Japanese Food

While most people think of a food pyramid filled with various food groups in Japan it's more of a line. You have fish and you have rice.

At one point or another most people have been exposed to Japanese food, or at least what they think Japanese food is. A general rule of thumb: If it doesn't have enough of a face left in which to judge you it's probably not real Japanese.

Where as the Japanese salary men work long into the evening Japanese cooks don't really do any work. "The more alive it looks the more delicious it is" seems to be the Japanese kitchen policy. It's common to just have a whole fish that is no more than salted and grilled and it is up to you the eater to pull it apart. Using the same methods found in a high school biology lab it is possible to separate the vital organs from the edible flesh but unfortunately the same is not so true of the bones which will ultimately explode into a bunch of splintery shards in the back of your throat in the creature's final desperate show of defiance.

The other group is rice which is the deliciously bland cornerstone of any Japanese meal. Contrary to popular belief you should not add soy sauce to the rice, just enjoy it in its naked glory. You might think this is rather lacking in taste but the Japanese will assure you that they can taste the difference in types. I'm no rice expert but to me the types of rice seem to be: white, off-white, snowstorm-white, polar bear-white, arctic-white, colorless, extra white, mostly-white, possibly-white, could-be-white and probably-white. This is also added to almost any dish to distract you from the fact that your $15 pork plate had about as much protein as an amoeba. But hey at least you're full.

When not eating slimey sea creatures, they will ocassionally chow down on more normal things. Fruit is fairly common but ungodly expensive. Local in-season fruits can be had at a normal price but anything else goes through the roof. In Japan, there is a aim for perfection. If you go down to the market on B1 of the local department store you'll find what Bill Gates keeps in his fruit bowl. Here, the largest most perfect of all the fruits can be purchased individually wrapped. Rated (and priced) much like diamonds the roundest Melons with virtually no blemishes can be purchased for a cool $100 (Keep in mind that's 1 melon). There are also grapes the size of hand-fruits and pears that cold kill a man if dropped from a decent height sold in small sets costing $50-70. Supposedly these no-doubt delicious treats are to be given out as gifts and not eaten by the purchaser but eitherway the only thing the buyer of one these has more of than money is chromosomes.

This also indicates the fatal flaw with Japanese food, it's all presentation and often lacking substance. A $3 bowl of Ramen will look pretty nice even if it doesn't taste it often making it hard to make a good decision (Thankfully Ramen is one of the few good and cheap foods). So, for as neat as a 12 course ryoukan dinner looks (no less than half of them have the texture of boogers) it doesn't really seem to capture the raw deliciousness of a slightly smooshed, oversalted hamburger made by a 17 year old who made a poor life decision.

Japanese Dormitories

The CIEE handbook tells us not to make comparisons between dorms at home and those abroad. I think it was pretty obvious why: Dorms in Japan are awful and at least at the outset there are little redeeming values for running it this way. First let's start with the good:

-Meals are provided on most days, included.
-Laundry is free to do
-Rooms are furnished
-There's a sink in each room (at least in my case)
-You can take a bath

But that's really all there is at the moment and most of it doesn't matter:

-Meals are basically 2 types of breakfasts (Japanese and Western) and one dinner (Japanese) if you don't like it then you don't eat. Food is not unlimited except for rice. Furthermore food cannot be taken into or out of the cafeteria. Taking in might make sense if it wasn't free, but the reason they use for this is sanitation concerns as if outside food will explode into a cloud of toxic spores. Likewise taking it out is like opening the Ark of the Covenant and may lead to accidental face meltings. In addition you need to mark a book with when you have eaten, again with the excuse that it is for safety concerns. The TSA has nothing on Japanese kitchens which is quite surprising coming from a country that will willingly eat raw horse meat, and deadly puffer-fish.

-Laundry is free but Japan has a vendetta against dryers so those you have to pay for.

-While there is a sink in every room you need to activate a water heater beneath the sink 30 minutes prior to using any hot water.

-Baths must be taken naked with other dudes. But I suppose if you're the kind of guy who wears an expensive Prada man-purse that's not a problem.

Here's what sucks:

-As with most Japanese homes you must take off your shoes before entering the building in an entryway. Your shoes are then put into a locker and you must wear slippers around inside which for a person who hates slippers really sucks. But that's not all, to be extra anal you must use a public pair of toilet slippers when using the restroom, that is you need to change shoes again inside a bathroom and in any room with tatami you can't wear footwear at all. The idea is to keep the inside nice and clean but it just doesn't seem worth it.

-Curfew restrictions are ridiculous. You cannot leave before 6:30am and you must be back by 12:00am. Failure to adhere to the deadlines means you get locked out, because at the stroke of midnight the rapists come beating down on the doors like nocturnal zombies. While it's possible to stay out overnight you need to submit a form to do so.

-Visiting restrictions are even more ridiculous. There is complete gender separation. Females are not allowed into the dorms what-so-ever, that includes family members. Friends and family must be the same sex as you and you need to submit a form when they visit you. Friends must leave by 8:00pm but family can stay over for a couple nights. Maybe you could make a case for some over-protective female dorm going this route, but as a male I'm far more afraid of naked man-baths than the opposite sex (which you will invariably brush up against in a crowded train anyway).

These problems are only amplified by the fact that the dorms are a short (long) 50 minute commute from the campus. There are of course other problems which I will touch on later like the incomprehensible garbage system but those aren't really personal choices as much as they are societal failings. The is some good in that there is less idiocy, and more cleanliness and quiet but compared to what you lose it's a rather mock win. In some ways it makes you appreciate your loud inebriated roommate.