Valentine's Baking

Flourless dark chocolate mini cake.

Today was Valentine's Day in Japan since we get there first. (We're a day ahead of the U.S.) Last year, I talked about how Valentine's Day is different in Japan and so did every other blogger who has ever talked about the holiday in Japan so I'm not going into it again.

Personally, everyday is like Valentine's Day for me. I know, it's a horrible cliché, but what would you call living with a husband who says he loves me everyday several times a day and spontaneously surprises me with little gifts on occasion? I don't keep annoying people by saying he's perfect without valid reasons. So, this is pretty much just another (happy) day for me. (Note: After composing this post, my husband returned home from work with a little cheesecake for me making this an extra happy day. He's a sweetie!)

That being said, there are a lot of very good recipes out there for chocolate goodies at this time of year and I decided to try something new for the fun of it. I didn't necessarily make this as a Valentine's treat though I guess the spirit of the occasion inspired me.

Keeping in mind that my husband and I had a ton of dark chocolates leftover from Christmas gift-giving, I decided to track down a recipe for something that utilizes dark chocolate and came across a flourless mini cake recipe. The result is an immensely rich, light, and intensely chocolatey morsel of a cake which requires some sort of cream to balance the taste of what can only be described as a chocolate bomb. I served it with whipped cream but I think it'd do just as well with regular cream or ice cream. Even though I had to unwrap about 30 tiny dark chocolate squares, melt them down, and strain out cocoa nibs that were embedded in them to make this, the recipe turned out very well. Clearly, no special baking dark chocolate is required though I will note that the chocolates I used were Ghirardelli (from San Francisco) and European in origin. They were not Japanese.

A carton of (Sujata) "whip".

I knew I was going to make this several days ago and had been looking around for what is commonly referred to as "whip" or "cake whip" in Japan. The advantage of this whip stuff over cream is that it's much cheaper. Real cream is between 270 ($2.50) and 400 ($3.70) yen a carton whereas the "whip" is between 99 (91 cents) and 180 ($1.66) yen.

The "whip" also whips up into whipping cream much more effectively than regular cream (of all percentages) and I'm sure it's very bad for you, likely worse for you than actual cream. Nonetheless, as long as you're not eating it all the time, I'm sure it's not a bad infrequent and economical indulgence. If you decide to buy this stuff in Japan, keep in mind that it's not sweetened or flavored. You need to add a bit of vanilla and sugar (or artificial sweetener) to it. It'll also stay whipped up longer if you put in a teaspoon of pectin, though it will still eventually separate and fall flat if you keep it for more than a few days.

The funny thing is that this "whip" stuff is usually easy to buy, but because of the holiday, it was hard to locate a shop near me with any in stock. While part of the commercialism in Japan for this holiday is chocolates, the other part is homemade treats. Small basic sponge cakes are sold so that they can be adorned with fruit (usually strawberries), chocolates or sauces, and whipped cream. Baking supplies are also displayed prominantly.

Students have told me that actually baking something for someone on Valentine's Day is more of a romantic gesture than simply giving them chocolate, but I can't say they speak for everyone.

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Valentine Booty

Click this picture to see a larger one with better detail. That's my baby cheesecake on the far right.

My husband brought home the collection of chocolate above over the last few days. One of the items, a Harrod's chocolate bar, is not technically a Valentine's Day gift, but my husband was given it the day before. His students and coworkers were quite generous. While everything is appreciated, some of the items are more curious than others. The "cheese chocolate" contains a bunch of little foil wrapped "mice" and is almost too cute to eat. The large box of "Royce Potechi Crunch Chocolate" contains chocolate covered corn flakes, cookie crunch bits, and potato chips (hence the "potechi" part). The quote on the box says, "by breaking down old customs and producing consistently original items we are pursuing a new level in chocolate enjoyment."

Here's to new levels of chocolate enjoyment!

Products of Rampant Individualism

Lifted from the site which sells them. Candy for those who hate Valentines Day.

Lately, I've been seeing various ads and articles leading up to the commercialism storm that is Valentine's Day. Some of the articles I see are aimed not at people who are romantically inclined and considering what to do to celebrate the holiday, but toward people who hate Valentine's Day. There are a lot of people who see it as a sadistic attempt to make single and lonely people feel bad about themselves or put them in a position to defend their solitary state.

Though I am married, and probably am one of the most deliriously happy married people on the planet (and yes, I know you are tired of reading it and I'm so incredibly obnoxious for saying it again, in my defense, this time I actually have a point in tossing this bit of information out there again), I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. The main reason for this is that my husband tells me he loves me everyday, several times a day and brings me little gifts all the time. In a good relationship, you don't need an artificial reason to show your affection for one another. So, I don't think that even happily coupled people necessarily feel Valentine's Day is a day for them. It seems to me that the holiday is really for shy people to find a framework through which to express the feelings they have trouble saying. Mind you, I'm not saying that's how it's dealt with commercially, but just rather perhaps the purist intent of it all. Every holiday has been and always will be commercially exploited and you can choose to be put off by it or do things your own way and enjoy any given holiday for the opportunities it offers you (or not).

However, I'm digressing to some extent in explaining that I think Valentine's Day has nothing to do with making single people feel bad, and that's the point to which I want to get back. A lot of the focus of the vitriol single folks have is aimed squarely at couples and deriding partnered life as a festival of petty and bitterly accepted compromises. Among the many benefits of single life that I've read are things like being able to rent the movie you want, being able to eat the last cookie in the box, and not having to ask for "permission" to go somewhere, do something, or buy something.

I mentioned these types of articles to one of my students and had a very hard time getting her to comprehend the objections being mentioned. The notion that anyone would worry about who drank the last beer in the refrigerator or what was being watched on T.V. as a drawback to being in a committed relationship was completely off the radar for her. She just couldn't fathom why anyone would care so much about such small things that they'd prefer being alone to companionship. She sees family on one side and last piece of pie on the other and thinks there's no question which is more important. In the end, she concluded that these things were of value to Western folks because they grew up in a culture which focuses on individualism.

While I believe that my student definitely is hitting at the core of why people come to value having every little thing their way, I think that for many people there's also an element of dissatisfaction in general with a relationship (or all relationships) which starts to get attached to any sort of compromise. Even though I grew up in a culture centered on individualism, I could care less who eats the last treat and my husband and I use headphones when we want to listen or watch something that the other person isn't interested in. There's no problem for us with these little issues because we've worked out the larger issues and aren't looking to power play on a micro level. One of the things I realized early on in our relationship was that there are two ways to deal with problems. One way is to hold onto the conflict and insist on standing your ground and the other is to focus your energy on the shortest path to a solution. You'd be surprised how many people will take the path of most resistance rather than a straightforward solution which requires minimal sacrifice and compromise. This way of dealing with relationships isn't one that I learned from the Japanese, but I think it's one they perhaps come by more naturally than many Western folks because theirs is not a culture which endorses willfulness as an indication of personal strength. Of course, often in Japan, this sort of compromising results in one person caving in to the other based on whoever is perceived to have the higher status so it's not exactly a healthy compromise.

Getting back to Valentines Day, one of the interesting things about opposition to this holiday is how personally people take it. Rather than get angry about it, one wonders why people don't just ignore it or any other holiday which annoys them. Most of the backlash seems to be in response to the overall trend in society toward pressuring people to couple. Apparently, busybodies who keep asking folks when they'll marry or if they've found a significant other grate on the nerves of single folks such that they are pretty much ready to explode by the time February 14 rolls around. It's ironic that Western culture supposedly embraces a variety of roles and lifestyles as having relatively equal value (within limits - they still don't exactly think househusbands are acceptable) yet some single people still feel so oppressed that they turn into snarling, defensive beasts around this time of year.

Milestones

Two young women chat in the station in their kimono on adulthood day.

Each culture has its ages where milestones are reached. In the U.S., the major milestones are generally considered to be at 16, 18, and 21. These ages are important because they are significant legal milestones. At 16, you can drive. At 18, you can be drafted, vote, marry without parental consent, and be legally tried as an adult. At 21, you can drink alcohol. These ages do vary from state to state and have probably changed a bit since when I hit these ages, but they are largely the same in most places in the U.S.

These ages are also milestones from the viewpoint of how others perceive you. In my family, my mother loved to repeatedly say that there was absolutely no "dating" until age 16, and it still continues to be the age at which more conservative parents feel it's appropriate for their kids to start actively engaging in more formalized relationships with a significant other, though this is less and less the case as the age of the onset of puberty goes parenting notions become more liberal. Eighteen is the age at which you are expected to start taking financial responsibility for yourself and at 21, you should be comporting yourself as an adult to a great extent.

Age-based milestones are probably more diverse across cultures than many other artificially-assigned aspects. That is, while things like food and dress are directly related to the environment that a group of people live in, age-based notions are much more related to subjective concepts of maturity (though certainly not in all respects as the onset of puberty factors into all perceptions of adulthood). In Japan, there are milestone ages but there are fewer of them at younger ages and more of them at older ages compared to the U.S. The age at which one is considered an adult in Japan is 20 and all people who turned 20 in the previous year celebrated their coming of age on January 14 this year.

A young woman and man, both attired for adulthood day activities, chat on the train.

If you read any Japan blogs or news sites, you will have seen pictures relating to this and little snippets about what it all means. This particular holiday holds a good deal of interest for foreigners because it's the one day of the year when you see a large number of young, well-made-up women walking around in their finest kimono. It's a day when the "old" view of Japan as having a plethora of refined, fresh beauties in traditional dress mingles most vividly with the newer, more mundane version which tends only to appeal to the fetishistic appetites of gaijin when schoolgirl uniforms or cosplaying women come into view.

Young women walk the streets of Ikebukuro in their kimono, freezing their buns off on a chilly winter day with only a fur stole to comfort them.

For some Japanese women, this day is a rather complex one with a relatively unglamorous, but warm-hearted goal in mind. One of my students turned 20 in the previous year and she filled me in on the "behind the scenes" situation for a young woman approaching this day. Several months before the actual holiday, her parents took her to a hotel where her hair and make up were professionally done and a series of photographs of her in her adulthood day kimono were taken by a professional photographer.

The whole experience was tiring and unpleasant for her as it took a long time to prepare her and wrap her up in her kimono. The make-up was also quite itchy and the woman who prepped was a bit terse and pushy. In the end, she wasn't very happy with the pictures and believed that she never quite managed to pose as the photographer asked. She felt her chin looked bulgy when her head was tilted down and the photographer kept asking her to hold it differently, but she never quite managed. I can't say that I agreed with her regarding the photographs. I thought she looked beautiful.

A group of young men huddle in the station before heading off to their adulthood day destination.

The strange thing about this holiday is that women go through a lot to dress in traditional clothes and do their hair and make-up just right, but men just put on a suit. I'm not sure why men aren't running off to a professional and getting an artificial topknot glued to heir heads and forced to wear traditional men's formal kimono, but there appears to be no such expectation for them. Men get a much more comfortable and inexpensive day when they turn 20.

For the young adults celebrating this day, the biggest draw, and for some the only draw, is that it allows them to have a reunion with all of their friends from elementary school to high school. It's the one time when there's a good chance that people they haven't seen for a decade will come together and they can all catch up on each others lives. The more grandiose aspects like being allowed to vote and being considered a "member of society" aren't looming in the front of their minds. However, I'm guessing that having a day of reunion probably runs neck and neck in importance with being allowed to being legally allowed to drink in the minds of a good many 20-year-olds.

Shin Koenji Charity Mochi Event

Men gamely pound rice into mochi inside a wooden barrel. Pounding rice into mochi takes an immense amount of strength, stamina and patience. At least it probably kept those fellows warm!

Mochi is most often associated with New Year's holidays though Japanese people eat it as part of other dishes (and as is) throughout the year. It's also famous for being easy to choke on because it's hard to chew when served in relatively big pieces. There is a sort of "mochi death watch" as we start each new year and the news reports on the number of old folks who met an untimely demise during their holiday celebration. Mochi can't be reliably dislodged with the Heimlich maneuver so it's recommended that one use a vacuum cleaner to suck it out of the afflicted person's windpipe in the unlikely event of a choking. For western folks, you might want to keep this in mind if you spoon peanut butter directly from a jar (as opposed to on a cracker or whatever) into your mouth as it is another substance that can't be forced out with a Heimlich attempt.

A tent set up in Koenji as part of the charity mochi gathering. It says something to the effect of "spring charity mochi meeting", even though it's January. We may be reading the characters wrong as there are multiple readings of the same characters.

Despite the danger involved in consuming mochi, it is a favorite food among the Japanese. It's not like the Japanese are strangers to eating food that can kill you with fugu being an infrequently consumed delicacy. They're willing to risk their lives while enjoying their cuisine so you've got to give them credit for that.

Kids watch from behind a pylon. The set-up didn't look incredibly sanitary despite the distance between the kids (and all kids are prone to uncovered open mouth coughing in my experience) and the barrel.

The gathering in Koenji was held on the a national holiday, adulthood day. I'm guessing they chose this day intentionally to increase the chances that families could come around and enjoy some freshly made mochi.

Some older ladies prepare topping for the mochi and serve it.

The mochi was served with sweetened red bean paste. Mochi doesn't have much of a taste and is eaten as much for texture as anything else. There are actually several popular dishes in Japan which are served for texture rather than taste in addition to mochi. Tofu, konyaku, and a kind of gelatin noodle (which I've forgotten the name of) are other dishes which fall into this category that get most of their flavor from sauces, condiments, or the foods they are served with.

Rice is cooked in restaurant-size pots to keep the mochi ingredients flowing.

Fresh mochi is supposed to be tastier than the sort you buy pre-made in stores though my husband didn't sample the food on offer at this charity event. One of my students told me that the mochi used as decorations during New Years (kagami mochi) and sold in plastic molds is specially prepared to keep it from spoiling. Another of my students told me that her family buys a display made of fresh mochi but within 3 days, the mochi disks start to crack and then mold forms in them. She told me her family has to cut out the moldy parts before eating it.

Friendly, happy gentlemen ladle out cups of hot sake to warm visitors on a day which was around 40 degrees F./4 degrees C.

The charity event appeared to be to raise money for victims of the Niigata earthquake in July 2007 and it was sponsored by the Koenji merchants who are situated along the area's major shopping street which is called "Pal". Donations were being put into a clear box next to a barrel that sake was served from. At the time this picture was taken, the amount of donations looked relatively anemic.

A boy collects cash for the mochi as well as gives out chopsticks for eating it.

However, looking only at one of the crystal donation box by the sake barrel was a bit misleading as people were paying kids for the mochi at a separate box. It's rather nice to see kids being involved in the event and impressive that such young people were trusted to handle the money.

Musicians take a break from their vigorous taiko drumming performance.

Though it was quite cold, the event was attended by a lot of people and included music from folks playing traditional Japanese instruments and taiko drumming. The area was quite noisy and had a festive atmosphere.

These sorts of smallish community festivals go on all over Japan at various times of year and seem a quaint way to bring folks together and bond over their shared culture. While I don't always take an interest in them or attend them (because I've been here so long), I think they're the sorts of things which are good to keep an eye out for when you're visiting as a tourist or are a relative newbie to Japan.

New Year's Day 2008

A mother and daughter amuse themselves while waiting in line to gain access to a shrine by playing a pattycake game.

On one of the boards I sometimes read, someone derided the western method of celebrating the New Year's holiday and said that, by comparison, New Year in Japan "rocks". To be honest, New Year's eve/day was never one of my favorite times back home. As a teetotaller, I have little use for the copious imbibing that goes on and as a highly sensitive person, I can't bear the noise of raucous parties. So, I can't profess any particular affinity for the typical western-style celebration. More often than not, I went to bed before midnight and was completely indifferent to any celebration back home.

That being said, I'm not so sure that one can truly say the celebration in Japan "rocks" by comparison. While there certainly are some pretty interesting happenings, particularly where impressive high-energy traditional drumming (taiko) performances are offered, I think for the most part, there's a lot of crowding and waiting in line to spend a few moments bell ringing, clapping your hands, bowing your head, and making a small prayer.

A policeman stands in the street instructing people standing in line along the street to step aside any time a car comes along. I guess some people just don't get the day off.

Last year my husband went off alone to take copious numbers of pictures of the local activities. This year, I went along for the ride. The funny thing is that being there was remarkably little different than having seen the pictures he took last year with a few exceptions. For one thing, I miss out on getting stared at by bored locals standing in long lines and am able to walk around in slippery loose pebble-like gravel. There are also certain smells associated with being there.

This looks like far less of a "rocking" New Year than one might expect from some of the hype being spread around about things at this time of year in Japan.

One of those smells is burning rubbish and cigarettes near the fire where last year's New Year's paraphernalia are burned.

Sake is heated in a large pot and sold to visitors.

Another is the extremely strong odor of hot sake which people stand or sit around drinking after they've finished with the business at hand. It's not exactly festive imbibing as most people just placidly sit or stand around downing it from plastic cups. Of course, raucous partying in front of a shrine while people pray isn't exactly socially acceptable behavior so (ironically) sober (or at least somber) consumption is the order of the day.


As I watched people step up and take their turn praying, I wondered how many of them felt a sincere connection with a deity or higher power and how many were just performing a ritual for superstitious reasons or out of habit. When students are queried about their religious beliefs, very few ever say they believe in God and no one except a few random Christians have professed to being particularly religious. When I ask them why they pray when they don't believe in God, they just smile and either don't know what to say or say it's a "habit" or "custom".


The charms above are meant to bring luck either in general or specific to one's needs. Some are for safely giving birth to a child or not having any accidents in your car. Others are for travel and one is a "pet" charm for your dog or cat.


I've been told that students in particular make a visit to shrines during the holidays to pray for success in their entrance exams. My husband picked up the purple "education" charm on the left pictured above to hang in his cubicle at work as a way of telling his students he wants them to have good luck with their English studies. Though it may not actually work that way, it's the thought that counts, right? ;-)


We also picked up one of the little wooden plaques that you write your wishes on the back of and hang in the shrines (see last year's coverage for more on this). Other than these two items (which were 500 yen/$4.47 each), my husband also paid 100 yen for a little paper packet that contains his fortune for the year as determined by his birth date. He hasn't opened it up and inspected it yet, but I'm sure it'll be very accurate.

Other than the shrine area, we also covered a large shopping street near our house and most of the shops were closed except the toy stores, sushi shops, and convenience stores which was pretty much as it was last year. I do wonder if folks who work in those places pick up a heftier paycheck for working on January 1. I sincerely hope that they do.

New Year's Eve 2007

A New Year's decoration (kadomatsu) hanging on a resident's door.

Note: Last year I did an extensive series of posts with pictures of our neighborhood during New Year's day. Since there isn't any significant variation in celebration from year-to-year, I'm focusing on the happenings the day before this year. If you'd like to see typical New Year's day celebrations, have a look back at part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 from January 2007.

Most of the posts you see in Japan blogs around this time of year tend to focus on the midnight visits to big shrines and fireworks displays. These represent what I consider to be the more "glamorous" celebrations of the holiday, but I think that the lion's share of Japanese folks are at home engaging in a much quieter and less showy manner. As Roy once wrote in his blog (and I'm paraphrasing), most Japanese people want to spend their holiday relaxing at home sitting under the kotatsu, eating snacks, and watching television rather than being jostled by crowds and freezing at shrines. This is a fact that has been confirmed again and again when I ask students about their plans. Also, let's face it, if the majority of people went to shrines on New Year's eve, the crowds simply could not be accommodated even if every shrine in Tokyo were filled to capacity. A lot of people wait until New Year's day to make a pilgrimage (or even a day or two after).


There are certain ways of celebrating that almost everyone will observe whether they stay home or not. One part of this is displaying traditional decorations (kadomatsu) outside their homes. As the holiday approaches, you can find them everywhere in many shapes, forms and at different prices. The local 100 yen shop had small ones available in early December for those who want them cheap and don't mind if they're made of plastic (and likely made in China). Those who want something more elaborate and real can opt to buy a pre-made arrangement at a flower shop.


More ambitious sorts will make their own decorations from pine sprigs, bamboo, and other supplies purchased at flower shops. One of my students is a retired gentleman who is 65 and he told me that his father-in-law (who I believe is in his 80's) always made the kadomatsu himself. I commented that his father-in-law must be quite talented and he got a funny look on his face and said that, "he's not a professional."


My student didn't want to say it (or didn't know how to), but I realized that some of these decorations are quite simple and are little more than bundles of branches and paper tied together (as you can see above on either side of this home's entrance). I was imagining his father-in-law made one of the more elaborate types that I see pre-made in stores.


One other type of decoration most Japanese folks display inside their homes is kagami mochi. It's displayed inside of people's homes so the only place you see them is on display in shops (pictured at left in the picture of a tea shop above). I've seen these for sale every year since I arrived and at first thought they looked pretty appetizing. Now that I know what is in them (mochi) and that a lot of old folks choke and die eating it each year, my personal posture regarding it has changed. I've never actually purchased one though I have eaten mochi-wrapped sweets before and find them enjoyable. I think that a big mochi disc isn't going to be quite so much fun as a shell of it wrapped around some sweet beans. Mochi is too gummy for me to enjoy in this particular form. Though I have read that people eat these as part of the New Year's celebration, I have my doubts. Most of them are mass-produced and sold in molded plastic containers. They seem designed more for uniformity and decorations than for consumption.


The other part of traditional celebrations is osechi-ryouri. This is a traditional meal which is usually prepared ahead of time so the mothers can sit under the kotatsu, eat snacks, and watch T.V. instead of slaving over hot pots in the kitchen. I've asked a lot of Japanese folks about these meals and most of them shrug their shoulders when asked if they are good or say it's not actually very good. The main complaints are that the food isn't fresh and therefore not very tasty.

Of course, there's a market for moms who don't want to prepare their own food or folks who are on their own and you can see it on the streets on New Year's eve as well as in a variety of stores.

Soba is sold at a table set up on the street. It may be "toshi-koshi" (year crossing) soba which is eaten on New Year's eve.

One of my students told me that she always buys her osechi-ryouri because it's too big a pain in the ass to do it herself. While a lot of western folks who have never been to Japan like to write articles about all the meticulous and preciousness of Japanese cuisine at this time of year, the truth isn't quite so homey or traditional in many cases. Modern women are busy and don't have time to prepare a variety of preserved dishes for the holiday so they sometimes pick up at least portions of the meal in grocery or department stores.


Of course, lower down on the osechi-ryouri food chain are bentos from 7-11. The sign above this one says you can reserve your yummy New Year's bento from them and pick it up for the greatest possible holiday convenience. I'm guessing this sort of thing is purchased by people who find themselves all alone for the holiday rather than families.

A sign showing a rat (for the year of the rat) hangs on a closed shop named "Piggy Bank". The same posters are plastered all over the place in our neighborhood.

The Japanese observe the Chinese zodiac and most folks know the animal of the year they were born in. Last year was the year of the boar and next year (now this year) is the year of the rat. If I were a kid, I wouldn't want to have been born in the year of the pig or the rodent, but I'm sure that's an ethnocentric western viewpoint and there are actually no negative connotations associated with any particular animal. Nonetheless, I'm happy to have been born in the year of the dragon (and my husband was born in the year of the tiger which is also very nifty). ;-)

Happy New Year to all my readers and their families.

Christmas in Tokyo (2007)

The Christmas sign hanging in a shopping street in our neighborhood.

Last year, I wrote that it's all pretty much over in Japan by the time Christmas day hits. I figured that I'd go out and walk around to see if there was much of a difference on Christmas Eve. Also, this year we didn't really have anything special on hand for dinner and I wanted to see if there was anything for sale locally which might fit the bill.

Coincidentally, December 24 this year was a national holiday (Labor Thanksgiving Day The Emperor's Birthday) in Japan so many people had the day off though most of them probably didn't even know what the name of the holiday was. In close proximity to each Japanese national holiday, I ask every one of my students what holiday is coming up or has passed and they rarely know. When I asked one of my students what Japanese holiday was on the 24th, she thought a bit and said, "Christmas eve". When I told her that that wasn't a Japanese national holiday, she frowned in concentration and came up with "Christmas?" As is the case with most of these one-day national holidays, they do nothing to celebrate. It's just a (paid) day off for which they are grateful.

The weather yesterday was a little cold and very windy, but quite sunny. It wasn't a bad day at all, but most of the faces I saw while out shopping looked pretty glum. I guess the wind, which was strong enough to shake parked bicycles into new positions, may have been a factor in that as it whipped across exposed hands and faces. Since it was a holiday, I also saw more people out and about in casual clothes. The polished and business-suited masses have a more rundown look when they walk about in jeans and casual jackets. The general atmosphere was not very festive or encouraging.

A forlorn-looking Christmas cake stand outside the local "99" shop. While 990 yen cakes weigh down the left side, cheap Christmas-themed treats occupy the right.

There were fewer tables sitting outside of businesses selling Christmas cakes than I would have expected and none of them were actually manned. In business districts (rather than more residential areas like where we live), I'm sure they were outside their establishments in their Santa hats enduring the cold and watching the dead ginkgo leaves blow around, but they didn't bother in my neck of the woods. Given the reluctant food traffic, they probably wouldn't have done enough business to justify their facial wind burns.

I checked out some local supermarkets and was surprised to find that they had whole chickens on sale with labels noting that they were for Christmas meals. Since it is uncommon to find whole chickens in most places, that was a good sign in and of itself. Unfortunately, there were only two varieties on hand. One was a very small whole chicken, conveniently packed with two frilly aluminum leg cuffs, that looked about the size of a pigeon with a glandular problem. It was ¥1000 ($8.75) for about 1 kg. (2.2lbs.) The other was larger (2 kg.) but the price seemed to have ballooned with its size. It was ¥2800 ($24.50) and I couldn't justify that much money for that amount of food and gave it a pass (though I did pick it up a few times and think long and hard about it).

Despite the expensive chickens, Christmas cakes, and some artificial tress here and there in front of businesses, there was the omnipresent Christmas muzak. Though the surroundings weren't as lush or opulent as you'd find back home, it wasn't the absence of overly done decorations which undermined my Christmas spirit, it was the lack of the energy you feel around this time of year back home. There's excitement in the air back home. There's casual interest in Japan with people idly picking over the goods on hand trying to approximate what they think is the way to celebrate. Given that Christmas isn't even a real holiday in Japan, that's no surprise, but it can leave one feeling a little homesick at this time of year.

Inadvertent

This is a full-size cheesecake and cost ¥1,890 ($16.57). Though you can't tell from the picture, it is quite small. It's about 2 inches (5 cm.) high and 7 inches (17.7 cm.) long.

It doesn't matter how long you live somewhere or how much you know about something, you can reach the wrong conclusions about something totally obvious. In fact, I invite any and all ex-pats who know a bit about Japan to observe the lovely cheesecake pictured above. This is the best cheesecake that you can buy in Japan (from Topps cake shops). My husband picked up the one above yesterday evening on his way home from work as a little surprise for me.


Now, I invite you to look at the items which were at the side of the cheesecake which were tossed into the bag with it. Do you reach any immediate conclusions?

I reached a few quick conclusions.

1. They threw in a little Christmas chocolate as a little "gift" for the season.
2. They included candles in case the cake was purchased as a birthday gift since many Topps cakes are used in such celebrations.
   

The quicker-witted out there probably are snickering at how wrong I was. Those who don't know what on earth I'm on about can look below for a hint...

Image pinched from kashi-kashi.com.

The idea is to press that little chocolate medallion into the cheesecake and push in some candles to convert it into a Christmas cake. My husband inadvertently bought our first "Christmas cake" ever in Japan. ;-)

Sometimes it's good to have dumb little experiences like this as a reminder of how easy it is to make quick, surface observations and reach absolutely the wrong conclusions. It not only keeps one humble but serves as a reminder not to do the same thing in other areas of ones life.

Christians and Christmas

Bart Simpson once said that "“Christmas is the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.” Some people would say that he is half right. Many people celebrate Christmas (96% of Americans do), but some of them don't do so in order to worship Jesus Christ. As of late, there has been a lot of arguing over who "owns" Christmas and whether it has been changed into a secular holiday rather than a religious one. The most recent White House Christmas card is only a small part of the ongoing debate about Christianity and Christmas and how intermingled the two should be in public spaces. (Note: The White House Christmas card is not funded by American tax dollars, but by private contributions to the Republican National Committee so it is not an example of communication with an obvious religious message being spread via public funds. It is, however, communication with a presidential seal on it that carries a religious message clearly and intentionally marking it as a governmental communication with religious content.)

As is often the case, how people perceive the issue (of the Christian or secular nature of Christmas in this case) is a matter of perspective. People tend to view Christmas through the prism of their own beliefs (or lack thereof). Christians feel Christmas is a very Christian holiday. They see nativity scenes, hear songs which praise God or the birth of Jesus, and talk about church attendance numbers and the percentage of Christians in the U.S. Non-Christians feel it is a secular one. They see Santa Claus, cite the pagan roots of many Christmas traditions, and hear songs which are festive (e.g., Jingle Bells), but in no way reflect religion. The truth can't be found in subjective perceptions, anecdotal bits of information supporting one side or another, or in wishful thinking that reality will bend itself to suit one side's will. "Truth" is in objectively-obtained statistical information which reflects the whole rather than its parts, particularly when the parts are so heavily influenced by their own agendas and biases.

Finding objective data regarding this issue is actually quite difficult. Most polls tend to be conducted by groups with a vested interest in one outcome or the other. Such groups usually poll small and highly-biased samples. Christians tend to poll church goers. Atheists tend to poll from organizations or via web sites which attract like-minded people (e.g., scientific web sites). Fortunately, there are some organizations which conduct such polls without bias and that use scientific sampling methods.

Gallup has been doing such polls for decades and, despite some rather ignominious failures ("Dewey defeats Truman"), has been quite reliable, particularly in terms of predicting the outcomes of presidential elections. Fortunately, their techniques have been refined since their most famous failure and their results are reliable within a predictable margin of error. The margin of error, for those who aren't familiar with statistical information, means that the results can be wrong either either way by a certain percentage. In the case of most Gallup polls, the margin of error is plus or minus 3%. That means that a poll showing an opinion is held by 45% of people can be believed to be held by as few as 42% or as many as 48% of people, and that is quite unlikely that it is held by less than the lowest or more than the highest of those percentages.

In order to address the question of how "Christian" Christmas currently is, I decided to turn to the Gallup poll results from a 2005 survey. It's not only a reasonably reliable polling agency but also one of the few (non-biased) organizations that asked the questions I was interested in having answers to. A Gallup poll that asked the question, "thinking of the way you personally celebrate Christmas, is it a strongly religious holiday, somewhat religious, or not too religious," showed that Christmas is considered a "strongly religious" holiday by 47% of people in the United States overall. As a good example of how perspective introduces bias, Christmas is seen as "strongly religious" by 80% of regular churchgoers. If they were to believe everyone views the holiday as they do, they'd believe nearly everyone celebrated Christmas as a "strongly religious holiday."

Before anyone concludes that this is evidence that religion is being removed from Christmas, keep in mind that 30% of those polled said that their Christmas celebrations are "somewhat religious". That means religion is part of 77% of celebrations of the holiday. That means 23% of those who celebrate Christmas do so with no or very little religious component. Clearly, there is little danger (for the time being) of Christmas being celebrated as an entirely secular holiday by the majority of Americans.

The interesting thing to me is that people find it necessary to argue over the validity of the Christian aspect of a Christian holiday in the United States. Only in America would people argue for the secular hijacking of one of a religious group's most sacred holidays (the only one which is held in greater esteem is Easter). It's not that people don't want to celebrate Christmas because they are not Christians or are arguing to reserve their right to observe the holiday as a secular one, but rather that they don't want anyone to associate the holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ with religion.

Mind you, I have no problem with people choosing to celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. After all, I'm not a Christian and I celebrate Christmas, but I'd never feel that the holiday should be or has been divorced from it's religious connotations because I have personally abandoned those aspects. I see the debate to strip Christmas of it's religious elements as the absurd extension of political correctness in the U.S. where nothing can be referred to in any way which may make any group feel the slightest bit uncomfortable (no matter how far-fetched their concerns are) and a backlash against the (undeniably) inappropriate influence of the religious right on conservative politicians. However, I think that trying to pretend Christmas is no longer a Christian holiday isn't going to accomplish anything.

Gifts For Students

For many people who work as teachers, gift-giving in Japan is largely a one-way street. The students give and the teacher receives. The biggest reason for this is that the Japanese are in the habit of giving gifts as a means of building relationships and they particularly have the habit of giving gifts to people who offer services.

Further, it is also the case that each student has one teacher and each teacher has many students so it’s very impractical for the teacher to be giving gifts to students on a regular basis, at least if the teacher wants to be relatively egalitarian about it. Nonetheless, when my husband visited home last May, he spent a large amount of money on souvenir See’s Candy for the students who he saw repeatedly and who he felt a good emotional connection with. He wanted to indicate to them that he enjoyed the time he spent with them in lessons.

Since this is the season where people traditionally show their appreciation and affection, he wanted to work out a way to offer up a Christmas “gift” that would express this sentiment again to those people who he’d be encountering in mid to late December. For this, we decided to go back to doing something I used to do for my coworkers when I worked in a Japanese office. We assembled “goodie bags”.

In the past, my goodie bags were mainly a boatload of homemade baking goods including pumpkin cake, brownies, sugar cookies, and peanut butter cookies with a candy cane or maybe some peanut butter cup miniatures thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, I don’t have the energy or time to do all that baking. Also, while I delivered my goodies on one day and distributed them to the entire office at once, he needs to string out is gifts over 2 weeks as he sometimes sees students once every few weeks. This made timing everything rather complex and made it imperative that we mainly use items that would keep without freezing or loss of freshness.

My husband bought a vast quantity of imported chocolates and I made peanut butter cookies which we packaged up in craft bags. I drew a Calvin & Hobbes Christmas scene in Adobe Illustrator and we sealed them with a commercial Christmas sticker. As individual packs, they may not really be much of a big deal but assembling so many of them has taken a lot of time, effort, and expense. Fortunately, the students’ responses have been worth it. They have been unfailingly gracious and happy with the bags of treats.

One thing which isn’t necessarily unique to Japanese culture, but is definitely more common is that people are happier with the effort you make more so than the content of the gift you give. Back home, most gifts seem to be received with higher expectations about the value of the contents than about the gesture itself. Sometimes I wonder if this relates to the fact that we have more occasions where people “expect” big gifts or gifts in larger quantities (Christmas and birthdays) and this anticipation has an effect on how gifts are viewed overall. The focus seems to be on what it is rather than why it’s given. While I’m certainly not concluding that the Japanese have no focus on what it is or that people back home never think about why it’s given, I think the heavier focus tends to be on why in Japan and what in the U.S.

It's the Thought That Counts

The phrase "it's the thought that counts" is often used when people open a gift that was probably inexpensive or homemade. Sometimes it's even used when a gift is not really reflective of the interests of the recipient when, ironically, there was probably little thought or thoughts that indicate the giver didn't know the recipient very well at all.

It's rarely the case that someone utters the aforementioned phrase in a positive way which shows that they recognize a gift was very thoughtful. This is a tendency I'd like to change starting with one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received in my life from my friend, Shawn. I received a large surprise box from him for Christmas and was shocked and delighted by the contents.

Click to see a larger, more detailed picture.

To give you some idea of how Shawn did such an excellent job of making such a thoughtful gift, I'll tell you that we play an on-line game 2-3 times a week and chat via Skype while we play. On more than one occasion, I've lamented about my inability to cook something because of a lack of proper spices or ingredients in Japan. Shawn appears to have taken note of everything I mentioned and sent along whatever it is I didn't have and added a few lovely surprises. It's a care package that really shows care.


He also managed to provide me with a Christmas tree (after I blogged that my old one had gone to plastic tree heaven). And he sent me a monkey that yells when you launch it. There is very little cooler than a flying monkey!

I'm simply overwhelmed by how closely he listened to me and provided everything I talked about in our conversations. (I'm also impressed that he sent this huge heavy box by airmail at great expense.) It shows a great deal of thought and I can't express in words how much I appreciate that. Thank you, Shawn! I'll never forget this. :-)

Happy Semi-belated Birthday, Sharon

Living in Japan sometimes wrecks havoc with your conception of time in regards to special days for family back home. In the event that you remember some one's birthday on the right date, you have to wait a day to offer your good wishes because they haven't gotten there yet. This need to delay increases the chances that you'll forget by the time the day arrives for your family member.

This year, I remembered to wish my sister a happy birthday both yesterday (the 13th for me) and today (the 13th for her). Unfortunately, I didn't remember to blog on the right day and offer my good wishes on the right date. Sure, I can cheat and put up a fake day and time on the post to cover up my mistake, but I'm not quite that lame. I'll admit my mistake and take my lumps.

Unfortunately, Sharon's birthday hasn't been the greatest day. There was icy rain in western Pennsylvania and she spent the day cooped up with my mother, an unnecessary early wake-up call from our Mom telling her they couldn't go shopping because of the weather and further maternal demands to clean the refrigerator. I guess our mother feels that our birthdays aren't really all that special anymore.

I wanted to say, belatedly, that this day is special for me because I appreciate my sister and the friendship I have with her. I wish I could be there to do something special but the best I can do is say something which is (hopefully) special.

The birthday dragon picture above was pinched from Jame's Rhinehelder's Science Fiction and Fantasy Art page. If you like his art, please visit his page and have a look. His art is whimsical and evocative.

Christmas Pack 2

The Japanese on this bag says the same thing as the English, "little Santa" (ri-to-ru sa-n-ta).

Last year, I picked up a "Christmas Pack" at the local 99 yen store to see what sort of goodies are peddled to Japanese children at this time of year. Though I had no intention of "taking the bullet" again in terms of trying another and reporting on its contents, time heals all wounds or at least allows the palate to forget. In the holiday spirit of giving (in this case, information) and self-sacrifice (my taste buds), I picked up another Christmas pack this year.

There was actually an increased variety at my local QQ (99 yen convenience store) this time around. One featured the same spastic Santa design from last year though it appeared to have different contents. Another was in an opaque bag and I couldn't see what sort of things were in it at all. I went for the bag pictured above because I didn't want to buy the one with the scary looking mochi disc since the mochi choco from last year's bag was exceptionally vile. In fact, I'm feeling queasy just remembering it.


This bag also included a relatively inoffensive-looking item, a castella doughnut, right in the front. "Castella" is all over the place in Japan both as slabs of cake and as doughnuts. I've had the cake before because it had been offered as a souvenir at my former office. The cake has a coarse texture and is oddly tacky because it has a slight stickiness. It's quite sweet though not in the same way as western cakes which have an intense processed sugar quality. It's more of a honey sweetness quality. The cake itself has a nice flavor but the texture is not as fine as western sponge cakes. Like many other sweets (konpeito) and bread (pan) in Japan, castella is adapted from original Portuguese recipes (hence the un-Japanese name).

Though I've seen both the cake and doughnuts everywhere, I've never purchased either so this doughnut was my first sampling of a "castella doughnut". Keep in mind that I've never seen what one might consider a high quality castella doughnut. They seem to be sold in large bags for a low price by and large. I've never seen one in a bakery, for instance, so I think they're a low rent food regardless of whether they're in a cheap ass bag of goodies or in a big family-pack at Inageya supermarket.

The donut in this packet didn't seem to resemble castella cake in any fashion. It smelled vaguely of vanilla and oil. In fact, it was pretty much a somewhat dry cake donut with an exceptionally greasy exterior that left a sticky coating on my fingers which didn't easily come off. The strongest taste I got from it was one of old cooking oil and this compelled me to check the expiration date to see if it had been sitting around for a long time. The date was February 26, 2008, so it wasn't as old as the well-aged oil flavor indicated. If I were even moderately curious to try a castella donut before, this pretty much quashed any desire I may have had to eat one.


Choco-Taro..."you will enjoy it's taste". I wasn't sure if that was an order or a promise, but, either way, I wasn't looking forward to finding out. The bar smelled vaguely of something resembling chocolate and was covered in a paper thin coating of mockolate. Though it claims to have peanuts, it seemed only to have microscopic fragments embedded in the (too sweet) coating. If you imagine one of the little puffed rice grains in a Nestlé Crunch expanded to bar size with similarly enlarged air pockets, you pretty much have the center of this thing. It wasn't awful, but it also wasn't appealing. It seems as though the main points in designing this bar were to first, make it crunchy, and second, make it very sweet. There wasn't much flavor in it.


I was pretty sure this ("Fubo-san taro") was the same wheat gluten snack as was in last year's pack with the only difference being the wrapper. A preliminary sniff revealed that it smelled of burnt sugar as last year's did, but it didn't carry the same vague whiff of beef bouillon cubes. The inside had a lighter texture than last year's "fu" snack and biting into it put in mind the notion of chomping into a tenderized Styrofoam packing peanut that had been liberally doused with sugar. This one was more edible than the previous one and I may have considered more than a few tentative bites if it weren't so incredibly sweet that I feared I'd go into diabetic shock. It is absolutely remarkable how sweet it is given that most of the flavor seems to be on the dusting of brown crap on the outside.


This is a salted snack food called "cabbage taro". Apparently, these are favored by frog policemen. That's a bit odd as I figured they'd favor the castella doughnuts (being in reptilian law enforcement and all). These smelled and tasted much like a Japanesse "corn potage" salted snack food I favor (but mainly avoid) in Japan. It's salty, has a bit of a chicken consommé flavor and only the vaguest hint of cabbage. The little specks of green aren't cabbage though. They are bits of nori (dried seaweed). There was so little of it though that it had almost not impact on the taste. These were actually rather tasty and had a nice tangy aftertaste to them. They were very crispy and light and brought to mind (the now defunct) Planter's cheese balls with a different flavor coating. I actually ate the whole (tiny) bag of these. It's the only item I completely consumed its entirety.

This is "morokoshi wa taro" or, essentially, "corn and corm rings". Among the ingredients are corn, taro (a Japanese corm), vegetable oil, and spices. They don't smell like much of anything and taste like an airier, relatively flavorless Chee-to. I'd call these rather inoffensive to mildly pleasant because of the texture.

The last item in the pack ended up being one of the same salted snack foods that I got in the previous year's bag. I couldn't see the front of the pack when I purchased it or I may have gone for the more terrifying spastic Santa bag with the white mochi hockey puck. After all, I do have to suffer if this is to be a true act of gustatory martyrdom. I've pasted my former bit of information as a caption on the photo above in case you don't want to go back and read the old post.

As was the case with last year's bag of "goodies", corn was the first ingredient for everything except the donut which listed flour as the first ingredient. I can see where kids might enjoy a bag of snacks like this, but it's all a bit much on the extremely low-end junk food side for an adult. Fortunately, my consumption was limited to a few tastes per item and then they hit the trash bin. I'm sure my body appreciates the consideration.