It all started when I headed out to the grocery store to pick up some, well,  groceries. I parked my car and headed toward the main doors. Then I looked up.  The entire wall was covered end to end with moths. I had never seen anything like this before. Big ones, little ones. Blue ones, green ones.  Some laying eggs, others swarming. I could not believe my eyes.  I ran into the store, and saw that many of them had found their way inside as well. Many of the clerks were swooshing them with brooms.  But the clerks were outnumbered.  I found the entire spectacle almost funny. I just assumed it was a cyle year for moths and that was the end of it, grabbed my groceries and went home.  Then things got personal.

    Yesterday I had some laundrry drying outside. I folded up all my shirts and put them in my shirt drawer. This morning I went to grab one of the shirt, and when I unfolded it I was greeted with the most shocking thing I’d seen in a while. I huge moth, half crushed, but still moving, was smearing yellow eggs all over the shirt and spewing some sort of webbing around the eggs. Now, I’m a big nature fan, but I’m don’t like it when nature takes it road show to my bedroom.  Basically, I freaked, threw the shirt away and my stomach has been upset all morning.  All this of course lead me to write this blog post. 

    As Steven Colbert might put it. I am placing the moths on notice. They’ve crossed a line.

   Here is the important difference between those two buttons. The first is （流）。 It means “to flush.”  The other is (呼）。 It means “to call.” God help you, should you accidentally call out the attendant.

If you are a long time reader of my blog, then you’ll know that both Dan and Mannie have visited me in Japan before, and both of them have a deep interest in the culture of this country. Kieran also comes from a Japanese origin name.

Last week, I got my chance. I was at one of my elementary schools, and a couple of sixth graders approached me in the hall. They immediately pointed at the beard and told me how cool they thought it was. Then one kid said, ” you are Santa Claus.” I paused for a moment, then pointed out that Santa has a white beard. He looked at me, almost puzzled, then suddenly his face brightened, then he said, “black santa.”

Indeed. God bless you Japan.

Windy Iwate Mountain, originally uploaded by jasohill.

You’ll probably notice some changes around here. I’ve upgraded the website to Wordpress 2.32 and have decided to go with a new theme based around the K2 interface. I’ve also chosen a new theme for the blog. I will still be focusing on Japan of course, but I will be working more of my photography into the stories as well. I’m going to move this blog more towards a photoblog of Japan.

To start this off I present you the first picture of Iwate Mountain I took this year. As you can see, it’s fairly windy up near the top, where the snow is being blasted off the side of the mountain. I went on a twenty minute drive to find the best shot for this. The entire time, I was worried the winds were going to die down. Lucky for me, they actually got stronger. This is why they don’t recommend you climb this sucker in the winter.

I was promptly loaded into a teacher’s car and driven forty minutes south to the nearest clinic. During the trip, the health teacher kept asking me if my foot was in pain. I told her that I was fine. It didn’t hurt at all. She didn’t seem to believe me, as she kept asking that same question over and over again. Another teacher followed us in his care to assist me in walking. At this point I wasn’t even sure I was able to walk, because no one had even given me a chance to try. Given that my foot wasn’t in any pain, I was fairly sure I’d be able to walk on it.

We pulled into the clinic just as the snow was starting to fall . This was the first snow of the winter. It was perhaps the worst timing I could have asked for. Getting out of the car was my first chance to prove to them I could walk. I got out of the car and they pulled up a wheelchair. I think this is where I might have lost my cool. I refused it outright and placed full pressure on both my feet as I stood. There was no pain. However, my actions caused both teachers to scramble and grab me to make sure I was able to adequately hobble to the waiting room. That was more agony than any pain.

So we get inside and I have a seat. I guess since we were teachers, we got fast-tracked to the front of the line. I didn’t like having to bump so many infirm and sickly looking people but they insisted the doctor take a look at me. He took a quick look at my leg and declared it was swollen. No shit, Poindextor. He then shuffled me off to have it x-rayed. I was opposed to this at first, but I thought it might be a good idea to have it looked at just in case. After a round of x-rays, I was asked to wait amongst the other patients. It was quite a rag tag group. There were a number of older people and some students. Both groups just kept gaping at me as if I were Santa Clause, come to bring them their Christmas desires. I didn’t even want to imagine what injuries they had. I tried my best to doge their eyes, and just as I was starting to have some success, the nurse came out and asked me in again.

I sat down and the doctor showed me the x-rays. The good news was that nothing was broken. The bad news was that he could not pin down what could be causing my ankle to swell so badly. He thought it was either a sprain or an elongated ligament. He said to me there was a specialist in from Iwate University that day and he would also look at the damage. So the teachers shuffled me over to yet another office. This time the doctor took a good look at my leg. He moved it around in a circular pattern and asked me if it hurt. Each time I responded that it did not hurt. I was waiting for him to find the angle that would cause me to scream out. It never came. Then it press in on the swelling. That is when I felt the pain. He said that the swelling was being cause by internal bleeding and that for it to heal as quickly as possible, it should be put in a cast for one week. My jaw hit the floor I asked him why a cast was necessary when there were no broken bones. As hard as I tried to convince him otherwise, there was no going back. My leg was going in a cast. Outside, I could see the snowfall was quickly turning into a blizzard. To be continued….

The Sushi Economy, Globalization and the making of a modern delicacy.

Sasha Issenberg (2007)

Reviewed by Marc C. Bosse
Cross-posted from tiltyhouse.

The year is 1970 in Prince Edward Island. After struggling for many hours you have hauled in a prize fish; a 140kg Atlantic blue-fin tuna. After posing for the ritual trophy photograph on the wharf you bid the charter captain good day and more often than not never see the fish again.

If it was convenient the large blue-fin will be brought to a cannery where it would be purchased for cents on the kilogram. If it was not convenient a local earth moving contractor will likely bury it in the landfill. In all likelihood little, if any, of the tuna would ever be eaten.

In 1972 an aeroplane freighted PEI bluefin tuna sold for 40 dollars per kilogram at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. This rapid change in value was a result in the globalization of trade and changes in Japanese taste since the end of World War II.

The book, The Sushi Economy, discusses the development of taste and globalizing aspects of the demand for tuna in the larger context of the growing demand for sushi across many parts of the globe.

What most people consider ‘sushi’ is a development of popular 19^th century Tokyo street food. Only after the 1923 earthquake did the Tokyo, and hence modern, view of sushi spread greatly across Japan and eventually supplant the regional tastes.

At this time tuna was a modest fish on the hierarchy of sushi. Choice cuts of tuna by modern reckoning were simply ghastly (the toro cuts), the Japanese consigned the fattier parts of the fish to cat food.

After World War II and the inculcation of American tastes in meat and dining the Japanese began to associate rich, fattier, cuts with luxury. As a result the demand for tuna began to rise. Not tuna in general, but large tuna, those that possessed the greatest amounts of toro. Fat became popular, and as the Japanese economy grew the demand grew.

By the early 1970’s the Japanese had largely decimated the local stocks of prime tuna and desired more. At this point in time Japan Airways Limited had a large cargo deficit, they shipped cargo from Japan, but had little air freight back to Japan. A missive at this time to a JAL rep in Vancouver requested a search for high value freight to fill the hold. In time this led him to the shores of Prince Edward Island and tuna.

Over the next few years much of the tuna fishery of the North American coast was brought into the service of the Tsukiji fish market. Tuna would be caught, flash frozen, and receive priority shipping to Japan for auction at Tsukiki. By the mid 1980’s a prime fish could easily reach 100 dollars per kilogram. Exceptional fishes of the time (1980’s) and recent years (2000’s) reached as much as 250$/kg for a 350kg tuna. A fish caught late on Saturday would more often than not be available to eat by Tuesday afternoon in Tokyo.

As the years went by tuna stocks were increasingly depleted in the water of the Atlantic, Australia, and the Mediterranean by local and large Japanese long line fishing vessels.

Then an Aussie had an inspired moment; let us ranch tuna.

Each kg of weight gained by a ranched tuna cost 20$/kg. By the late 1990’s and to present the typical sale price for ranched tuna was on the order of 20$/kg. So how do they make money?

They caught young tuna, typically less than 20 to 30kg, which could be done for a few dollars a kilogram and put them in pens. Since a small tuna had little toro they were not worth much. So the ranchers played a zero sum game to fatten them up to 60kg where they would sell for a reasonable price. All of the profit though was from the 20 to 30kg that nature provided when caught.

Since the development of tuna ranching ranches have spread across much of the world where it is practical. The most common regions are the north of Australia and the Mediterranean. Whereas the shores of Australia are relatively remote a rigourous quota, and vigourous policing, has ensured that stocks are ‘theoretically’ not being depleted.

However, the Mediterranean now has the problem of tuna piracy.

Being bounded by many nations the fishing regulations and policing of the Mediterranean are Byzantine in the extreme. A consequence of this is piracy, the illegal fishing of tuna across the Mediterranean for farming and eventual shipping to Japan.

To an extent Japan is aware of this but also oblivious. Recently when announced on the news that Turkey was exporting illegal tuna many store chains announced that they would not longer purchase Turkish tuna as they were exporting above their quota.

However, tuna laundering is starting to occur.

In Japan the food product must be listed from its country of origin. Hence a high value tuna will likely make its way though conventional channels to Tsukiji, or one of the other fish markets. If it is to be laundered China is now the popular choice. Tuna, of exceptional or pathetic quality is sent to be butchered and processed in China and then re-exported to Japan; where it is labelled as “Product of the People’s Republic of China”.

No origin, no provenance.

** ** **

I am very partial to tuna. The only other sushi topping I am as partial to is unagi.

As a result of this, and for brevity I decided to follow the tuna track of the book that I reviewed. As a courtesy, and to be broad, I shall also provide a quite summary of the other tracks of the book which are wound into the discussion of tuna.

The Fish Business: How does Tsukiji work as well as the other fish markets. Common business practices.

Sushi in the Americas: Examines the pre-WWII tastes of the Japanese population and subsequent development after WWII. [Sushi was a post-WWII development / And California rolls used to be made with King Crab, not Pollock] Considers Japanese chefs as they move to the Americas; examines trainees some of the Japanese chefs as they operate and establish themselves as Gaijin sushi chefs in America.

Historical context of sushi: The origins of sushi in Japan. Regional preferences, format of delivery and development with time.

Marc. C. Bossé

November 15, 2007

The Sushi Economy was borrowed from the New Westminster Public Library

Photo courtesy of ulterior epicure @ flickr, under a creative commons license

Takizawa Morning, originally uploaded by jasohill.

If you were to live in my area of Japan, you might just see this on a particularly clear morning. In this picture, Mt. Iwate stands guard over the small town of Takizawa, south of where I live, and north of Morioka. You usually can’t see the mountain as it’s covered in clouds.

It all started innocently enough last Thursday.  I was to play a friendly game of a volleyball with the teachers of two of the schools I visit. It was a pleasent change from my afternoon elementary classes. All was going well. I teamed up with the elementary school and we crushed the junior high in the first game. Then, we switch sides for the second half of the match. This time, the junior high teachers were putting up a fight. The game stayed farily even, which caused everyone to start playing more ferociously, including myself. Well, I might have be a little too ferocious, as all I remember next is jumping up for a block, then coming down next to another teacher, twisting my right foot, falling down and and feeling an incredible world of pain.

My first instinct was to get up and shake it off. However, this proved to be difficult as it was throbbing like mad, so I ended up favoring my good foot. The other teachers immediately noticed my wobbling, and ushered me over to the wall. I sat down and winced. They asked me to take off my shoe an sock, and that is where things got ugly. What we found under that sock was a large, swollen mass of tissue. It was about double its original size and purple. I’d never seen my foot that swollen, and I’ve twisted my ankle quite a bit.

Someone brought a bucket of cold water and placed my foot in it. The gym wasn’t exaclty warm, and the cold water mixed with the air caused my face to turn blue. Then I started to feel sick. If this is what going into shock is about, then I was all about going into shock.

Of course everyone assumed that I was in a great deal of pain. In reality, the pain had subsided about 5 minutes earlier. I knew at this point, even if the swelling was bad, it was basically a sprain, and that no major damage was done. I was just dealing now with the effects of the cold water. I took my foot out of the water and started to feel better. Then, the school nurse turned to me and said, “Jason, I’m going to take you to the doctor.” My face tunred white. I couldn’t go to the doctor’s now. Besides, I never trusted Japanese doctors. They always overdid it with their treatments. I was now more terrified than ever.

I begged and pleaded and asked them to give me a few minutes to see if the swelling went down. I even stood up(to their horror) and walked around. “See, it’s not so bad”, I said. “I can walk and everything.” There is no way I could convince them. I was going to the doctor. That is when things basically turned to bullshit.

TOMY toy company has designed an exploding piggy bank that shakes violently when you don’t add money to it in a timely manner. This “punishment” is supposed to shame you into saving more money. Oh, Japan, I should have seen this one coming. As if people here didn’t have enough shame as it is. The bank is called the ”人生銀行” or “Life Bank”, and is ready to go on sale any day now.

If you are interested in any of their other 人生 products, you should check this out. It might be the most annoying alarm clock ever devised. They call it the “Life Clock” or “人生時計.”

In order to bring you content above and beyond what the AFP is bringing you, I intend to purchase an exploding bank and play around with it. Stay tuned.

人生銀行 - Product page.