10. Putting the futon away

The best thing about the futon is that it folds up and gets put away during the day; this is the equivalent of “making your bed.” This frees up your sleeping area for other activities (although it’s a bit of a bother to be moving furniture around every morning after you put the futon away and then again in the evening before you get it out again.) My room isn’t that big, and putting the futon away each morning saves it from being totally cramped.

9. Sleeping on a Futon

I’ve always liked sleeping on the floor. I can remember (years ago, in America) pulling the mattress off the bed onto the floor, and having roommates wonder “What are you doing?” The funny thing is I never think about bugs – well, I suppose I’m thinking about them now. But in all my years of sleeping on a futon on the floor, I’ve never had a bug incident. When I’m in my futon, which may not be as wide as a single bed, it feels very spacious because it seems that my sleeping area is as big as my whole room. Now, I haven’t the foggiest notion why that should be important – after all, I’m not rolling all around, I stay on the futon all night every night. But somehow just knowing that I’m not going to “fall off” – that I’m not confined to a certain space gives me a very luxurious feeling. Futons are also nice and firm.

I also suspect that there is something good about standing up each morning from the floor, rather than just swinging your legs over the side of the bed and standing up. I can’t prove this or cite any studies, but it feels like slightly more work for the body.

8. Cottage cheese

For years my breakfast has usually been cottage cheese on toast, sprinkled with cinnamon. My friends get a great kick out of the fact that I hardly ever deviate from this simple, delicious and nourishing routine. Cottage cheese on toast with cappuccino is my favorite way to start the day. So naturally, when I set up house on my own in Japan, I went iso my breakfast treat. I encountered several problems, some of which I won’t go into since this blog is devoted to things I like about Japan, but in the realm of cottage cheese, there were three.

The first was price – what I consider to be a very small container of cottage cheese (200g or about 1c.) goes for almost $2.70! But everything is expensive here, and – you gotta eat!

Second was the choice of two cottage cheese products: one for “salads,” with a blue label, and the other for “sweets,” with an orange label. I figured that I wanted the kind for salads, but it turned out to be very dry, almost like “farmer’s cheese” in the States, and wouldn’t stay on the toast very nicely. Of course, that problem was solved with the next trip to the store when I took the plunge and plunked down the money not really knowing whether I would taste success or not, so to speak. I was afraid this cottage cheese might be sweetened, but it wasn’t and I found a product that worked quite well on my toast. (I just now noticed that they no longer call the orange label cottage cheese “for sweets” – but are now emphasizing the low cholesterol; a response, no doubt to the weight problems that are beginning to plague some Japanese people.)

The last problem was the total difference in consistency. Let’s face it – comfort foods are taste and texture. American cottage cheese has nice curds and is a moist, if not wet product. In Japan, cottage cheese is much more like ricotta – smooth, denser, no curds, almost like cottage cheese that has been mashed up. It’s a wonderful consistency, and very easy to spread, but it took some getting used to, since I thoroughly liked the American style. But I am used to it now, and really look forward to it each morning. Interesting note: I just also noticed that the new packaging suggests spreading it on “bread” – although they show it on something more like a muffin – and both honey and jam are suggested as accompaniments with pictures nicely labelled. Maybe in some future revision they will add cinnamon.

Now, newcomers to Japan who are cottage cheese aficianados will have another problem – the shape of the package. When I first arrived cottage cheese was packaged in a tub, much like that in America, only much (much!) shallower. But lately they have gone to a taller tub with a smaller diameter, more like the cottage cheese that comes with fruit in the States. Folks who don’t read Japanese and are looking for basic cottage cheese could easily overlook it.

7. Newly flooded rice paddies

April is almost upon us, so we’re getting close to the time when the rice fields are flooded prior to planting. Rice fields are generally square and the water is not deep, so in the absence of a breeze the surface can become quite still and look as flat as a mirror, creating a beautiful reflecting pool.

6. Oshibori

In the last post I talked about how clean the Japanese bath makes you feel. Here is something else that makes you feel oh-so-clean, if only your hands. Oshibori are damp little washcloths with which customers can wipe their hands before eating in nicer restaurants. Sometimes they are even warmed up. Even in fast food places you usually receive a packaged oshibori, sort of like a moist towelette, but without additives or fragrance; just a small paper towel moistened with water. This is a little nicety that I thoroughly enjoy!

“Shiboru” means to “wring out” and “o” is an honorific prefix, so you can see how “oshibori” got their name.

5. The Japanese Bath

In Japan, the “bathroom” has exactly this in it – a bathtub and its paraphenalia. The bathtub is the only thing in the room because it has to overflow, hence there is also always a drain in the floor to deal with the water. Why must it overflow? Simply because when you get in, your body displaces some of the water which then spills over the side – not always, since you can get quite good at filling it to just the right level to reach the edge with you in it, but there has to be the possibility of overflow.

The tub can be about the same size as the standard American tub, but is always much deeper. It is filled with nice, hot water, and many of the tubs have a mechanism to circulate the water and keep it at temp – hence, no bubble baths here! The bubbles would gum up the works. In fact, no soap at all in the Japanese bath. All washing takes place sitting on a little stool by the bath, pouring water from the bath over yourself with a special dipper, or nowdays getting that water from a separate faucet, or even showering – but the point is, the washing is not done in the tub. The bath itself is for soaking and relaxing once you are clean. This is important, because families share the same bath water, sometimes even bathing together. But talk about relaxing! You feel mellow, like putty, when you’re finished. And clean – you never feel so clean as when you emerge from a Japanese bath. In cold weather, the bath also helps warm up the body right before you dive into bed – uh, make that futon – to conserve the warmth.

Now, a word about sharing the bath water for those of you who are grossed out by this concept. It turns out that our bodies were designed in such a way that sluffed off skin cells and hair and other assorted yucky stuff float on top of the water, so if you were to encounter these kinds of gross things when it was your turn to use the bath, you simply add enough hot water to make the bath overflow, and your water becomes quite clear again. The downside of this procedure is, when you are finally ready to get in, since the water is now up to the very edge of the tub, the huge amount of water that you will displace along with the great whooshing sound it makes as it leaves the tub combine to make you feel that you are really quite fat!

When I was a child I used to wonder how we got clean in the American bath. After I was finished the water was always covered with a soapy scum that clung to me as I stood up. My mother explained that the soap scum went into the towel, which it did, more or less. But the Japanese bath completely eliminates this problem, and throws in relaxation to boot!

4. Japanese toilets

Some may find in unbelievable that I like Japanese toilets, but it’s true. For one thing, I’ve read that squatting is a more natural position for doing what you do when you use a toilet, and I have found that it is particularly helpful for those times when you really wish there was a Roto-Rooter™ man for people. For another thing, if you are using a public one that is clean and dry, no part of you touches any part of anything that was touched by a part of someone else, and you don’t have to worry about “if you sprinkle when you tinkle . . . ” The only down side I have found is: they are impossible if you are wearing culottes. So leave the culottes at home and go enjoy your sanitary Japanese life with toilets!

3. Sushi!

Before I came to Japan I occasionally worked at sea for a couple of weeks at a time. On one of those trips a colleague caught some kind of fish – barracuda? – I don’t remember what it was, only that it was quite a long fish, caught by trolling. Since it was so fresh, they were going to make it into a salad called “ceviche” – which is basically fish soaked in lime juice with peppers and tomatos. My colleague claimed that the fish “cooks” in the lime juice, and I can remember being repulsed by the idea of eating fish that had never seen any side of a flame. But I did eventually timidly try the ceviche and it was wonderful!

Well, sushi doesn’t claim to be “cooked” in any way shape or form. When I was in college I once was broiling some turbot, and, not knowing exactly what I was doing, took it out before it was done. That underdone fish was one of the worst meals I have ever had (being in college at the time I was too poor to just throw it out . . . ) I imagined sushi to be just like that underdone fish.

But – wow! – was I wrong! Once I got up the courage to try it, I found a subtle deliciousness, wonderfully refreshing because it is served cold. (Actually I think the more expensive fare is served at room temperature, but I am used to cheaper sushi.) I have always liked scallops, but now I can hardly look forward to eating them any other way but raw. Scallop sushi is just like dessert in the midst of a meal.

2. The trains

Japan is set up for getting places by bicycle and train, a very good set-up for such a densely populated country. If you’ve ever seen a train going by at around 10pm, 15 cars packed and jammed with salary-men coming home from work – if you’ve ever seen that, have you ever thought what the roads would be like if they were all in their own private “my car”? No one would be able to go anywhere because there would be one humongous backup.

I like being able to get almost anywhere by train. The trains run on-time – to the extent that we kid among ourselves that if you are supposed to be on the 7:58 train, and the doors are closing at 7:57, then you are on the wrong train. The trains are well-maintained and clean. I only wish there were more seats!

1. Polite Shopkeepers

I mean this to include anyone who works with customers in a store, be it a waitress, clerk or the shopkeeper himself. They are all unfailingly polite! I know the Japanese adage “The customer is god” and it’s obvious they fully realize that that is true by their diligence (no fooling around), attention (no private phone calls while you are waiting for service) and cheerfulness (which gives the impression that they are having a good day every day). I could add a neat appearance.

Some foreigners might find Japanese shopkeepers a bit “robotic” but – think about America. Do you really want to hear the clerk’s whole life story while you are checking out? Are you at the grocery store to get opinions or views? Plus, I like not worrying about being rudely treated when I enter a store. IMO all that chatting only gives Americans a false sense of intimacy. At the end of the day, I would say “Japan – professional and service-oriented, America – friendly but self-oriented.”

Now, I don’t mean to be “America bashing”! I love my country but she isn’t perfect, and I’m afraid that some of the things I like about Japan simply stand in stark relief against the things I’m not fond of about America. But perhaps I should start a “1000 things I like about America” blog . . .