The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

The learned Geoff Carr points out that living in Japan gives insight into illiteracy.  For the first time in 55 years, I am illiterate. It really cramps your style. Try filling up at a self service gas station. There is a certain amount of graphic flow chart on the pump but this is just to lure you in. If you get past stage one, a screen illuminates with a question and that’s it. You are finished. You are illiterate. You have to find someone to help you: here  not a problem as the Okinawans are very helpful but imagine the humiliation in your own country.

I go to the supermarket and dodge around the shelves looking for signs, graphics. I  am sure my sense of smell is becoming keener as I sniff at tins of fish like a hound.

Sniff, snuffle- spot the clue

The supermarket is a mystery. What is all this stuff? OK some of it  is  foreign and thus I do not feel so bad not recognizing it but liquid in bottles – you would  like to know if it is lamp oil, salad dressing or boil remedy.

Firelighters?

Furniture polish?

Face cream?

I bought a router so I could have wireless in the apartment. I foolishly assumed that there would be an English version of the installation instructions. Not so. At first I thought I could work it out using the images. Not so. What is ‘IP address’ in Kanji or more likely Katakana?  Ho hum.

Spot the User Portal Login Info

So this  has left me with a  overwhelming feeling of comradeship with all of you out there who have difficulty reading, whoa! don’t even mention writing. It only takes a little displacement to render anyone illiterate.

So this is fun. In Okinawa and I guess in the rest of Japan, a thing you gotta have is an ‘Inkan’. This is your own personal yet official seal. To approve a document,  er like a budget thing at work, um a bank check,  you want to buy a car, things that in Europe or the US we would sign, here you seal. This is great. It reminds me of  a big splodge of sealing wax and  an angry King being forced by revolting Barons to plunge his signet ring.

My own Inkan, which I received after quite a lot of paperwork and much help from my employers, is discrete. I think it has my name in Katakana inscribed on it.

A brief digression on what I understand to be 3 different Japanese scripts. First is Kanji which is the same as is used in China – highly decorative. The second is Hiragana,which is sort of old Japanese used for concepts that have no direct Kanji counterpart. Then there is Katakana, which is used for foreign loan words and concepts. Apartment complex would be written in Katakana. A translation of:

“His knife see rustic Labour dicht,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready slicht,
Trenching your gushing entrails bricht,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sicht,
Warm-reekin, rich!”

would be written in Katakana.  So, my name, clearly foreign and having quite a lot of L sounds, not easily handled in Japanese, is transcribed into Katakana something like, ‘Knee-Dough Cor Duh.’

I think this is what is carved onto my Inkan. Japanese friends please correct me.

Incandescent

I rather wish I had asked for my Inkan to be in Kanji as it would have been much more decorative.

Action shot

I am terrified of losing it.

I lie on my futon looking out of the huge windows that make up 50% of the wall space in my bedroom. I contemplate the rising sun and wait.  At 7:00 exactly speakers concealed in trees, trash cans, disguised as telegraph poles and parked cars burst into action with an electronically jingly jangly version of:

7:00 from futon

Blue, blue, my world is blue

Blue is my world now I’m without you

Gray, gray, my life is gray

Cold is my heart since you went away

The sound quality is excellent. It’s not just in Yomitan but all over Okinawa, maybe all over Japan, that the world comes to life with  jingly jangly. I wonder if they would play the tune if they knew the lyrics? Here is another stanza:

Red, red, my eyes are red
Crying for you alone in my bed
Green, green, my jealous heart
I doubted you and now we’re apart

Just the stuff to get up full of joy to start a new day.

At 5:00 pm the same system plays “Greensleeves” Don’t they know any Japanese tunes?

View - fish, treasure and wrecks

So, as far as sites for a restaurant go, this has to be pretty high on the reckoning. Perched high on a hill in Yomitan, it has an unobstructed view over the East China Sea, which today runs from wine dark blue to clear turquoise. The big blue hammers against the reef that is about half a mile offshore and as the tide is on its way out I can see the different channels and rock formations all which must be pullulating with exotic fish, coral and treasure.

Beautiful, light-filled, dining room on the second floor, one wall being windows looking out over the sea. I order in a finger pointing fashion and pretty soon a US style salad and vegetable soup arrive, OK but disappointingly unexotic. Next is composite plate of spaghetti, rice, broccoli, a croissant, a shrimp, a bit of fish and a cocotte of macaroni cheese. Strong euro Italianate influence that seems to be pretty common around here, last night we ate Pizza! Finally black tea arrives in a very English cup and saucer.

Very pleasant lunch for 1100 yen, incredible views, great service but I want adventure. Gimme chicken hearts baked in seaweed or something.

Martha and James got me the toad in the Phillipines

I forgot the spring roll thing

I walked here from my new apartment, of which more later, following discrete signs marked only with ‘cafe.’ Once again I have no idea what the restaurant’s name is or how to describe where it is. There seems to be a practice of under-advertizing restaurants in Okinawa. Maybe there is a city bylaw against signs, or maybe it is felt to be vulgar to advertize. A good wine needs no bush.

Where are the Golden Arches?

Hmmm

Apparently a million tourists visit Okinawa every year. Must be tough being an instructor.

I have to have a car to get around and go to work and that kind of thing.  Hmmmm, Okinawa is really not very big, the roads are narrow and the standard speed limit is 50 kph! Do I really need a Range Rover? Perhaps not. After much help I secure a second hand Nissan March, which I believe is called a Micra in the rest of the world. It’s colour can only be described as ‘Pig’s Liver’ but she is very clean and seems to start reliably.

Perfect for those hip, single type, city dwelling, label-wearing females

This really is a small car but I think she will suit me just fine as she does not appear to use any gas at all. The dealer is a nice guy and is letting me have her on the promise that I will pay in 2 months time. I have an er, sorta, cash flow bottleneck.

Less is more

Driving reminds me of bumper cars at the fairground. She is automatic so you just push the pedal and of she goes- zoom, zoom- the you press the brake and she slows down- unzoom, unzoom. That’s about it.

After several days of dull pain and discomfort anaethetized by handfuls of Ibuprofen, I go to the dentist. The clinic is a small temporary building with a cute whale with big teeth as a logo. I go into the tiny waiting room and encounter first confusion. I take off my shoes and look for slippers. There are none, yet all the other people waiting are wearing them. I blunder to a seat on a bench wearing my socks and red cheeks. I wait  and finally realize that there is a machine near the entrance that gives birth to slippers. I blunder over, grab some and feel much better.

This is my car outside the dentist

A nurse comes through and calls “Neil San”. She leads me to the  open plan surgery where there are 8 chairs holding patients being drilled. After initial inspection by 2 nurses without many English words, the dentist arrives and says, “Much pus! Root canal.”  “What now?” “Hai!!”

He grabs a $1100  crown in his tongs, wrenches it off and chucks it in the trash!  The nurse lays a yellow mask over my face leaving only my mouth open to attack.   The dentist then launches straight into root canal treatment.   I sometimes flinch and he gruffly asks,”Pain?” to which I give the international answer of patients with a mouthful of dentistry stuff, “Garrgh.”

90 minutes  later he is done and storms off to drill someone else.  I am given some pills and told to come back on Wednesday. I give them 2,300 yen – ~$30. Thinking back to US days of first session with Dentist who would then send you to an Orthodontist. You get an appointment a week later, he then sends you to a pharmacy to pick up the drugs. Two weeks and a $1000. Japan gets straight to work.

My medication

So let’s start with some food and some confusion.  One of the problems related to writing about restaurants is going to be that I have no idea of what the name of the restaurant might be nor the name of the dish nor indeed where the restaurant is.

So I go to a restaurant which is South of where I work and North of where I will eventually be living but I don’t, suppose that helps you very much.

So this is it. Anyone recognize it?

The interior is divided into two sections. One section has Tatami mat flooring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatami_mat and low tables at which you squat, kneel,  or adopt a position that does not give cramp. The second has tables and chairs. Even after all the yoga and exercise I did in San Francisco, I do not have the confidence to hit the mat so I sheepishly head for a table.

Looking into the area of loose joints

Luckily there are pictures on the menu, one of which is of a black bowl full of black liquid. I wait and wait and the servers seem to be ignoring me. I finally harumph a little and  a lady immediately arrives. I have the impression that she is relieved that I have made up my mind at last and that she has been hanging around waiting, it being bad form to come to the table and ask what I want. However as with many things on Okinawa my interpretation could be very flawed.

The black liquid in the black bowl turns out to be squid soup. It is delicious: thick black fish stock with lumps of squid, onion and green vegetable of the cabbage family.

Black soup comes with rice, pickled radish I think and some salad er stuff

I also order Sashimi because I know what it is. It arrives looking regal on a bed of grated radish sitting on a lump of ice. Things start to go odd now. I am looking for the wasabi, which I fail to spot on the edge of the plate. There is a container thing on the table that I take to be the wasabi box. It has a white release button on top but even with repeated pressing the box does not open. I put it down just as the serving lady arrives and bows, looking inquisitive. I say very good, yum, yum and after a while she leaves. The sashimi is  squid, octopus and 3 different fish. Big juicy fresh chunks of raw seafood.

Really good

Wasabi box

Some wasabi  would be nice and I struggle again to get into the box. The serving lady again shows up, bows and hangs around for a slightly uncomfortable time. She speaks but alack I can only grin and rub my stomach. All goes well as I enjoy an excellent meal. I try again to get some wasabi from the box and again the lady shows but this time she looks vaguely exercized.

The meal with a little seaweed starter and lots of green tea came to 1400 yen – $ 17? Not cheap compared to Irving St,  San Francisco but well worth it. I thoroughly recommend the er, um restaurant in er, um.

The weather has actually been profoundly Scottish but there was one good day.

I will be in Okinawa, Japan for some time and thought it would be interesting to record impressions, experiences and reflections. As always, the best way to find out about anything is to go straight to Wikipedia; so to save myself time and effort here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa

I apologize in advance for the unavoidably repetitive posts in  this blog. There will be a lot on food, a lot on birds and a lot on confusion.