Anatomy of a Japanese New Year

We're not rocking out that's for sure.

Instead, our New Year was one of, excepting exceptionally bratty children and up-chuck, one of peace.

As if the wont of Beloved's family, we spent New Year's Eve eating the usual food, soba (buckwheat noodles). According to Japanese tradition, one must eat soba or udon, a thick white noodle, on New Year's Eve, the idea being you eat long foods to live longer. Funnily enough, Beloved's mother hated soba... until her daughter moved to Nagano (One of Nagano's specialties is soba) and now she's a fan. we also watched the yearly battle on NHK between the red and white teams.

This takes a bit of explanation, NHK, the main government sponsored broadcaster, does a yearly song battle between a woman's team (Red) and a men's team (White). White usually wins. Pretty much if you're ANYONE in Japan, you want to be on this show. The highest earners, the most popular talents, appear. It's as much of a tradition as Dick Clark's broadcast is in the US. It runs from 7:30 till 11:45.

The boys of course weren't allowed to stay up that late of course, but they did manage to stay up late enough to enjoy the all Disney review (Tokyo Disneyland's 40th is next year), which of course made them uber-happy children. The rest of the songs, meh. Well, except for AKB48. And Fashion Monster. But that was about it for the kids. They were in bed and hopefully dreaming of hawks, eggplants, and Mt. Fuji (All very good omens to dream of on New Year's Eve) by 9.

At 11:45 came the final countdown to the New Year, except that it wasn't one at all. Instead NHK did its usual broadcasts from temples around Japan slowly ringing in the New Year by ringing their bells 108 times (It's a Buddhist belief that there are 108 devils that attack humanity and that by ringing the bell 108 times, those devils are driven away) until 12 am when the broadcasters very seriously wished us a Happy New Year.

That's New Year's Eve in Japan, very calm and serious. Sure, there are those who were having some fun going to shrines at midnight for the first visit of the year, but Japan is not party central.

New Year's Day again is very serious. We woke early to see the first sun rise on 2013 and then had breakfast.

Breakfast it should be explained it a rather elaborate affair.

See, according to tradition, for at least New Year's Day, no work should be done so before New Year's Day, Beloved, her mother, and sisters spent the day in the kitchen making enough food to last us for the next few days. The breakfasts were then placed in very beautiful wooden boxes and set out to wait for us in the morning. Come that morning we had a plethora of various foods to eat, tea made from cherry blossoms, and sake. Pretty much all day long we snacked off of these foods (I don't actually remember lunch, we just more or less ate snacks, oranges, apples, chocolates, etc) and then sat down to dinner of, well, breakfast.

Just to have Makoto throw up.

It turned out however that this was more someone ate too many oranges and rough housed a bit too much with his uncles before dinner than being sick (Which is a blessing, last year we managed to have both boys get stomach flu, which meant Beloved spent New Year's Eve at a hospital).

But that is pretty much how our New Year's panned out. We have spent the last few days staying at home, hibernating under the kotatsu, eating snacks and good food (To the tune of me gaining 3 kg) and enjoying the company as they say.

This is a Japanese New Year. It's not filled with parties and the like, though there's shopping and races. There's shrine visits and food, but mostly it's the nation taking a breath, a breather before starting the year. Given that everyone in Japan heads back to their homes for this, we have returned to the beginning before staring again.

So let's start.

As they say in Japan, 明けましておめでとう

Christmas: The Aftermath

Forgive the silence, like just about everyone else, the last few days were a hectic mess of getting things done for Christmas. What you may ask? The usual, wrapping presents, taking the boys out to look at Christmas lights in order to give Beloved some wrapping time of her own, and of course baking.

Yup, baking.

It's become a tradition for me to spend a good two or three days in the kitchen baking and cooking for Christmas various treats and dishes (Thankfully for my sanity, the Emperor of Japan himself helps in this. December 23rd is the emperor's birthday and thus a holiday that is usually perfectly placed in order to let me get the bulk of the baking done). The usual range is eggnog (made from eggs, no mix here), gingerbread men, sugar cookie cutouts, snowball cookies, and cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning with a New York style cheesecake for our Christmas cake on Christmas eve. This year I added fudge and clam chowder to the mix as well, though I got to move the cheesecake till after Christmas.



Now, oddly enough, excepting the cinnamon rolls and clam chowder, none of the above figures in how I would celebrate Christmas back home in the States. I would bring home Cinabons for Christmas morning though and in my family, Mom's clam chowder in a sourdough breadbowl is the dinner for Christmas Eve, but in terms of cookie production, it just never happened. Let me hasten to state this isn't due to my mother being a bad cook (And no, I am not just stating that because she reads this blog some times), but more of a problem of single mother and way too much to do around Christmas to spend the day making cookies. That said, I had a number of relatives and friends who do/did the whole Christmas treat overload every Christmas and had no qualms about sharing. We didn't bake them, but we sure did eat them.

Which is more or less why I now spend a two days producing massive amounts of cookies. I simply missed the tastes of home during Christmastime and wanted to replicate them as much as possible. Once Beloved tasted the buggers, she got hooked. Since she likes to share, we now have a horde of family/friends/co-workers (I take a plate into my school) who also have started to look forward to Christmas baking.

But it has become more than being a bit homesick for the holidays, it's become making Christmas traditions for Makoto and Hikaru. As I previously mentioned, Christmas in Japan is not Christmas in the US. I'm sure many parents feel the tug every year of wanting to re-create their childhood Christmases for their own children, to re-capture the magic, to make memories, to... have that family Christmas. I am no different in this, but I am faced with a problem of being in Japan. My family is half way around the globe, the culture is very different, we lack any number of things that I took for granted back at home, but I still want to make Christmas happen for the boys in at least a semi-American sense.

Don't let squirrels happen to YOUR Christmas!

The semi bit is important I think. It would be impossible to recreate Christmas in America over here in Japan and to try... Well, I have no wish to host a real life version of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (The best warning there ever was about going overboard on getting the 'perfect' Christmas). As with many things, I've had to pick and choose want I want to pass on to my sons for them to remember. Baking works, it really does. Christmas was never a massive affair at my house growing up. That is to say, while we enjoyed it and celebrated it, it didn't usually involve massed relatives or going overboard on decorations, etc.

The only relative who was usually involved was my grandmother on my mother's side who lived 45 minutes away, meaning my sister and I would have to wait until she woke up and came to our house before opening presents, a horrible torture for children and one that felt like it lasted somewhere between a lifetime and a day or eternity.

But we did have our traditions from stocking raids to the above mentioned Cinabons and thus why I bake so much. After just 5 Christmases, Makoto has taken it as Gospel that this is how things happen. We have fun baking together, cutting out cookies, and he has fun with the smells of Christmas (Hikaru it should be noted isn't all that interested in baking, he's got the eating thing down though). We have other traditions from, again, looking at Christmas lights in a nearby park (This year, thankfully, there was a lack of Christmas lights shaped to look like bugs) to watching certain Christmas films from the US (A Charlie Brown Christmas for example), to the all important reading of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" before bed on Christmas Eve before setting out the eggnog and cookies for Santa.

According to Beloved's friends, this looks like a storybook

It's not my family's Christmas in the United States, it's nothing like the Christmas I grew up with, but it has become Christmas in Japan and so far it seems to be working in terms of making memories. Makoto and Hikaru both were thrilled with their gifts and the food (Oh boy was Hikaru thrilled with the food, he has been non-stop demanding cookies for days), and Beloved has been enjoying herself by taunting her friends on Facebook where she posts pictures of what looks like a storybook Christmas to her Japanese friends and casually mentioning that she has to do none of it, all the heavy lifting is provided by her husband. It is Christmas in Japan, but not a Japanese Christmas. It isn't an American Christmas either, but it is our Christmas and worth all the extra hassle.

But as for now, the gifts have been unwrapped, our tree is now dark, and Christmas goes back to sleep till next year. After this small taste of America, we're getting ready for an extra-large helping of Japanese, because New Year's is upon us and if I was busy as all heck for Christmas, Beloved has her turn at bat as we head towards Oshogatsu.

Merry Christmas!

This is how you know Christmas was well spent, two happy kids and a BIG mess

Gobble Gobble Wibble Wobble Do a Noodle Dance! Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving has always been a really important holiday for me. My father's family lives in the San Francisco Bay Area (Why my father migrated to Nevada has always been somewhat of a mystery) and thus I didn't get to see them often. Our trips down were seasonal really, we'd come down for spring, summer, and fall holidays. Spring was Easter break, the 'long' trip. Summer was Summer vacation and Cousins' Week. Fall was Thanksgiving, our last chance to see our family before the winter snows made travel over Donner Pass too dangerous.

Before those who have never been over the Sierra Nevada in winter start giggling (Or those who drive it regularly winter or no), please remember that we're talking about a single mother in a small, front wheel drive compact car attempting to go over a pass that does get shut down often in the winter, or at least gets chain controls. Not to mention that getting stuck up there has happened before...

In any case, Thanksgiving was the last chance to see family until either March or April and while a quick trip, it was almost always fun. Mom would yank my sister and I out of school the Wednesday beforehand (And of course any chance to get out of school early...) load us up, and we'd be off to Bay Area in the annual race to beat the traffic. Certainly we had our share of adventures along the way, for example the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake managed to cause some issues, mainly the collapse of the Cypress Viaduct meant that our normal route to Grandma and Papa's house was gone, which ended up with Mom getting lost and winding up far, far from where we were supposed to go.

But usually we'd arrive and then the next day would be the big day, and boy was it. My family normally seats around 20+ for Thanksgiving and would serve turkey, stuffing, rolls, salad, mashed potatoes, peas, candied yams, corn, Quiche, olives, stuffed celery, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and mincemeat pie. Not to mention all the snacks that came before and after, the wine, sparkling apple cider, etc. The table would stretch from one end of whomever's house we were at (It rotated every year) to the other and groan with the weight of the food, plates, and cutlery. The kitchen would become a mini-war center overseen by various aunts, mothers, and of course Grandma in which foods that had been more or less cooked at various houses were heated up and served while dishes would be washed and the dishwasher loaded and run non-stop. In the mean time, various uncles and Papa would be watching TV (Usually a football game), enjoying a pre-dinner drink, and yelling at various cousins and kids to either settle down a bit or not eat too many snacks and spoil our dinners.

We various cousins and kids of course would be ignoring this and tearing trough the house and outdoors like loons and sneaking as many snacks as we possibly could.

The magic time would be right before dinner when the turkey finally came out and raids on the kitchen would start in order to claim that magic prize, turkey skin!

To this day, my aunts have never managed to serve a non-bald turkey. The skin is always stripped before we get close to carving.

And finally of course, dinner, with family and catching up with what happened since we last saw each other, high dinner theater of the inevitable political argument, and finally clean-up with a chance of a possible ice and whipped cream war started by my grandmother.

It was glorious.

The rest of the weekend would be spent digesting and the start of Christmas shopping on Saturday. Sunday, we'd get into the car and race home in the hopes of not getting trapped by snow while listening to Christmas music; or rather, my sister and I would pray for snow on Sunday so that the pass would shut down and we'd have another day off from school.

Now as a kid, I liked Thanksgiving, but it was Christmas and Halloween where my heart belongs (Kids are kids and free candy and presents top turkey), but as an adult when I started making my own trips down to the Bay Area Wednesday night after classes would be over with at university, I started to really appreciate being able to be with my family.

And then I moved to Japan.

If any time of the year gets me homesick, it's Thanksgiving. As noted, it was the last time that I would normally gather with my whole family for the year. I missed the foods, I missed the traditions, I missed my family. Japan does have family gathering type holidays, two of them in fact and we do gather, but they are in late summer and New Year's and we gather at Beloved's parents house. There's also a lack of turkey in Japan as well. So for 7 long years, I didn't really have Thanksgiving. Oh, sure, I'd try to make something special, maybe have some chicken on the day, and I would give thanks, but... it wasn't Thanksgiving.

This year though, well... This year we have a house of our own and I have two sons who have not learned about this part of their heritage (And given the Japanese calendar, are unlikely to ever make it back to the States in time for it). We also had Beloved's parents coming up for Makoto's 7-5-3 festival and Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day was the Friday after Thanksgiving Day thus I had a day off to cook so... It was time to have my own Thanksgiving.

Turkey before the roasting

Which was scary enough, yes. My previous attempts at cooking a turkey (One of my aunt's gave me a turkey when I was in college as payment for helping her) was mixed at best. Oh sure, the bird came out great, the gravy... Well, all I remembered was that one mixed pan drippings in with flour. Our gravy was more turkey flavored paste. Thus I concluded that Thanksgiving dinner should be left to wise aunts, mothers, and grandmothers. But this year... I had no wise aunts, mothers, and grandmothers to fall back on as turkey and the trimmings are quite different from the Japanese dishes that Beloved and her mother are so good at. Even worse, the time difference meant that there would be no panicked phone calls back to the States in hopes of getting a wise aunt/mother/grandma on the phone to help with a disaster. And even worse-er, just about everything would have to done from scratch. You simply cannot buy a lot of the pre-made stuff.

But I was going to do it anyway. And I did. Spending Thursday night making the pie and all day Friday cooking I served turkey (Bought from Foreign Buyers Club) in a roaster that came from the US, oyster stuffing from a recipe that has been passed down through my family from my great-great-great-grandmother, cranberry sauce, and candied yams. The smells of the day brought me back home and the fact that my sons proceeded to devour the bird and the trimmings till both of their bellies were large and round proved that they are indeed my true born sons, blood of my blood and Americans in the bone.

I see you trying to get into it!

Actually, it was a bit of a problem as Hikaru kept coming into the kitchen and trying to get me to feed him turkey while it was cooling by pointing and saying "Turkey! Eat!" and when I wouldn't, he'd go and get Jiji, Mommy, or Baba in an effort to get them to give him turkey. He got quite annoyed when that didn't happened and attempted to conduct a raid on the table instead. Somewhere I could hear my female relatives laughing at me as I fought to defend my dinner from a toddler. But my in-laws also took to Thanksgiving dinner, and to turkey skin (I, too, had to serve a bald turkey). In fact, the best compliment I received was Beloved asking me to make this again next weekend, which I am so not going to do, but it was great that it was enjoyed that much.

It wasn't quite the same, but it was Thanksgiving with food, laughter, and family gathered together before the coming chill.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was glorious.

And it also was a taste, if a small one, of home; a chance to introduce my culture a bit to my sons and my in-laws. It was nice to see them taking to it so well too. My father-in-law even managed to get right into the swing of things with traditional American happily overstuffed on Thanksgiving dinner after-dinner nap. And I didn't even have to tell him about that one either!

The Garbage Disposal

We don't have one.

Seriously, one of the things I found out coming to Japan is a lack of garbage disposals in kitchen sinks throughout the country. Instead, Beloved has a disposable bag made of a very fine mesh that the tosses kitchen scraps into, presses the water out of, wraps in paper, says the last rites over, and then tosses into the burnable garbage (Garbage is an interesting process in Japan).

The drain itself has a fine wire mess to catch anything that she misses so it can be dutifully returned to the bag.

The more I thought about it; however, the better this deal seems. I can't recall how many times we had to deal with the rise of the 'Smell' back in my childhood. Mysteriously appearing one day, this all pervasive Smell would drive even the dogs out of the kitchen, pawing at their noses. That was usually the sign for my mother to work some magic with various potions (cleaners) and with a lot of muttered spells (Usually of the @!'"%"$"!!! kind) and flicking of switches, she would manage to kick the garbage disposal back into working order and vanquish the Smell. Then came the ritual of the Lecture about NOT scrapping everything into the kitchen sink in the hopes that the disposal would eat it.

My sister and I of course would nod and promise to never again do so, but we did anyway and once again the Smell would return. In college, I discovered my own brand of magic potions and spells to exorcise the Smells that came from being a house shared by 5 college males who had a rather aggressive indifference to cleaning.

There were other tricks that the garbage disposal would perform. One was the swallowing of forks, or other utensils. One never knew just when this would happen until a flick of the switch made it sound as if we had a rock polisher under the sink instead of a garbage disposal. A good chunk of my childhood was spent eating with knives, forks, and spoons that looked as if some kind of overly enthusiastic, if not too bright, dog had suddenly had a craving for stainless steel. Retrieval of said object of course meant that some brave soul would have to reach into the disposal and fetch whatever it had just eaten. Not only was this just gross in terms of what your hand might encounter, especially if we were on a build up to a Smell, but possibly dangerous as well.

Mom, in an effort to keep her kids from playing with the disposal, was full of horror stories about children who placed a hand into the lion's mouth and earned a nickname of 'Stumpy', or just got their hand caught in the drain meaning the firemen would have to come with the Jaws of Life to get you out. Of course, then your hand by that point in time would have turned green and would need to be cut off. To this day, I am still slightly nervous when needing to reach into a disposal, thus is character built.

Now jokes aside, it was actually a bit dangerous as our old disposal developed a mechanical 'tick' one time (Possibly a nervous breakdown brought on by repeated Smells and their exorcisms) and turned on by itself, randomly. We would be eating dinner when one of us would suddenly ask, "Hey, what's that weird 'whirring' sound?" to note that the damn thing had managed to turn itself on again. Of course, a few times it was "What's that weird sound that's like a rock polisher?" as the disposal managed to combine both eating a fork and turning itself on.

Replacement of the unit took some time and quite a bit of money. The only reason I'm wandering off into the trails of my childhood is to relate that, while at first I was a bit miffed at not having a garbage disposal in Japan, meaning we had to deal with the kitchen sink bag and the screen, I have to admit that we haven't had any of the problems I have had with them. In fact, these past 8 years have been nicely garbage disposal free living here in Japan.

Until we had the boys of course. Once the boys started on solids, I discovered that we did indeed have a garbage disposal and I was it. Evidently it is a father's job to consume any foods that the kids don't want and that their mother isn't interested in; especially if said mother thinks such food would add to her waistline.

It should be mentioned of course that Beloved has me on a diet for my health and I too am supposed to be watching what I eat (And if I don't, she is more than happy to do so for me), but it doesn't come into play in terms of disposal duty.

Now, I think I would take it a bit more philosophically if it wasn't for the fact that Makoto is a very slow eater. Normally the kid takes about a half hour longer than just about everyone else at the table to either finish, or decide that he's actually full. I, of course, am a rather fast eater. It's a bad habit, but hey, I'm busy or at least trying to eat quickly in order to switch with Beloved so she can eat while I feed Hikaru. But this does mean that after I am done eating and in fact, feeling nice and full, I start seeing food lobbed onto my plate by a flashing pair of chopsticks.

The drive back home from the in-laws' was rather case in point. Stopping by a service area, Makoto decided he wanted the kid's meal, I got ramen. My ramen was slurped down fast and I was enjoying just relaxing while thinking about the remainder of the drive when I was informed that Makoto didn't want to finish his chicken.

"Here," said Beloved, "You eat this" as she proceeded to fling three or four pieces of fried chicken at me. Protests of diet and being full were met by "But it's a father's job... Hey, what's that weird 'whirring' sound?"

"Nevermind," I told her, "It's just the garbage disposal starting up again."

Boobs = Lunch, or World Breastfeeding Week

I missed it, which is sad. I wish I had known about it sooner in order to say something about it.

August 1st through 7th is World Breastfeeding Week. Now this is something that, normally, dads just aren't that involved with, for obvious reasons.

That said, I think that more dads need to come out more about it. We need to support our partners in this. Yes, there are medical reasons, personal reasons, a whole host of reasons, why a woman might choose to not breastfeed, or only do so for a short time (For the record, both boys breastfed for a year, right up until growing teeth made it more than a bit uncomfortable and even then they DID get formula), but if your mate chooses to breastfeed, we should damn well support them.

When Beloved was tired, she still breastfed. When she was hungry, she still breastfed. In public, who cares? It's time to pop the boob out and feed that baby. And thankfully, Japan understands this notion. Breasts do not always = fun sacks that guys can enjoy, they also mean lunch to a hungry baby. In Japan, we simply don't see the hang-ups in the US about OMG! NEKKID BOOBS! Kids don't have to eat under a blanket, they're not asked to dine while their mom sits on a toilet because someone might get a red, puffy, nipple flashed at them while the kid is attempting to get at the good stuff.

In fact, truth be known, the ONLY time we had an issue with it was when we visited the US with Makoto and he needed to nurse. Then we had to try and find an out of the way place for this while Makoto screamed because in his mind, he shouldn't have to be waiting for food.

So, guys, this is why I say we've got to step up. It's not a woman's thing, it's a guys thing. We've got to state, hey, that's MY mate and MY kid and damn it, she can nurse him anywhere and anywhen and no, it's NOT objectionable, obscene, or anything other than a hungry kid getting lunch. we've got to tell our bosses this, tell our friends this, and tell those who do object this.

Let's remind the world that while a lady's breasts might indeed be a secondary sex characteristic that evolved for reasons beyond being just mammary glands, their primary function is as mammary glands and said glands provide the best start for our children.

I'll do anything for my sons, my wife as well. That's nothing to be ashamed of, it's something to be celebrated.

The Great Japanese Fourth of July (And Other Disasters)

Part of the "fun" of being in an international marriage where one partner is outside of his/her homeland, is trying to maintain and pass on the events which have meaning to you. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes it is actually fun, but many times it's a bit of a struggle between the new country not particularly caring about said special event/holiday which has such meaning to you as well as just trying to find whatever specialty items you need to pull this turkey off.

Now if you happen to be in a nation that shares many of the same cultural traditions, it's a bit easier. I mean, yes, a British Christmas is not the same as an American one (In the US, we usually don't light our food on fire), but it's not so much of a stretch. Being in a country with a very different cultural background, like Japan, however...

I've given up on Thanksgiving really. As much as I miss turkey (God do I miss turkey), the damn thing falls in the middle of the week. Now once every 5 years or so Japanese Labor Thanksgiving happens to fall on Thanksgiving in the US so I can somewhat celebrate it, but lacking an oven big enough to cook even the smallest of turkeys, not to mention lacking turkeys (Without paying through the nose) means that a holiday that was very important to me because it was one of times we would see my relatives in California has regretfully fallen by the wayside. The only real Thanksgiving event that goes on is that I DO manage to give thanks (I'm the only one, Makoto just wonders what Daddy's doing) and I do insist on reading Ten Fat Turkeys to Makoto and Hikaru.

Easter is a bit easier to celebrate, getting chocolate is not a problem and egg dye kits are relatively cheap, but all we really do celebrate is Easter morning with an egg hunt and hot cross buns (Slightly modified, finding  currants has proven to be impossible, raisins seem to work).

It can be done! Even in Japan.

Some holidays of course are both easier, and harder because Japan celebrates them. New Year's for example is one that I've given up on trying to show off American style just because it's the major holiday in Japan and Beloved will brook no opposition to celebrating it how it SHOULD be done in Japan (I.e. eating soba, watching Red vs White on NHK, and hibernating under the kotatsu). Valentine's Day over here is of course backwards as in Japan it's women who given men chocolate, not the other way around ( Beloved tends to claim she doesn't have to as her husband is American so I need to make with the roses), and Christmas is... interesting (So much so I'm saving it for another post).

This is far more acceptable for Halloween.

So with the problems of either trying to show my sons that, no, Christmas does NOT involve nativity scenes with Doraemon or that a Santa suit isn't exactly a Halloween costume OR getting blank looks when I announce that today is Presidents Day, celebrating holidays of any stripe becomes one where the wise parent must choose his or her battles.

Sadly, wisdom might be my dump stat because dammit, I am an American. I might not bleed red, white, and blue, I'm not one to belt out the Star Spangled Banner anytime I feel the need, and while I DO own an Old Glory of my own, I use it for teaching not for flying, but... I still want to celebrate Independence Day.

Growing up I remember celebrating the 4th. We had the parades, the small fair in the park, the BBQs, the fireworks, etc. It was fun, you know? Mid-summer when Mom would be off of work so we got to see her since we were on summer vacation and of course mid-July in Nevada is usually a hot one (Of course, it's also snowed, but that's Nevada's weather for you).

But there's more, silly as it might sound. I liked seeing the red, white, and blue bunting. I liked hearing Stars and Stripes Forever. I enjoyed watching the various documentaries on TV about the founding of the United States of America. As I grew older, more knowledgeable, and far more cynical, I admit that it got tinged with a bit more sighing and sadness as I came to realize that things were not as rosy as I thought they were when I was a child, but I still enjoyed it. I remember my last 4th at home, going to watch the fireworks one last time at the park and celebrating being an American. And while I usually don't make a bit deal about my nationality in Japan, I do want my sons to kinda get the same feeling I had back in ye olde days.

Fireworks ona stick!

But... there are some issues of course. Japan, for somewhat obvious reasons, does not celebrate the 4th of July. To the Japanese, the 4th is just another day, and given that summer break in Nagano starts at the end of July, it's another school day. Even worse, while fireworks are available for shooting off (The Japanese LOVE fireworks), the start of July is still rainy season so more often than not, our 4th has ended in a drizzle instead of a bang (I admit that this concept still baffles me. Nevada gets so little rain that the notion of an entire month of rain still is unthinkable). But still I try, the 4th becomes a day when I put my foot down and shove Beloved out of the kitchen and forbid the making of Japanese foods, or particularly healthy ones for that matter. No, THIS day we're going to eat American. We're talking cheese burgers or chili-dogs, with a fruit salad and maybe corn-on-the-cob, and ice cream for dessert. For one day at least my sons can taste a bit of America.

This year however proved to be a bit more of a challenge than previous years though. For one, on the actual 4th, I was teaching so it was a no-go for either the dinner or the fireworks (Which turned out to be somewhat of a blessing as it rained that night of course). Saturday the 7th also fizzled out due to classes so everything was re-set for Sunday the 8th. So we were four days late, but hey... it used to be that Independence Day celebrations lasted a week, right? Sadly, it proved to be one sans chili-dogs as while I had the dogs, the buns, and the cheese, I lacked chili and so did the store that I used to be able to find the damn stuff. I also lacked the time to MAKE chili so a very quick "Hey-Beloved-I'm-going-to-the-store-to-get-tomatoes-and-making-Chicago-style-dogs" was uttered.

Now, the dogs themselves were slightly unconventional. I didn't have all beef franks, I also lacked a poppy-seed bun and sports peppers, but excepting Makoto spitting out the pickle spear, they came out pretty good. Beloved had never had one of them before and was very impressed.

The final event, the fireworks, also started off a bit wonky as the neighborhood head wandered by for a visit at JUST the wrong time, taking up the 15 minutes I planned to do fireworks before our favorite TV show came on and then we discovered that the firelighter we had was pretty much out of juice. Still managed to fire up 4 sparklers, which both Hikaru and Makoto liked and then... well... then...

While at the local home store I bought what I thought was going to be a fire fountain. In other words, a multi-colored flare that would look pretty. What I got was an actual shell that went up a good 50 feet or so and then exploded. I'm sure our neighbors loved that one. Makoto did, he liked it a LOT. Hikaru however... well, loud bangs when you're not expecting it...

But at least we did eat American and we did set off some fireworks all to celebrate 3-out-of-4-household-members' nation's birthday.

Or so I thought, until when asked why we were doing this, Makoto replied with "It's Mommy's birthday!" I know American can be referred to as the motherland and Mom the flag and apple pie and all, but...

Like Sons, Like Aunt?

My sister is an, let's just say interesting, person. Now don't get me wrong her, time (and distance) has made me appreciate all the more my younger sister. While true that we spent the better part of 17 years or so at each others throats, the both of us have mellowed enough to admit that we not only are fond of each other, but might actually like each other.

Admittedly, being over 2,000 miles apart and only seeing each other once in a blue moon and even then only for a few days at most might have something to do with that.

But my younger sister has grown into a charming woman whose artistic skills I stand in awe of. She literally cannot touch anything without somehow making it artistic. She taught herself how to play piano by ear and is far braver than I in terms of exploring the wild (Or at least weirdly interesting) side of the world. I might have her slightly beat in terms of shear distance from our home, but she has had far more varied experiences than I. All that said, my sister does have some rather entertaining habits that I grew up with. One, she is the farthest possible thing from a morning person. Getting her out of bed took a major operation. Indeed, I recall one summer where my cousins and I resorted to placing frozen hot dogs in her ear in an attempt to wake her up so that we could all go somewhere. And getting her out of bed was just the start, she had this amazing talent to be able to sleep anywhere, any-when.

Then there is the matter of her security blanket. She slept with it until at least college and by the time she had gotten there, that blanket had been reduced to hunks of yarn kept safely in a pillowcase. As a child however, she was incapable of sleeping without her bankie, as a number of nights with screams and howls raising the roof until it was found proved.

And finally though, she has a cast iron throat. One of my fondest memories of my sister is her at age three with our great-grandfather sitting her at the bar in our grandparents' and feeding her cocktail sauce that he was spicing up until she said it was right. I have memories of her chugging Tabasco sauce straight from the bottle. A cooking mistake on my part once had me gasping for breath and my mouth under the tap (I learned the hard way that one cannot substitute crushed red peppers for red bell peppers) was reported by her to be "Slightly hot".

I don't know what this woman's stomach is made out of, but I'm almost fairly certain that given she participates in Thai pepper eating contests that we could probably use it as shielding up at Fukushima.

Now my sister has met one of her nephews once. We brought Makoto over when he was 8 months old. She has talked to him on the phone some times of course, and being a good aunt, she always remembers to send something over for the holidays and birthdays. She hasn't met Hikaru at all. And yet... Somehow, some way, this woman has shaped my sons in her image.

Makoto, as it has been mentioned, is NOT a morning person. He reminds me strongly of my sister from how me must be dragged kicking and screaming from his bed to the bad mood he has when he is woken up. Hikaru of course is a morning person, but seems to have gotten my sister's ability to sleep wherever suits him whenever he feels like it. Like my sister, Hikaru is also attached to his blanket. He refuses to go anywhere without it and God help us should it not be in the bed when we try to put him there.

Blanket washing day is a trial for Beloved, not only does Hikaru stalk around the house in a tantrum because she cannot produce the blanket when he demands it, but when it finally dries, it doesn't smell right and that makes him madder.

But it's the food that really brings forth memories of my sister, especially Hikaru and spicy foods.

Curry and Rice, Japan's national dish

To sidetrack a bit, let me tell you about curry, specifically, curry and rice. While many would think that Japan's national dish would be sushi, those of us over here know better, it's curry. Brought over to Japan during the Meiji Era by the British Royal Navy, it is THE comfort food of choice. Every Japanese boy knows his mother's curry. Every child in Japan learns how to cook curry and the variations in the dish goes from house to house as each mother (Or father for that matter) has their own special way of cooking it. There's TV programs about it (Seriously), there's news stories about different kinds or styles of curry one can find. Curry is even bought as a souvenir from various areas of Japan.

And of course Curry Bread is one of those traps that all new gaijin fall for when they arrive in Japan.

But curry is excellent. I've eaten it from one end of Japan to the other and loved it. It's one of those safe dishes that, when you don't feel like experimenting, or just in a hurry and all you want is something good, curry me.

But it IS spicy. Kind of. There are curry places that serve REALLY spicy curry. One place makes a special 119 curry (119 by the way is the Japanese version of 911) that is so spicy that the cook dons a gas mask to get 'er done. Most Japanese curry however isn't all that particularly spicy. While I don't have my sister's tolerance for spicy foods (Chile being the exception), I can handle the curry with no problems. Children however cannot.

Most Japanese kids start off eating kid's curry, which is this pale yellow (As opposed to red) concoction that is about as spicy as mac and cheese. Bland would be an understatement. So it was with Makoto. It took him a few years to accept his mother's excellent curry (I stand firmly by my statement that Beloved makes the best curry in Japan). Hikaru however... takes after his aunt. His first encounter with curry involved him stealing a spoon and dipping it into my dish. Before we could stop him, he put it right into his mouth at just over a year old.

He didn't cry, he didn't fuss, instead he went right back for more. Every curry night since then has been a repeat of this, he loved curry, the spicier, the better.

These kids don't take after their father, they take after their aunt!