Ota, depachikas, and fugu

Ota sensei drives me crazy.

He seems like a very nice man, quite fit perhaps to be a grandfather or small shopkeeper. Especially if you speak his language fluently, or he yours. However, neither I nor he does, and we have both somehow been stuck with one another, neither fully understanding the motivation nor words of the other. Ota sensei is my Japanese Culture professor. I am not happy about this predicament.

Japanese Culture sounded like an excellent class. It would, they told us, dive into many new and exciting topics pertaining to the way Japanese people live, ranging everywhere from aspects of daily life to the most closely held details of their history and heritage. And what a rich culture it is! Sumo wrestling, tea ceremonies, the Bushido code, the effect of World War II on the public consciousness, the Meji Restoration and all that that implies, etc etc. The potential topics into which this class can delve are innumerable and exciting. So what do we do? We go to the grocery store, of course!

Japanese Culture has decided that to further indulge our curiosities and enrich our educational experience, we should go on periodic field trips. A fine idea, to be sure. However, the location and educational value of these field trips has, up to this point, been dubious at best. Recently, we traveled to a hyuakuenya, or dollar store, and then afterwards witnessed the wonders that the Japanese supermarket has to offer. Thrilling, I agree!

Oy. To be fair there is a degree to which the Japanese supermarkets are intriguing. Their seafood sections, especially, are quite fascinating inasmuch as they are much larger and more fully stocked than most American ones, and have a far higher frequency of live animals. In one section, I discovered an iced tray of live, pre-battered crabs that seemed to be sitting there, half-angered and half-embarrassed. I know I would be if some alien race plucked me from my home, stripped me naked, covered me in butter and oyster crackers and threw me in a bucket of ice.

Another interesting sight at the “supaa”, as they call it, was fugu. Fugu, as many may recognize from the classic Simpsons episode “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blowfish”, is perhaps the most notorious of all Japanese delicacies. It is a large, fat, blue and white blowfish which, due to the type of coral it eats in the wild, has a sac within it that becomes highly concentrated with a deadly toxin. Of course, this doesn’t stop the Japanese and they happily devour the fish in droves. Preparation of fugu requires a deft hand though, and one errant slice this way or chop that way can puncture the sac and spill the toxin throughout the flesh of the fish and make its way onto your plate and subsequently, stomach, at which point you die. Despite this fugu is widely available, though for quite a high price.

Well, would you look at that. I actually do find this somewhat interesting. Perhaps Ota isn’t so bad after all. Perhaps his almost complete lack of English skills don’t render him useless as a professor of an ostensibly English-language class. And perhaps he’ll let me prepare his fugu next time he orders it