Reflections

A home-style design on the 1959 book.

Teaching students privately is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, you tend to get a better quality of student who is diligent, more personable, and more goal-oriented. Teaching such students is several cuts above the dead-eyed, lifeless experience of teaching in fast food English conversation schools which are quite often catch-alls for people who have to study rather than a large group of people who really want to.

One of the two books my student has (from 1961), with whimsical artwork.

On the other hand, there's a lot more time spent in preparation for such students which is off the clock. While you don't have to do extra work for such students, depending on their specific needs, you really should if you want to give them a good lesson. However, there's often something in this extra preparation for the teacher if she approaches it with the attitude that learning for the sake of the student is also a form of learning for the teacher.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my students wants to be a journalist and she wants to write about Betty Crocker for a lifestyle magazine. To that end, I've been investigating Betty Crocker cookbooks so that I can help her (hopefully) develop an article that will be accepted at some point. Since she's particularly interested in the '60s books because of their style, I've also been researching what are considered the hallmarks of 1960s style.

A book from 1972 with rather funky text (reflecting '60s psychedelic style).

Doing this has actually been more difficult than one might imagine since the focal point of most articles is on the psychedelic and drug-based counterculture of the late '60s and not on more mundane aspects of domestic life among the non-hippie generation. While those elements were certainly a big part of the '60s, there was also a strong thread of transition from the '50s leading into the early '60s that tends not to get any attention, but you can see it reflected in the items targeted at housewives throughout the decade. Also, a lot of what is considered '60s style is actually early '70s style.

A book from 1980 which is starting to see a cleaner look, but still using relative bold text elements.

Most interestingly though, by looking at the covers of the cookbooks and the titles, you can actually make a very good guess as to when they were made. The style of the era is reflected not only in the artwork, the photographic style, and types of dishes, but also in the fonts used. You can see a definite trend from somewhat plain with country or home-style designs with a bit of a flourish to overly-stylized to sophisticated in the text styling and layout. There's also a transition from a focus on entertaining and catering to guests in the book's titles to a focus on faster meal preparation for the family that reflects the changing roles of women from the '50s to the '90s.

White tends to be used more in the most modern layout styles as it has been accepted as more of a use of space for design purposes rather than a byproduct of not wanting to do full color printing. This book from 1996 reflects that.

I'd like to persuade my student to make the article she's writing about either the way the books reflect their times in terms of food, style, and women's roles, but I believe she's fixated on the two cookbooks she has and the artwork in them. The main problem with this is that I'm not sure there's enough to say in this regard, especially after I had to disabuse her of the notion that those two books represented the entirety of "Betty Crocker" styling throughout the decades of the company's release of cookbooks. If nothing else, I now have a deeper understanding of why her original article was rejected. The suppositions she made and the claims she asserted were simply based on too little research and a lot of erroneous conclusions.

In the Dark

Back in my former company's former office, we had a tiny little kitchen that barely two people could squeeze into for food-related tasks. It was often the case that foreign staff, who had a set schedule for conducting lessons by phone, would find themselves log-jammed into that small space at about the same time setting up drinks for the upcoming session of telephone speaking.

Since my boss and I are both tea aficionados, we found ourselves, once again, jockeying for positions in that small room as we made our teabag and milk applications and dealt with some lunch-related dish-washing. We went about our business in the kitchen with the light out because there was a single window through which sufficient light was passing for us to take care of such mundane ministrations in a relatively dim setting.

A salesman wandered over to the postage meter that was inconveniently planted in front of the office refrigerator and said, "You're in the dark. Why are you working in the dark?" Both my boss and I said that we could see just fine and didn't need to use the light. The salesman, nonetheless, walked over and turned on the kitchen light. He decided to substitute his assessment of the needs of the situation for ours.*

This experience illustrated something which I've seen time and again in all areas of life. That is, people approach life as if their perspective and judgment are the appropriate ones and that the solution to the problem is the one that suits their sensibilities. It doesn't occur to them that different people may have different needs and there isn't a "one size fits all" solution that oh-so-conveniently just happens to be in their "size" (all the time, no less).

Awhile back, there was a lot of hubbub in the foreign community about instituting a language proficiency "requirement" for people who work in Japan on long term visas. A lot of the fretting about this was misplaced and based on ignorance of the situation and inadequate research into what the details of the proposed change. (Incidentally, I have no interest in debating the merits and demerits of this potential requirement and any comments addressing this point will not be replied to and may in fact be booted by my moderator - it's already been discussed to death everywhere else.) The interesting thing about all the commentary regarding this situation was that, in debating what level of Japanese language proficiency was sufficient, everyone set the bar where they would be most comfortable setting it. People who can read and write Japanese well felt high levels were fair. People who knew little Japanese felt basic communication should be enough. Those who have studied for and taken standardized tests (JLPT) chose whatever level test they'd already passed. Those who could speak but not read and write felt only oral ability should be tested.

Except for a few rare cases (my blog buddy Penguin for one, who is quite proficient in Japanese, but had concerns about the practicality of instituting such a policy at all), most people set the bar right at where their proficiency was settled. Their "size" was the one they felt was just right for everyone when it came to Japanese ability.

My intent with this post is not to assert that I know what solutions are best or what is right and others do not, but simply to encourage people to be be less rigid about what they believe is "right", "sufficient", and "acceptable". Everyone is different and has different needs. The way you live your life and view your world from how good your language skills have to be to cope with your particular job in Japan right down to things as small as how much light you need to see to do a task can be different from person to person and you shouldn't place your judgment above everyone else's.



*I will note that blue eyes allow in more light than brown eyes and both my former boss and I have blue eyes, though clearly the salesman didn't think about what we could see. He only thought about what he could see.

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!

Showing Off

Some of you may have noticed that I rarely type Japanese characters in my blog posts. Some of you may assume that I can't enter Japanese text and that's why I don't include it. That assumption would be incorrect. I have copious amounts of experience entering Japanese text into the computer from my years of working laying out and writing (English) textbooks (with Japanese sections and translations) for the Japanese market.

I just don't use Japanese here for several reasons. The primary one is that my readers are obviously going to be English speakers. A lot of them are family and friends who don't have the ability to display foreign language special characters installed on their machines. Using Japanese in my posts results in gibberish for them. Beyond that though, I don't believe any useful purpose is really served in writing things like "食パン" instead of "shukupan" "shokupan" (white bread) aside from showing off my ability to type in Japanese. Any person who can read Japanese and wants to practice can go elsewhere for far better practice than my blog (which isn't intended to be a study page, a news page, or an authority on Japan and is just a record of my thoughts and experiences). And white bread isn't the sort of thing you need to reference the kanji of in order to recognize it in a store so you don't need to match the characters to the product to successfully purchase it.

I have a confession to make. I don't like it when people who are primary English speakers and who write content for a primarily English audience unnecessarily use Japanese words or writing in their blogs. I don't mind if they use the Japanese to explain something or make something clear so that folks know what the Japanese writing looks like. In such cases, it serves as a reference point for those who want to be able to pick out a particular item and need to match characters to objects in real life. I also don't mind if their blog is clearly directed at a bi-lingual or multi-lingual audience or if the blog is about their efforts to learn Japanese and including that content facilitates their learning. Before anyone gets their hackles up, I'm not referring to any specific person and certainly not to any of my regular commenters, but just to some overall trends I've noticed when perusing a great variety of web sites and forums.

It gets to me when people use Japanese just to look or sound cool or appear authoritative. A grand example of this was on a forum I was perusing about cooking. The site is all in English and all about food. The topic at hand was whether or not people prefer light or dark chocolate. Not one person in the thread was Japanese but someone replied to a post with "(original poster's name)-san" and ended it with "yoroshiku." The poster was clearly a native speaker of English (this was clear from content in other posts he made) and the usage of Japanese terms was an attempt to show off a modicum of Japanese knowledge. It's incredibly pretentious to do this in such a forum and almost certainly was done to attract attention.

I don't have many pet peeves but people who go out of their way to show off is definitely one of them. There's a difference between offering esoteric knowledge or specific terms in an appropriate context and shoehorning them in just to impress people and the latter is an immature way of trying to demonstrate superiority.

Cops

A police car drives past Koenji station and the flash highlights a curiously neon sign on its side.

(I'd been meaning for quite some time to write something about the police in Japan but never quite got around to it. However, after reading an entry in Helen's blog, I decided the time was nigh. You may want to pop by and read about her experience as it's a typical one.)

Back in the U.S., the situation with the police is generally well understood due to the plethora of police and lawyer dramas which slowly educate us about the power of the criminal justice system and our rights. In fact, we know that we have quite a lot of rights should the police approach us or charge us with a crime. We know that they have to tell us why they're arresting us and cannot hold us unless they have specific charges to raise against us. We know we don't have to speak to t hem and that we have the right to consult with a lawyer. There are also limits to how long we can be detained depending on the crime and charges.

When I first came to Japan, I assumed the police situation was much the same. I've since learned that it very much is not in a great many ways and most of them are unfavorable. It's hard to actually grasp this though when you first arrive and encounter the police as they seem docile and impotent. They ride around on white bicycles, sit in little police boxes on street corners (koban) and tend mainly to give directions and hassle people about their bicycles. If you stop and ask them about something, they're pretty friendly.

Most interactions with the police involve reporting lost wallets and tracking stolen bikes. When you buy a new bike in Japan, it is automatically registered with the police. When one of my husband's many stolen bikes was recovered by the police, they called us to tell us about it and we were able to retrieve it. Additionally, the police come door-to-door and note the inhabitants of all the domiciles in their area. They do this so they know who belongs and who doesn't as well as to help them know the neighborhood. This is all part of the innocuous side of law enforcement here.

The less innocuous part comes along when you make a mistake. Whether it be not carrying your foreigner identification card or breaking the law in some fashion, you can learn pretty painfully that your rights are very different in Japan. For one thing, you can be held for up to 3 weeks without being told anything about the crime you're being hauled in for. You don't have the right to a lawyer before questioning nor do you have the right to make a call. Your guilt isn't a matter of evidence collection so much as a foregone conclusion once you've been accused. The Japanese police do not rely heavily on forensic proof. They rely on confession and can coerce it from you. Prison in Japan is very regimented with conditions regarding meals, hygiene, and behavior that would seem quite oppressive by U.S. prison standards. They exercise strict control over what you do and how you do it as well as when you can do it.

The main danger of the situation with the police in Japan for foreigners lies in the ambiguity of the laws and rights of the accused. In the U.S., we know our rights and the limits of authorities (though we know them less now that ever before with the Bush administration's "help"). In Japan, there is enough wiggle room in a lot of laws to give the police the latitude to give you a hard time when they feel like it and ignore infractions when they feel like it.

One example is the situation regarding riding bicycles on the streets versus the sidewalks. Laws were changed at some point to get bikes out of the streets as traffic increased and it became too dangerous to have them sharing narrow streets with vehicles. Unfortunately, it was never made clear where cyclists were supposed to ride after they were forced out of the streets because it's technically illegal to ride on the sidewalk. This allows the police to selectively enforce whatever "rule" they want as they can point to whichever law they want if they decide to fine you. It seems that if you do something which the police don't like such as ride too fast or recklessly, they can call you on it, but if you don't do anything they dislike, they leave you alone.

Generally speaking, I think the best way to deal with living in Japan is to cooperate with the police as much as you can even when you don't think they have a right to hassle you. It also doesn't hurt to smile and say "konnichiwa" when you pass by one of them so they know your face and see you as a person. One thing you don't want to do is get into physical altercations with Japanese people because of an avoidable emotional confrontation. I've read quite a few stories where a man gets angry and takes a swing at a Japanese fellow only to end up in jail for 3 weeks powerless and traumatized. At the end of their stays, they are often a million yen or more poorer as they pay off the "victim" for injuries inflicted. In all the cases I've read, the foreign person was essentially held until he admitted he was completely at fault and ponied up a lot of money in compensation. It doesn't matter if you're provoked. It's not going to be worth the pain and cost if you end up getting arrested because no one will listen to your reasons.

You can fight this sort of thing when it happens if you have the time, money, and language skills, but ultimately, it's not going to accomplish anything. The ambiguity of the authority of the police will always end any challenge to their actions with the answer of 'they were within their rights to do (whatever).' There are some folks out there who make it their life's work to fight injustices in this area but I've never known one who actually got anywhere. All they end up doing is getting the runaround until their challenges peter out and they have no choice but to drop the ball and move on to the next fight. That doesn't mean that they can't point at the laws and say they have a case because they often do, but rather that it often doesn't matter in Japan whether you seem to have a case according to a piece of paper somewhere. There's every likelihood that there's probably another piece of paper somewhere else saying that the opposite of your document is also lawful and the police are allowed to act in opposition to your documented "right".

The bottom line is that, just because they seem jovial, friendly, and innocuous, you shouldn't take the police in Japan lightly as they have more power to make your life really hard if they want to than police back home do. They also have far fewer compunctions about doing so if you cross them as their notions of your rights aren't nearly as strong as your notions of your rights. Fortunately, they aren't motivated to take advantage of this power most of the time and will leave you alone if you behave yourself and toe the line when they ask you to.