Tokyo Heart

Digital Diet - good for the Heart

Did you know that forks were not generally used as eating utensils by people in many countries until around the 16th century?

There are records of forks being used in Greece as early as the 4th century, and the wealthy populace of the Middle East used them in the 7th - 13th centuries, but that's about it.

In 1005 a byzantine aristocrat, Maria Argyropoulina married the future doge of Venice, Domenico Selvo. To keep her fingers clean (most people ate with their fingers at the time), she had her servants cut her food into tiny pieces which she proceeded to eat with a golden two-tined fork that she carried with her. Wedding guests were apalled! How decadent!

She died shortly after the wedding of some disease and most perceived this as a sign that divine punishement was being wrought upon her.

The cardinal bishop of Ostia went so far as to preach against the fork, calling it a "diabolic instrument" (probably because of the similarity of the shape to the Devil's trident). He declared it as "useless" because spaghetti and macroni were so hard to eat with it. Thus, forks disappeared from the Italian table until the 16th century when it was rediscovered due to a revival in the quest for cleanliness.

Now that you know about the fork, do you know the simplest and most popular eating tool ever invented?

It's chopsticks, which are used by over 1.5 billion people almost every day.

Chopsticks are thought to have been invented around 300 B.C. and some say the use of chopsticks may have been influenced by Confucious around 550 B.C.

Some facts from the UC Berkely Wellness Letter (with some additions from me):

• Studies have shown that the optimal length of chopsticks for adults is 9 inches; for kids, 7 inches. (For cooking you may want to use the longer ones that are 12" or 15" or more; keeps you from burning your hands.)
• Squarish chopsticks are easier to use than round ones (and those lacquered ones are especially slippery and tough to use).
• Disposable chopsticks (the kind you find in many Asian restaurants all over the world, known as "waribashi" in Japan), destroy millions of trees every year. The Chinese government taxes chopsticks now to help preserve forests. (More & more people, especially in Japan, are carrying nicely made chopsticks in fancy boxes, or special silks pouches, with them for every day use. When we buy prepared food in the supermarkets, or take away food shops here, we usually decline the free disposable chopsticks and use the ones we have at home.)
• Some diets recommend using chopsticks because they make you eat more slowly (guess they've never seen a Japanese "salaryman" at lunch devour a bowl of noodles or a big bowl of rice in 5 minutes using chopsticks). You generally pick up less sauce (more for Chinese food than Japanese food), which is often high in calories, fat, and sodium (MSG anyone?).
• Long term use may increase the risk of arthritis in the hand, especially the thumb joint. This is according to a study of older people in Beijing a few years ago. But, if you don't use them every day this is not something to be concerned about.

If you are using your chopsticks to take food from a "communal" plate turn them around & use the wide end (the non-eating end) to take the food. This keeps you from contaminating the food or passing any germs to others.

Never pass food from your chopsticks to anyone else's chopsticks - or vice versa. Why not? Well, this is how the bones are picked out of the ashes by family members after a cremation. The bones are picked up with chopsticks, passed around the table, and placed in the urn.

Never leave your chopsticks sticking up in your bowl of rice (other other food). This is how rice is left at the family altar for the departed members of the family.

Some people have a difficult time mastering the use of chopsticks. Usually, it's because they hold them too close to the tip (further back is better and easier) or they grip them wrongly, or they grip them too tightly. For a short lesson have a look at this video.

For a tongue in cheek look (not many subtitles, but the visuals are funny) watch this:

 

 

Toasted Hearts

The following is the long version of my Icebreaker speech at the FCCJ Toastmasters meeting. Since we're limited to a maximum of 6 minutes for the icebreaker I delivered a shortened version on Dec. 7, 2009, but I promised to share the longer version with my fellow Toastmasters - and you other "lucky" readers get to see it now, too!  Now, your day can be just perfect!  :-)

Toastmasters Speech for Dec. 7, 2009

That Question! 

 

I Hate That Question!

 

You’re probably thinking, ‘What in the world could be so bad to ask that someone would hate the question?’

 

Well, for me, it’s the question so often asked to those of us who are not Japanese, but have lived a long part of our life in Japan; “Oh, you’ve been here for 19 years?  What is it about Japan that you like so much that you’ve lived here so long?”

 

Now, the truth is, it isn’t the question I hate; after all, it’s a perfectly natural question to ask someone who is not Japanese, but who has lived here for a long time.

 

What I am really uncomfortable with is my own inability to answer that question in a short, yet meaningful manner. So, let me try to rectify that now.

 

I first came to Japan when I was still in my teens. I grew up in Ohio, in the Midwest of the United States and after I joined the army, the military powers that be decided that my skills, which I had learned from military training, could be best be used in Japan.  And so, I found myself living in the wide open spaces of Hokkaido, which was not unlike Ohio in that there are big open spaces, lots of trees, rolling hills, and even cows!  Of course, in Ohio we didn’t have any ramen shops, but that didn’t stop me from soon learning to like a good bowl of steaming ramen on a cold wintry Hokkaido day!

 

And, in Ohio we didn’t have those huge bottles of Sapporo beer – and I mean really huge – something like two liters per bottle – that we young army guys called Combat Jugs, but I soon learned to like that beer too, which went very well with those hot bowls of shoyu-ramen.

 

I even came to enjoy the ventures into small Hokkaido towns where I could hear the pitter-patter of little feet running to fetch okaasan (mom) to tell her to come and see the gaijin. Gaijin da! Gaijin da!  (Foreigner!  Foreigner!)

 

At the end of my 3-year assignment in Chitose at the army base known as Kuma Station, I actually elected to extend my assignment so I could remain in Japan. Of course, my girlfriend (soon to be my wife) had something to do with that decision.

 

After returning to the states, with my Dosanko bride in tow, we enjoyed living in Ohio again (at least again for me; first time for her).  But, nine years later the call of Japan was growing and I managed to land a job with the Insurance Company of North America and get them to send me back to Japan. 

 

We spent the next 9 years living in Tokyo enjoying the expat life, raising our children in a safe, clean, and very functional environment.  There were trains to ride that ran on time even if we did sometimes have to be crammed into those trains like size 27 feet into a size 23 shoe. There were shops that had great service even if it did mean we had to unwrap three layers of paper before getting to the box that then had cookies in it that were individually wrapped. All very clean and all very orderly.  

 

I did find that the Tokyo ramen wasn’t quite as good as the Hokkaido version, but there were plenty of other great foods to take its place.  However, the beer was still pretty darned good and I made sure to do my part as a taste tester as I sang karaoke with my coworkers late into many evenings.  Why, I even learned to sing a few enka in Japanese.  

 

On the weekends I discovered golf and enjoyed golfing at many courses around Japan as well as the course at Camp Zama, which I could use since I was still a member of the US Army reserves.  Golf at $5 a round was great even if my scores were still in the triple digits back then.

 

During this period of my Japan life I also enrolled in and completed courses in three different Japanese schools so that by the time we were being reposted back to the USA my Japanese had gotten to a fairly decent business level.

 

In 1988 we moved back to the USA, but this time we wound up in Omaha, Nebraska.  No rolling hills there, but trust me, there are plenty of cows!  More cows than people, in fact!  And, much of that Nebraska beef is exported to Japan.

 

Three years later and the call of Asia was still in my heart. When a headhunter called with an opportunity to move back to Japan I jumped at it. Unfortunately, that Japan opportunity turned out to be in Singapore.  Guess that headhunter wasn’t quite up on his geography!  For the next 11½ years we lived in Singapore and Malaysia, but Japan was always close at heart and I was fortunate enough to be able to make trips to Japan on a pretty regular basis.

 

When another opportunity arose in 2002 to come back to Japan my wife and I felt we were fortunate and of course, I took that opportunity.

 

As empty nesters we made our way back to Tokyo and quickly settled in to life here in the expat life style.  Actually, the expat lifestyle is a bit of “false” living in Japan, but it’s good living.  Company paid housing, company car, club membership.  True, all of these are nice, but they are not what makes living in Japan enjoyable for me.

 

After retiring from 32 years in the insurance industry I could have headed back to the USA, but we decided that Japan is the place we want to live.  We even wound up buying our own home here.   

 

Japan is where most of my friends are. Most of the people I’ve known for 5, or 10, or even 30 years live here. 

 

The trains still run on time, but now the shoehorn isn’t needed as often.

 

The food is great and these days it’s not just the ramen.  Look at all the Michelin stars Tokyo has. What better place in the world to enjoy great food and wine and still coupled with high quality service!

 

True, safety has decreased a bit over the years and there are quite a few more weird people out there in the streets and on the trains, but overall it is still a nice, safe, and clean place to be.

 

Sure, there are still frustrations, but frustrations are anywhere and everywhere in the world. Some places have bigger ones, some smaller, but hey, that’s life.

 

So, maybe now I won’t have to hate that question so much.

 

Maybe now I can answer it next time someone asks.