Lost In Translation

Abrazo a la Oaxaqueña

I was once again inspired by Japan Times food critic Robbie Swinnerton to try a new authentic Mexican restaurant in Shimokitazawa, Abrazo a la Oxaquena. Since I had to work all weekend I thought I would do some food tourism. We started out by ordering three Oxaquena specialities, the one above is tacos dorados (deep fried tacos).

Molotes- are a very special "holiday street food", found in Oaxaca during Guelaguetza, Easter, and Christmas times. It is made with a disk of fresh masa then filled with a Chorizo and Potato filling, fried, then topped with Black Bean Puree, Queso Fresco and usually garnished with sliced radishes. The above picture is the Abrazo version.

Memelas - are best described as toasted Oaxacan pizzas - very healthy, the corn masa is flattened with a tortilla press then placed over a hot comal or griddle. Topped with Black Beans, Mole Negro, Queso Fresco, Cabbage, Guacamole, and Salsa.

Then we went with one of the weekly specials, Tostada de Picadillo, which was marinated pork with asparagus on re-fried black bean covered tortillas.

Pollo En Mole Negro (Chicken in Ozxacan Black Mole). I must admit I was pretty impressed with this operation: the corn torillas were hand made and delicious. I don't usually go for authentic Mexican restaurants, but I think this is the best traditional style Mexican restaurant in Tokyo I've been to.

Post Mortem

Post Mortem (2011) is the second part of Chilean Director Pablo Larrin's trilogy related to chaotic 70s in Chile where Salvatore Allende's socialist government was overthrown by dictator Augusto Pinochet. Once again it stars Alfredo Castro (previously starred in Larrin's Tony Manero the first film in his trilogy) as a pathologist's assistant. He sports a curious pageboy haircut that resembles that Javier Bardem's hairstyle in No Country for Old Men. He falls in love with a neighbor who dances for a burlesque show and whose brother and father are involved in the communist movement and are in danger following the overthrow. At the same time he has to deal with pressure from the military who want to hide the real cause of death of the bodies piling up in the morgue. It is a curious and powerful indictment of the excesses of the Pinochet regime.

Chegoya

When you have to work during Golden Week you really start to look forward to lunches, this is the bibimba lunch set from the Jimbocho branch of the Korean restaurant Chegoya-only ¥750.

Story Of A Prostitute

Seijun Suzuki's Story Of A Prostitute (1965) is probably as close as he got to creating a prestige film. The film is set in China on the Manchurian front in the late 1930s where Harumi (Yumiko Nogawa) has volunteered as a “comfort woman” after being betrayed by her fiance who decided to marry a girl from a better family.  Harumi is chosen as a favorite by the cruel Lieutenant Narita (Isao Tamagawa)at the army base, but falls for Narita’s direct subordinate Mikami (Tamio Kawachi). Seijun Suzuki’s Story of a Prostitute is an adaptation of a Taijiro Tamura novel that challenges the military and male codes of honor. I was surprised to learn from the extras that it was not shot on location, the set designs by Takeo Kimura do a compelling job of creating the Manchurian plains. There is some great cinematography and a surreal dreamlike sequence in which Harumi strips and run in slow motion through a courtyard and up some steps into a room that is visually striking and memorable.I am still working my way through Suszuki's oeuvre, but this might be my favorite so far. The Criterion edition has some good features such as new video interviews with director Seijun Suzuki, production designer Takeo Kimura, and film critic Tadao Sato, the original theatrical trailer, new and improved English subtitle translation and a new essay by film critic David Chute.

Birdland

Last year when I was researching places to take my brother and father on their visit to Japan I came across an article that revealed that Birdland in Ginza had received the coveted Michelin one star rating. I knew that I would have to go someday. So recently I came across this post from Japan Times food critic Robbie Swinnerton's Food File blog and knew it was time to visit.



This is the wasabi sasami which was more cooked than usual, which is fine by me, but unusual.

This was one of my favorite dishes, basil chicken.

The old reliable tsukune with a nice tare sauce.

Renkon (lotus root) with minced chicken cooked in the holes-very nice and inventive.

This isn't your mother's grilled cheese.

So many dishes, I believe this was the chicken thigh with skin-very crispy and flavorful.

Negima (chicken thigh and leeks), another classic yakitori standby.

Oyakudon (chicken and egg rice bowl) is a favorite, so I had to try theirs and it was runny and chock full of tasty chicken. I'm sure I missed a few dishes and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but I think we all decided that despite the fact that they use high quality ingredients, cook the chicken to perfection, and provide excellent service in pleasing atmosphere we all have strong opinions about our favorite yakitori places and feel that the price and status doesn't seem appropriate. No regrets, I really needed to experience what a Michelin one star yakitori joint tastes like.

Incidently, we began to wonder what the criteria for the Michelin star system was and I found their website, which had this to say about one star establishments:

One star indicates a very good restaurant in its category, offering cuisine prepared to a consistently high standard. A good place to stop on your journey.

Halfway through the meal I realized that Birdland is located across the hall from Jiro Ono's sushi shop. Not sure if I'll make it there anytime soon though.

Anatomy Of A Murder

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) is one of Otto Preminger's best films and a compelling courtroom drama starring Jimmy Stewart who plays a small-town Michigan lawyer who takes on a seemingly impossible case. It is the defense of a young soldier (Ben Gazzara) accused of murdering a local tavern owner who he believes raped his  provocative wife (Lee Remick). The most popular film by Hollywood emigre Otto Preminger, was considered groundbreaking for the frank discussion of sex in the film. It Features an outstanding supporting cast: a young George C. Scott as prosecutor gun for hire and the famous real life attorney Joseph N. Welch as the judge. The film includes an influential score by Duke Ellington. It was nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture. The Criterion extras include: a new interview with Otto Preminger biographer Foster Hirsch, critic Gary Giddins explores Duke Ellington’s score in a new interview,  a look at the relationship between graphic designer Saul Bass and Preminger with Bass biographer Pat Kirkham, newsreel footage from the set, excerpts from a 1967 episode of Firing Line, featuring Preminger in discussion with William F. Buckley Jr., excerpts from the work in progress Anatomy of “Anatomy,” behind-the-scenes photographs by Life magazine’s Gjon Mili, trailer, featuring on-set footage, and a booklet featuring an essay by critic Nick Pinkerton and a 1959 Life magazine article on real-life lawyer Joseph N. Welch, who plays Judge Weaver in the film. It is a great package overall, which I've come to expect from Criterion.

Japanese Proficiency: Inverse Returns

Kate Elwood presents another interesting question in her Daily Yomiuri column Cultural Conundrums, in which she discusses the idea of "inverse returns" with Japanese proficiency:

Several years ago I was in the process of writing a book of advice for foreigners living in Japan. When the first draft was close of completion, the publishers handed the manuscript over to a proofreader I'll call Mike. To put it plainly, Mike didn't like the book. He kind of hated it. His antipathy seemed to be related to the book's basic premise--that understanding the dynamics of Japanese culture could take some time but was well worth the effort. Ultimately, the publisher found another proofreader and things went on smoothly.

Hostile criticism is not easy to take, and for a while afterward I was prone to scoff crossly and dismiss Mike's comments out of hand. But the gist of one angrily scrawled comment stayed with me even as others faded over time. Mike wrote something like, "Ms. Elwood has completely ignored the benefits of being a gaijin in Japan."

I think Mike meant that I had put too much emphasis on the "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" attitude, and that declining to follow various cultural conventions was the smarter move for savvy foreigners. There are certainly proponents in Japan of Mike's position, which in its strongest form is sometimes called "playing the gaijin card." Some pragmatists see it as a quick and easy means of eluding pesky social rules. Others feel they have tried to fit in to no avail, and have reaffirmed divergence as the way to greater satisfaction.

Roughly 30 years ago the well-known linguist Roy Andrew Miller put forth a controversial claim about Japanese spoken by non-Japanese people, which he dubbed the "Law of Inverse Returns." He stated, "[The] better you get at the language, the less credit you are given for your accomplishments...[but] the less you can do with the language, the more you will be praised and encouraged by Japanese society in general and by your Japanese friends in particular."

A lot has changed in Japan over the last several decades, but the assertion persists, with its advocates and opponents. Those supporting Miller's stance had a great I-told-you-so moment in 1996 when Hiroshi Kume, the host of the popular TV program News Station said, "Gaijin wa katakoto no ho ga iiyone"("It's better if foreigners speak broken Japanese, isn't it?") after an Indian spoke fluent Japanese on the show. It was the kind of comment that made many non-Japanese throw their hands up in frustration.

The statement "Foreigners should not bother trying to become fluent in spoken Japanese" received almost exactly the same percentage breakdown. Similarly, 54 percent agreed that "Talking to foreigners in Japanese is enjoyable," 6 percent strongly agreed, 14 percent disagreed and no one strongly disagreed.

Taking a different tack, Shoji Azuma, a Japanese language researcher, asked 56 Japanese male employees at banks in the Tokyo area to listen to six recordings of a Japanese conversation. In three, a Japanese man spoke, once using honorific language correctly, once using it incorrectly, and once using the plain form instead of honorific language.

There was not much difference in the scores for capability, proactivity, and confidence, but for the eight remaining criteria, the American speaker received higher scores than the Japanese speaker. Regarding differences in the use of forms, the recording of the American using honorifics correctly received higher scores for the various criteria than when using the honorifics incorrectly or speaking plainly. Using the plain form was evaluated slightly more favorably than the incorrect honorifics but there was no statistically significant difference.

Yet, as in so much of life, with recognition comes responsibility and sometimes restriction. Applied linguist Amy Snyder Ohta made an in-depth study of five Americans fluent in Japanese. Based particularly on observations from two participants, Ohta suggests that the fluent nonnative speaker is "now treated more normally in Japanese society rather than receiving special treatment reserved for less proficient foreigners."

As such, there may well be a law of inverse returns but there is also a law of direct returns. Perhaps in the end it comes down to: choose your law, choose your life.

I cannot really say what it's like because I don't feel as though I am properly proficient in Japanese, but I am more proficient than most people I know and I continue to strive for proficiency. For me, it allows me greater autonomy in life as I can solve most of my own problems like finding an apartment, ordering goods to be delivered, making reservations, reading menus, and other doing other everyday tasks on my own without help from a Japanese friend. It is also important that i can communicate with Japanese people in their own language to learn about them and the culture through the language. Although it would be dishonest to say that I don't still use the "gaijin card" from time to time-pretending I didn't understand something or know better. I think that is one of the things that makes life easier here is that as a foreigner you are exempt from a lot of obligations and cultural behaviors that make life sometimes burdensome for the average Japanese person. It is something the late Donald Riche has written about, and he was a person that I would consider proficient in Japanese. I find it interesting to be outside the culture observing and comparing it to my culture. It has never been my goal to become integrated into Japanese society. Another observation I have made that it seems that some people who achieve a high level of proficiency in Japanese often find the culture distasteful when the fully understand the workings of the culture and choose to disengage from it. Of course this is probably a statistically small number, but significant enough to garner mention.

Afuri

Afuri, it seems, is known as one of the better ramen shops in Ebisu. They serve a yuzu flavored broth that comes in two types of chicken-based broth. I ordered the yuzu shio ramen and took the server's recommendation on the broth. It was excellent,however, the portions are known as cafe-style so not a filling as most ramen shops, but a bargain at ¥850.

Hara-Kiri: Death Of A Samurai

Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri is one of the greatest Japanese films of all time and one of my favorite films, so I questioned Takashi Miike's decision to remake it. However, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by Miike's Hara-Kiri: Death Of A Samurai (2011). Miike's version is essentially faithful to the original film, and therein lies the strength of a powerful anti-feudalistic film where the codes of ninjo (human emotion) and giri (duty) become meaningless when those that enforce them don't follow the codes themselves. Miike has chosen to film in a darker setting with subtle lighting that may reflect the tragedy that is being recounted in the film. I think it is also significant that when Hanshiro (Ebizo Ichikawa) comes to the House of Ii to exact revenge for their lack of mercy and humanity concerning the treatment of his adopted son, Motome (Eita), Miike sees to it that he uses a wooden sword. In the original, Hanshiro uses a regular sword. However, for a samurai to sell his sword is the ultimate insult to the code and it is one of the reasons Motome is punished as he was. It also shows that this code of giri is not as important to Hanshiro or Motome as ninjo and familial obligations. Thus highlighting the anti-feudalistic theme.  This is a worthwhile remake, but I think the original is essential viewing.

The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986) by Kingsley Amis was a Booker Prize winner for that year. I had previously only read the brilliant Lucky Jim, but always wanted to read more since I was big fan of his son Martin Amis' writing. Martin wrote appealing about his father's novels in his autobiography Experience, and The Old Devils was one of the novels he singled out as being a good read. I feel as though I am missing out on some of the fun since I am not British and I can't see what all the fuss about being Welsh alluded to in the novel is all about. An infamous Welshman Alun Weaver who has a made a literary career out of being Welsh returns to Whales with his wife Rhiannon disrupting a community of long time friends who curmudgeonly gather to discuss the state of Wales and being Welsh while getting pissed on a daily basis. It is full of inter-sex miscommunication, adultery, dealing with the usual foibles of people you've know for ages and the condition of growing old. I enjoyed the novel, but perhaps not as much as I might have if I could be in on the joke of what it is like being Welsh.