18. Japanese Rice

While I am exclaiming so much about the beauty of the rice fields, I should mention how delicious is the rice itself. I couldn’t taste the difference in rice when I first came to Japan, but I can now. During my first year or so in Japan there was a rice shortage, and people had to buy rice from (gasp!) Thailand. The comments about “Thai rice” really disgusted me, since I thought the supposed superiority of Japanese rice was all in the Japanese mind, and weren’t they thankful to have rice at all?!? But having lived here I have come to appreciate the difference. Japanese rice differs in both texture and taste from other rices, it is short grain and somewhat sticky, which makes it possible to eat with chopsticks. I find it interesting that Japanese cuisine has very subtle flavors, that complement the rice, whereas countries where the rice is not so tasty tend to have spicy cuisines. Could there be a connection?

17. Rice fields when they’re first planted

It’s the time of year for rice fields, so they are much on my mind. I think rice fields may be my all-time favorite thing about Japan. After the fields are flooded, they are planted, nowadays by a machine that looks like a tractor. The machine lays down neat rows of tiny rice plants, small tufts sprouting in the water, giving a greenish cast to the reflecting pools that are the flooded rice fields. Now I get to watch them grow.

Of course, there are always those final touches that must be done by hand:

The fields nearest my house were flooded the other day. I was concerned that the field on the corner as I leave my neighborhood had been converted to another crop, but I must have been mistaking mere weeds, as it was nicely flooded as of today. What a joy to see it so!

This picture shows the paddy some time after it was first planted.

16. Childhood

Tonight on Flickr® I saw an image of a young asian girl taken on the street. I assumed it was a candid, “slice of life” shot. She was sitting on a step, in a dark little dress with sandals and a purse, legs crossed, waiting. She might have been 9 or 10 years old, but the way her legs were crossed, the way she draped her arm over her purse, even the fact of her dress, all bespoke grown-up. She was not Japanese.

Children in Japan are encouraged to be children. It is not pejorative to refer to someone as a “child” until they are 20, at which age they pass into adulthood. Children wear children’s clothes, teenagers – even boys – will have stuffed animals (“mascots”) hanging out of their book bags, teenage girls still wear pigtails. Precociousness in children is not a cultural value here. Childhood is celebrated.

Childhood is a precious time of life and I love seeing childish Japanese children – and “childish” Japanese teenagers.

15. Newly flooded rice fields at night

Flooding the rice fields transforms my very ordinary trek home of an evening to a thing of enchantment – thus meriting a separate entry in my list of favorite things. The water catches the reflections of the night lights, bringing form and life to what is usually only shadows and darkness. At one point in my commute I can imagine I am crossing a bridge over canals, as the fields abut the road on both sides, creating the trompe l’oeil. It won’t last long, as the rice is already being planted (no surprise there . . . ), but how I do enjoy this magical time of year in Japan!

14. Pedestrian Signals

Nearly every intersection in Japan that has a traffic signal also has a signal for pedestrians. One reason I like these pedestrian signals is that you can gauge the changing of the traffic signal by them. Almost without fail they follow this pattern: “Walk” blinks ten times, changes to “Don’t Walk”, about one second later the traffic signal changes to yellow, and approximately two seconds later goes to red. So if you’re tooling down a street and see a green light ahead, you only have to glance at the accompanying pedestrian signal to calculate whether it is still going to be green for you (it’s a nice solid “Walk”), whether a little extra burst of speed might be advantageous (“Walk” is blinking) or whether your goose is cooked (it’s already on “Don’t Walk” and a rapid driver analysis says “No way Jose”). One of my old routes had 19 traffic lights in one direction, and believe me, the pedestrian signals came in handy.

13. Sleeping on a freshly aired-out futon

This is absolutely one of my favorite things about life in Japan. There is nothing like it for bed sleepers. The freshly aired-out futon feels newer than new and has a rich, natural, outdoorsy scent. There is almost no way to top this experience for sleeping.

12. Airing out the futon

There’s nothing like it! Japanese people believe that every night a person sweats one cup of sweat into his futon – yuck! But, as often as possible, futons are exposed to direct sunlight, which dries them out, and really freshens them up. The futons are either laid out on the roof (if accessible) or hung over a balcony. They sell special giant clips just for securing a futon to a railing, although some people tie them down with bungie cords. About an hour on each side is usually sufficient for my futon, but the longer the better, as long as I remember to bring it back in by around 4pm, so that it doesn’t start collecting dew with the coming of evening, thus defeating the whole purpose. Airing it out gives it a fresh, outdoorsy smell and slightly plumps it up. The futon I have now is wool, but years ago I slept on a cotton futon, which could get pretty mashed down as a week went by, but then got amazingly plumped up when I was able to air it out. I always wish there was something similar for mattresses.

11. Futon “duvets”

It took me a few years to catch on to these little gems, and during that time I was using flat sheets on my futon. So, getting the futon out involved two extra steps to put the sheets on, and likewise, the next morning, putting the futon away included folding two sheets and putting them away. But now my futon is covered by what I call a “futon bag” – a zippered sheet enclosure. No more extra steps, so getting the futon out and putting it away is a snap. It does take a bit of time to get the futon back in its bag each week after I wash it, but I still think it is a net time savings. (My down comforter and some of my other blankets are also in these bags.)