If Nothing Else.

When I was seventeen years old, I took the opportunity to spend the summer in Gunma, Japan.  This was my very first trip out of the continental United States, and, looking back, I can't believe how eager and brave I was to go, all by myself, and live for 6 weeks with a family who spoke no English, while I only knew to bow and murmur "konnichiwa."  

What was I thinking?  I only know I wanted to explore the world.  Any part of the world was good enough for me, so long as it was defined as "international."  What I didn't understand was how lonely, how challenged I would be.  To be honest, I expected to be able to communicate, but upon landing, was rocked and shaken with homesickness when the reality that I would have to cope with barbaric gesturing for six weeks in order to "say" anything.

For a westerner, Japan is about as foreign as can be imagined.  The food, the culture, the expectations, mannerisms, traditions... everything from sleeping arrangements to eating utensils are confusing, strange, unique and majestic through the eyes of an American teen.  

I remember with great amusement my first morning breakfast there.  Upon awakening, I proceeded to roll up my sleeping arrangements: a thin futon and stuffed it into the closet, sliding the paper thin door behind me.  I wrapped myself up in my packed pink robe and stuffed on the fuzzy slippers my host mother (or, Okasan) provided me with and timidly entered the kitchen.  

The table was set for only me, my host brother and sister having earlier departed for school.  My Okasan set the kitchen table, a commodity rarely utilized as customarily Japanese families eat seated on the floor.  Upon entering the kitchen, I noticed my Okasan had set the table with a fork and a knife and that made me smile to myself.  When she noticed she made a high pitched noise and indicated I may use chopsticks if I prefer.  I nodded, desperate to at least, if nothing else, learn.

She set a plate in front of me that made my stomach flip-flop.  On it there was a medium size fish that looked like it had swum directly out of the kitchen sink and decided to hang out on my plate with it's weird little fish smile.  It wasn't springing up and down, but it's direct eyes hadn't quite glazed over, either.  Let me be clearer: it would be impossible for it to be more fresh, yet less cooked.  On top of its side sat a very familiar looking fried egg, laden over side of the fish like a jiggly yellow blanket.  Then, I looked to my right, collecting that I'd insisted to eat my "breakfast" with two blunt, smooth little sticks, and that I would have to jab through the egg and into the fish flesh, making sure to avoid it's thin ribs and deliver the food back to my own uncertain mouth.  I stared, looking back between the chopsticks and the fork, and with great inexperience, selected the chopsticks and prepared to make my best attempt.

Two seconds later the egg was splayed across my bathrobe, and the fish was nestled between my knees where I'd managed to capture it's slippery body before it hit the floor.  My host mother cackled an outright laugh, complete with tears springing from her humored eyes.  She gestured for me to use the fork! but I refused.  Embarrassed though I was, I thought I could have had a worse first attempt.  Besides, I'm stubborn.

I have no clear moral for telling this story except the fact that now, I could snatch a flea off a smooth surface with a pair of chopsticks.  

That, and, if nothing else, learn.  

The recipe for the fish/egg combo is here if you are interested.  Just kidding.