It was a dark and stormy night...and the start of something special

Today, I tried oden and made the acquaintance of a couple Japanese gentlemen at a small restaurant not far from the house. Didn’t want to go far…It was one of those miserable days…cold and rainy, with gusting winds…A day to make me think of England with a feeling somewhat other than a melancholy yearning for a long lost "home". In short, it was a crap kind of day.

With surprisingly no motivation to cook for myself, I ventured forth anyway, finding out quickly that my umbrella, chosen for its small size since I didn’t want to hog the whole 20 inches of sidewalk on my way down to the restaurant, was in fact broken. Not badly broken—only one of the little metal stays/sticks/thing-a-ma-jigs that are meant to keep the nylon pulled taut had pulled free. Just broken enough to be a pain in the ass and for the wind to catch it and turn it inside out every ten feet or so. The though occurred that making Mac n’ Cheese might have been easier, but hell, I was already out, already wet, and so totally committed.

Arrival at restaurant: empty counter, family seated at the lone table in the rear. The cook/chef/owner was welcoming and even spoke a little English. Alas, the menu was written on strips of poster paper taped to the walls. All hiragana, katakana and kanji. What little I could decipher phonetically I was unable to assign any semantic meaning to and so, in halting Japanese I asked: Do you have gyoza? Yakisoba? Udon? No, he replied. Oden to yakitori dake ga arimasu. We have only oden and yakitori. Okay! I know yakitori and I’m willing to try oden. So I did. It was delicious. A broth in which you’ll find an assortment of “things,” most of them round. Mine had chicken balls, fish balls, some kind of yam balls, a whole egg….Yummy! And perfect for the Mancunian weather to which we were being treated.

I was just savouring the last drops of oden when a couple of men entered and sat down beside me. They ordered food and drink and began to chat. Not normally an eavesdropper, in Japan I have found myself straining to overhear conversations of those around me…in restaurants, on the street, on the train. This behaviour is in part driven by a desire to learn, or at least to determine how much meaning I can cull out of what's being said, but is also driven, in no small part by paranoia. My ears twitch in fearful anticipation of hearing the words Amerikajin, gaijin, kokujin spoken in tones that convey unmistakable distaste. And in this particular instance, it wasn’t long before I hear said words being spoken, sans distaste, mais avec curiosite. No point trying to make myself small. Instead, I reached for my beer (I just love how so many restaurants practically serve “forties,” as opposed to the civilized 12 oz bottles you get back “home”), and turned my attention to the yakitori which the chef had just served: “Try and see if you like.” Me like very much! Mō, ippon kudasai. Another one please!

A few minutes passed in companionable silence – yakitori chewing, oden slurping, beer guzzling... And then the gentleman nearest me asked where I was from. I’m Canadian, I said, but I’ve lived in the U.S. for many years and am married to an American. A sō desu ne! Do you live around here? Yes, I do. And so on for a few minutes…all in Japanese.

His companion spoke a little English so we were able to move on to more interesting topics and, well, the night turned out to be quite fun. We guessed each other’s ages (44, 37, 35), traded words, scribbled the alphabet. I confessed to the fact that I had never learned to write cursive script, a skill at which both proved adept. We had a good laugh over the fact that one guy screwed up his listing of hiragana (Japanese phonetic alphabet) (he explained that he was not really Japanese after all.) They marvelled at the fact that despite having lived here for only 3 months, I was able to speak rudimentary Japanese, and still marvelled when they learned that I'd studied it fifteen years ago at university. They marvelled that I'd been to university and that it wasn't called Mos Def U. or College of Da Schiznitz. They wondered why I'd married an American and I confess, that was a toughie...Finally settled on the plain truth: for love.

We also talked about spiders in Japan. Apparently the really, really big ones, i.e. the ones with bodies like buicks and legs like furry lampposts, are considered good luck and aren’t poisonous. (Okay, if y’all say so). In addition to spiders, Japan is apparently teeming with "mushi"--insects. It seems that entomologically speaking, I have lots to look foward to, and may soon find myself having to abandon my zen posture towards all bugs with the exception of roaches, i.e. live and let live, or else spend many hours a day ferrying little lost critters from our home back to the outside where I happen to think they rightfully belong.

One guy had traveled a bit (Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia…) and so we delved into the differences in how English is spoken in various parts of the world. They just loved the fact that I had an inkan (name stamp) though of course when demonstrating its use, I managed to print my name upside down…must remember to put sticker on inkan saying, “this way up.”

All in all, good times, my friends. Good times. Another customer who hadn’t taken part in our conversation presented me with a present (an orange, wrapped of course!) on his way out and wished me “sweet dreams.” I was really touched, people. No, really! It was great.
One of my interlocutors wishes to practice English (with his wife) and so I’ll probably be meeting with them both in the near future. My fee: teach me Japanese!!!