events, including the hop, skip and jump and an ultimate cycling challenge, resulted in the disappearance of countless contestants, claimed by the paddy field swamp monster as they landed in the shin-deep slime.
As the Croc was sucked from the foot of one friend, a manual dredge ensued. It was I who unearthed the missing footwear, holding it high for all to see as the crowd cheered in awe and admiration. For some reason saving such an abhorrent article is cause for celebration, and excuse to drink even more sake.
In a grande finale we were handed water pistols, paper targets strapped to our heads, and set lose in the muddy waters, engaged in an every-man-for-himself battle to the death.
The fire brigade was on hand to power-hose down the mud-drenched survivors, and the sausage a colleague from California had salvaged from a puddle of mud, reinforcing the commonly known fact, among the Japanese massive, that all westerners are idiots.
Being the only female Western participant, the event commentator took great joy in referring to me as “Shexy Ellie" throughout the course of the day.
With marginal male attention in weeks, flour coated, muddy and bite-riddled knees, which had swollen up to the size of very old trees, I felt as far removed from “shexy” as someone who has turned up to a fancy dress party dressed as Myra Hindley.
What’s wrong with these people?
Friday 16 March 2012
Wednesday 14 March 2012
I Kissed a Frog and I Liked it
In a group interview prior to jetting off to our new lives on the orient, we were asked;
“Why do you think there is a higher ratio of men to women who teach English in Japan?”
A boy, who had already expressed that he wanted to come here to, and I quote, “Eat noodles on New Year’s Eve,” shot his hand up and shouted without prompt; “to get married.”
“Correct,” the interviewee replied, confirming our company is in fact a find a bride organization cleverly masked as an “Assisted Language Teacher” provider.
Having assumed the reason to be that men are less emotionally attached to their loved ones than the more loyal female of the species, this naively came as a surprise.
There are plenty of young single women in England, why not just marry one of them?
But what was explained during this early days interview was a sugar-coated version of the true facts.
Within a month of being in the country, set on finding someone doable to tide me over for the year, the reality fast became clear.
Socially awkward and lacking etiquette of any degree, the majority of Western men are incapable of engaging in adult conversation.
Like Medusa, eye contact should be avoided at all costs. The second retinas meet you are their captive for the duration of the evening.
They will rabble incoherent gibberish while you sporadically nod and grunt to show you are listening. Entirely socially ungracious they wouldn’t even realize if you choked and died before their eyes. They would carry on regardless, making as much sense as someone who has eaten a tin of Alphabetti, regurgitated it onto a dinner plate and then proceeded to read the end result.
The only escape is to palm them off on an unwitting passer-by before locking yourself in the squatter until the last order bell trings.
Or feed them more beer. After two more pints, they begin threatening to beat up anything within a five centimetre radius, for no particular reason. But at least the attention is diverted elsewhere.
Inept at making small talk, these awkward foreigners are incapable of striking up friendships on home turf - hence the reason they are in Japan, where just being foreign immediately places them in the same league as Buddah.
With faces you wouldn’t leave alone with a Rottweiler, let alone a room full of schoolchildren, for some reason even a man with the face and manner of a serial rapist, as long as he is Western, is a universal Adonis among the female Japanese population.
This false advertising of Western society has seen many a relationship between beautiful women and Western men, who put Fred West on a par with Eeyore, blossoming into marriage.
Where does this leave Western women?
Gaijin guys are disinterested in white chicks and Japanese men are terrified of our brashly extrovert manner.
The most interest I have had since arriving in this country is a bleach-blonde metrosexual repeatedly shouting “nipples” and tweaking my breasts, a 21-year-old naked boy’s attempts to hump my knee on the beach and a middle-aged Albanian who stalked me tirelessly around an Osaka nightclub late last year. Not to forget the lesbian mentioned in an earlier blog.
During the summer months, the heat saw our desperation accelerating to an extent so great we resorted to crouching on the porch outside a house party, taking it in turns to make out with a little green frog called Derek in the vain hope that there was some truth in the fairytales and we THE princesses to break the witch’s evil curse.
To no avail. At sunrise, disparaged, tired and sober, we aborted what had come to be a futile mission. We only found one frog, which had dried up after hours of abuse.
So the desperation continues.
I would strongly advise fathers everywhere to lock up their sons prior to my touch down on the English concrete of Heathrow.
“Why do you think there is a higher ratio of men to women who teach English in Japan?”
A boy, who had already expressed that he wanted to come here to, and I quote, “Eat noodles on New Year’s Eve,” shot his hand up and shouted without prompt; “to get married.”
“Correct,” the interviewee replied, confirming our company is in fact a find a bride organization cleverly masked as an “Assisted Language Teacher” provider.
Having assumed the reason to be that men are less emotionally attached to their loved ones than the more loyal female of the species, this naively came as a surprise.
There are plenty of young single women in England, why not just marry one of them?
But what was explained during this early days interview was a sugar-coated version of the true facts.
Within a month of being in the country, set on finding someone doable to tide me over for the year, the reality fast became clear.
Socially awkward and lacking etiquette of any degree, the majority of Western men are incapable of engaging in adult conversation.
Like Medusa, eye contact should be avoided at all costs. The second retinas meet you are their captive for the duration of the evening.
They will rabble incoherent gibberish while you sporadically nod and grunt to show you are listening. Entirely socially ungracious they wouldn’t even realize if you choked and died before their eyes. They would carry on regardless, making as much sense as someone who has eaten a tin of Alphabetti, regurgitated it onto a dinner plate and then proceeded to read the end result.
The only escape is to palm them off on an unwitting passer-by before locking yourself in the squatter until the last order bell trings.
Or feed them more beer. After two more pints, they begin threatening to beat up anything within a five centimetre radius, for no particular reason. But at least the attention is diverted elsewhere.
Inept at making small talk, these awkward foreigners are incapable of striking up friendships on home turf - hence the reason they are in Japan, where just being foreign immediately places them in the same league as Buddah.
With faces you wouldn’t leave alone with a Rottweiler, let alone a room full of schoolchildren, for some reason even a man with the face and manner of a serial rapist, as long as he is Western, is a universal Adonis among the female Japanese population.
This false advertising of Western society has seen many a relationship between beautiful women and Western men, who put Fred West on a par with Eeyore, blossoming into marriage.
Where does this leave Western women?
Gaijin guys are disinterested in white chicks and Japanese men are terrified of our brashly extrovert manner.
The most interest I have had since arriving in this country is a bleach-blonde metrosexual repeatedly shouting “nipples” and tweaking my breasts, a 21-year-old naked boy’s attempts to hump my knee on the beach and a middle-aged Albanian who stalked me tirelessly around an Osaka nightclub late last year. Not to forget the lesbian mentioned in an earlier blog.
During the summer months, the heat saw our desperation accelerating to an extent so great we resorted to crouching on the porch outside a house party, taking it in turns to make out with a little green frog called Derek in the vain hope that there was some truth in the fairytales and we THE princesses to break the witch’s evil curse.
To no avail. At sunrise, disparaged, tired and sober, we aborted what had come to be a futile mission. We only found one frog, which had dried up after hours of abuse.
So the desperation continues.
I would strongly advise fathers everywhere to lock up their sons prior to my touch down on the English concrete of Heathrow.
Sunday 11 March 2012
Mozzy Cuntbourne
Unlike their English relatives, Japanese bugs are a menace to society and one that has seen me developing a manic glint, reminiscent of a serial killer.
I have been known to spend entire evenings, cross legged in the centre of my room, straining the lugholes to locate the position of the mosquitoes, which plagued my waking - and sleeping - hours all summer long.
These glorified vampires worked to transform my pasty skinned exterior into a scene from a Black Death reconstruction camp, engorged lumps and bumps forcing me to walk like a wind-up toy soldier, leaving usually friendly locals cowering in the wake of Zombie May Banks.
With an impeccable aim and ability to squash the little fuckers in one foul clap, no fly was safe.
Following a sleep-attack from a particularly gluttonous offender, which left me with a face resembling the product of a sordid love affair between a warty toad and Meatloaf, the culprit became my first victim, its innards making a satisfying squishy pop between my palms.
The harrowing memories of being awoken in such a manner are too horrific to recount.
Despite smearing its remains down my window, as a warning to mosquitoes Yubara wide, they sadly weren’t deterred from my delicious blood.
And so war was declared, my apartment transformed into a mosquito death camp, a tiny plug in egg my weapon of mass destruction.
The death toll reached uncountable figures under the reign of Ellie the Assassin.
With the last of the mosquito’s came the rise of the stink bugs.
Similar in shape and size to the less offensive cockroach, I was not forewarned of their odour, which is exactly how I would imagine an old corpse doused in Old Spice to smell.
Like Big Brother, stink bugs are everywhere. Dragging on an old vest top from the depths of my crammed drawer, I was surprised to see I had formed an obscurely placed extra nipple overnight.
Upon closer inspection, inside the supportive bodice upper half, a stink bug was snuggled in to regions of vest I never even knew existed.
Scooping these beasts up can prove dangerous as they excrete their ghastly serum across your hand. Like a broken heart, time is the only cure for the lingering sensation of bad.
The worst stink bug incident came one morning. Washed, showered, breakfasted and on the way out of the door, feeling dapper in my brand new jumper, I felt a tickle on my shoulder.
Scratching the area I was horrified at the smell that was unleashed, as the bug plummeted to the laminate flooring, wriggling on its back in that irritating way that badly designed hard-back bugs tend to.
I had been attacked from behind, off my guard. And so the foul playing, foul stinking stink bug found itself hurtling towards the valley of death outside my apartment with all the force an angry Ellie May could muster before, with no time to shower again, I was forced to spend the rest of the day explaining my disposition to wary colleagues.
The invasion of the stink bugs made me yearn for Colin the cockroach who, although a little noisy when he scuttled around during the night, was a good roommate, unlike his less savoury relatives.
But there is light relief at the end of the tunnel. For the past month I have been flat-sharing with Susie the Invincible, a resident red on black ladybug, who is no trouble at all. She flutters around a bit but mainly chills on my dressing table.
It’s not just the bugs that come into the home, but those who lurk outdoors which disturb the peace of rural society.
Cicadas and locusts engage in a vicious round-the-clock squawk off, harmonizing with a chorus of relentless frogs throughout Japan’s late spring “rainy season”.
Cicadas, which sound identical to Little Britain’s Anne, are the clear winner every time.
Finally let's not forget the weird array of alien bugs. Poisonous? I cannot tell, but they will meet death by pint glass in an every man for himself battle of survival.
And chanting woman?
Don’t get me started.
I have been known to spend entire evenings, cross legged in the centre of my room, straining the lugholes to locate the position of the mosquitoes, which plagued my waking - and sleeping - hours all summer long.
These glorified vampires worked to transform my pasty skinned exterior into a scene from a Black Death reconstruction camp, engorged lumps and bumps forcing me to walk like a wind-up toy soldier, leaving usually friendly locals cowering in the wake of Zombie May Banks.
With an impeccable aim and ability to squash the little fuckers in one foul clap, no fly was safe.
Following a sleep-attack from a particularly gluttonous offender, which left me with a face resembling the product of a sordid love affair between a warty toad and Meatloaf, the culprit became my first victim, its innards making a satisfying squishy pop between my palms.
The harrowing memories of being awoken in such a manner are too horrific to recount.
Despite smearing its remains down my window, as a warning to mosquitoes Yubara wide, they sadly weren’t deterred from my delicious blood.
And so war was declared, my apartment transformed into a mosquito death camp, a tiny plug in egg my weapon of mass destruction.
The death toll reached uncountable figures under the reign of Ellie the Assassin.
With the last of the mosquito’s came the rise of the stink bugs.
Similar in shape and size to the less offensive cockroach, I was not forewarned of their odour, which is exactly how I would imagine an old corpse doused in Old Spice to smell.
Like Big Brother, stink bugs are everywhere. Dragging on an old vest top from the depths of my crammed drawer, I was surprised to see I had formed an obscurely placed extra nipple overnight.
Upon closer inspection, inside the supportive bodice upper half, a stink bug was snuggled in to regions of vest I never even knew existed.
Scooping these beasts up can prove dangerous as they excrete their ghastly serum across your hand. Like a broken heart, time is the only cure for the lingering sensation of bad.
The worst stink bug incident came one morning. Washed, showered, breakfasted and on the way out of the door, feeling dapper in my brand new jumper, I felt a tickle on my shoulder.
Scratching the area I was horrified at the smell that was unleashed, as the bug plummeted to the laminate flooring, wriggling on its back in that irritating way that badly designed hard-back bugs tend to.
I had been attacked from behind, off my guard. And so the foul playing, foul stinking stink bug found itself hurtling towards the valley of death outside my apartment with all the force an angry Ellie May could muster before, with no time to shower again, I was forced to spend the rest of the day explaining my disposition to wary colleagues.
The invasion of the stink bugs made me yearn for Colin the cockroach who, although a little noisy when he scuttled around during the night, was a good roommate, unlike his less savoury relatives.
But there is light relief at the end of the tunnel. For the past month I have been flat-sharing with Susie the Invincible, a resident red on black ladybug, who is no trouble at all. She flutters around a bit but mainly chills on my dressing table.
It’s not just the bugs that come into the home, but those who lurk outdoors which disturb the peace of rural society.
Cicadas and locusts engage in a vicious round-the-clock squawk off, harmonizing with a chorus of relentless frogs throughout Japan’s late spring “rainy season”.
Cicadas, which sound identical to Little Britain’s Anne, are the clear winner every time.
Finally let's not forget the weird array of alien bugs. Poisonous? I cannot tell, but they will meet death by pint glass in an every man for himself battle of survival.
And chanting woman?
Don’t get me started.
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