Swiss Kisses & Handshakes

13 April 2016 Joy Kundig

In the classroom students and teachers can neither be equals nor friends. The relationship is infinitely more complex than that. However, with fragile adolescent lives suddenly being ruled by hormones, homework, and insecurities, any physical gesture can be used as a tool of manipulation and misinterpretation. Their hands should not be shaken.

Just as corporal punishment has been banished from schools, I seriously think that handshaking should also be stopped. I taught for decades in high schools in the canton of Geneva and never shook my students’ hands. Neither did my colleagues as far I know. Any act that can be construed as personally judgemental, sexual, political or religious has no place in the classroom. A handshake can be all of these things.

At its best, a jolly good handshake is a formal exchange of good faith and possible friendship. However, the germs of social hypocrisy are well-embedded. I’m always impressed by two football teams lined up on the pitch to shake the opposing team’s hands before they begin kicking, tripping, and head-butting the crap out of each other.

Handshakes are also bursting with real germs and bacteria. Both the high five and the fist bump have been medically proposed as replacement activities (especially when there are pandemics about) as most people do not wash their hands as often as they should.

Here in Switzerland doctors always shake your hand as their first medical gesture. Strength, grip, temperature, perspiration are all indicators of the patient’s health in both body and mind. A handshake sends complex social and chemical signals that a busy-body doctor can pick up on. (Tip: I always sit on my hands in the doctor’s waiting room making sure they are warm and dry which indicates perfect physical and mental health.)

In the social context of the educational world, physical contact is not entirely absent, of course. Sporting events, funerals, and graduation ceremonies come to mind. However, this usually involves the more complicated Swiss bise (the kiss not the wind) rather than a handshake.

So I don’t know if the two teenage brothers from a Swiss German town who have refused to shake their (female) teacher’s hand are dangerous Muslim fundamentalists or not. However, I do know that in this country where minarets have been prohibited and crucifixes removed from schoolroom walls these two adolescents have brilliantly poked at the soft underbelly of an unnecessary, totally arbitrary, and potentially divisive institutional practice.

Namaste!

Floating in from the Floating World

8 April 2016 Joy Kundig

Re-entry from the floating world of Japan into the realities of Switzerland is historically bumpy.

The long airplane ride provides a moment of psychological preparation for the inevitable slings and arrows of domestic distress that are soon to occur. Normally well-balanced, I cry my eyes out at airplane movies—even the comedies and documentaries. When I land, I am emotionally worn out and completely ready for anything.

This return was quite successful, however. The heating was still working, there wasn’t a dead cat under the motorcycle cover, the bottom had not fallen out of the hot water boiler in the basement, and there seem to be no mouse families living in the kitchen.

Of course Henri-the-cat and all his friends and enemies have been having peeing competitions and hairball spitting competitions in the front corridor as the cat flap was open. But now that the neighbour’s cat has been evicted from its squat in the bomb-shelter, we are all feeling much better and the quality of the air is much improved.

One excellent thing about being away is that there is that you receive no mail. Not quite true. There was the occasional cheery flyer coming in through the front door concerning a deal for Authentic Japanese Curry over at Ookayama’s Nepal curry shop.

Here the accumulated heaps of bills, newspapers, and advertising tower on the hall table and demand attention by occasionally toppling onto the floor.

Bogged down in the morass of post-trip laundry I miss my little Japanese washing machine (short cycle 30 minutes, medium cycle 31 minutes, long cycle 32 minutes) that played a little jingle–a sort of housewifely hymn–when the time was up. Here, down in the serious Swiss washing room, the ageless Teutonic machine grinds on for hours and hours and has absolutely no sense of whimsy.

And the Japanese baby iron, shielded from dust and damage in its pink plastic carry-case was a much tamer version of the huge hissing and spitting monster that lives, works and breathes here.

I’ve just put my thumb through a rotted peel of a lemon I bought fresh and shiny yesterday. In Japan the flowers and fruit and vegetables last for weeks and weeks. They are objects of geometric perfection, and though I know we should all be embracing imperfect and rotting things, you can’t help but love a perfectly clean and proportioned carrot or miniature aubergine sold individually and preciously.

So, as I lay awake in my jet-lagged nights, gossamer strands of sushi trains and geisha bars float through my brain. They are starting to be joined by mountains, shepherd’s pie, lawnmowers and grandchildren.

I’m finally floating home.

Disaster Survival Manual

4 April 2016 Joy Kundig

I’m thinking of getting a fish. Browsing through the complex set of rules that define life here at the International House in Tokyo, I see that the only pet that we are allowed to keep is one that does not soil the room or disturb neighbours. A fish in an aquarium is suggested. This plan also matches both the food and the weather.

However, underneath this heavy rule-filled binder I’ve come across a 50-page brochure entitled Disaster Survival Manual. It was printed in 2009, and is in pristine condition.

It is an entirely altruistic document with a foreword by the Mayor of Meguro and written in perfect English. Following an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor scare of 2008, its aim is to support the elderly, disabled, infants and foreign residents to evacuate. Like Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, in case of catastrophe we will all be depending greatly on the kindness of strangers.

There are four Tokyo earthquakes that demand attention.

The first is the Tokyo Inland Earthquake. This is called “unsettling” as no prediction is possible.
The second is the Tokai trench-type earthquake and will only reach a magnitude of 5 in Tokyo, so is unimportant.
The third is the Kanagawa Quake which is of great concern.
And the fourth is the Kanto Earthquake which destroyed the city in 1923, so is presumably over and done with.

But I am now seriously worried, as I see that I am not prepared at all.

According to instructions, the bathtub should be filled with water at all times. A crowbar, shovel, saw and automobile jack should all be to hand. Food (alfa rice and sea biscuits) and bottled water for three days should be prepared. First aid kit, helmets, cotton work gloves, flashlights and candles should be at the ready. And a portable toilet and a stock of toilet paper, heating stove, portable gas stove are all essential.

On a more whimsical note a sewing kit, waterless shampoo and writing materials should also be in the backpack at the door and ready to go. Well, not exactly go. If there is a serious tremor, you should stay inside under a table with a cushion on your head. (Note: there are no cushions.)

To take away the shock factor of an earthquake arriving out of the blue, there exists a Mobile Earthquake Simulation Truck (called GRUUTT) which visits the locality. This, I imagine, is similar to the simulator for space travel. You enter perky, keen, and cracking jokes. You exit confused, nauseous, and possibly injured. There is also a local smoke simulation house which you can also visit. These two earthquake-related events should probably not be undertaken on the same day.

You must help everyone around you in case of disaster and also prepare your pet for possible catastrophe.

I’m off to the 100-Yen shop to see what I can pick up—perhaps a pencil, a candle, a toilet roll and a small package of sea biscuits. I’ve crossed the fish off the list.

A Dog’s Life on Wheels

28 March 2016 Joy Kundig

Pets in Japan are taken very seriously indeed. Just this morning my neighbour across the road took her medium-sized dog for a walk. I only saw this after he had been arranged in an old-fashioned child’s perambulator and covered in blankets.

It only dawned on me that the contents of the buggy were canine when the occupant sat up and barked with wild abandon when two small dogs on different length and coloured leashes crossed its path. The pram-guy did not try to jump out and run an attack on the two nattily-clad poofters (which for me would have been an entirely natural reaction) but barked them out of his field of vision. His pram-pusher did not break her stride, spoke not a word, and quietly carried on.

Now I don’t know. Perhaps the chap in the pram was old and lame, was the quadriplegic victim of a train accident, or a retired Robo-Dog who had worn his paws off digging for people in natural disasters. But upon examining several similar conveyances I have reached he shocking conclusion that there are more dogs than babies in prams. (Human babies are carried in pouches on the fronts of their mothers.)

The pram-dogs are inevitably being pushed about by women of a certain age and have been seen visiting and rubbing noses with other dog-friends. It is not a cause of hilarity, mockery or distain. It is a cultural conundrum, perhaps a Tokyo suburban equivalent of swimming with the dolphins.

The wilder set of dogs that are not installed in prams spend a lot of time at the beauty parlour (the one in the neighbourhood is called Pet Paradise) and come out looking shockingly like brand-new stuffed toys. At their very finest (right after their shampoo and blow-dry session) and if the weather is propitious (neither rainy nor cold) they are allowed to walk proudly naked in all their furry glory.

On all those other days, they wear clothes – raincoats, felt jackets, colour-co-ordinated sweaters and scarves. As it’s cherry blossom season, there is a lot of pink about.

These small orderly pets pee in a very restrained dog-like manner on the ubiquitous electricity poles and their human-slave squirts the spot with a water sprayer. They poop politely on bits of earth between the sidewalk and a tree and one of their staff-members picks up the product in a little plastic bag and squirrels it out of sight.

I don’t know how this works with the pram-dogs, and am looking into the possibility of dog-diapers alongside the Poopy Pickers and the dried-fish Pet Kisses over at the Peacock Department Store.

Fishy Wedding Bells

22 March 2016 Joy Kundig

There is a Glory Church on either side of a large and luxurious hotel on the island of Okinawa. Both white and gleaming churches look like they are made of plastic and icing sugar and attract a continuous stream of well-heeled clientele for fake weddings.

Like the Ancient Mariner, I stood outside a church anxious to catch a wedding guest with my glittering eye to tell him about my latest very bad trip, the albatross around my neck, and my new appreciation for slimy things from the sea, but there was nothing doing. I think the fake bride and groom and all their family and friends get into the church via a tunnel from the hotel and crawl up through a trap door.

This is Japanese discretion at its very best. Wedding dinners also take place in private rooms and the regular hotel guests were not at all disturbed by raucous speeches and bridal youth and beauty.

Now I have nothing against wedding celebrations. I recall my own fondly—Toronto Town Hall, followed by some beers with Injun Joe at Grossman’s Tavern and then dinner at The Three Little Rooms. It was lovely. Four people were involved (not counting Joe) and the town hall man got my husband’s name wrong. After forty years, we still discuss this legal loop-hole with vigour from time to time.

But what I seriously object to are public weddings that suddenly spring up in the middle of a hotel beach and your favourite spot is cordoned off and a wedding platform erected. Tinkling bells. Flower chains. Soppy mindfulness vows. Lovely clothes (compared to your state of splotchy sunburn and irritating sand-rash and unflattering bathing costume and sunhat.) All of it as fake as fake can be.

Today I have just learned that you can have a tourist wedding at an old Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto—the 500-year-old Shunko-in. This strikes me as much more culturally deserving. The young deputy abbot-monk was born inside the temple complex but is American-educated (and married to an American). He is turning his temple into a business as the roof needs fixing. He gives meditation courses which focus on entrepreneurialism, breathing, and Zen updates.

You can order a friendship marriage, gay, lesbian, transgender marriage, and even a normal one. Most of them are fake, of course. You can even stay at the guesthouse, but have to head into the fleshpots of town for food and entertainment (much like in the temple heydays of old Kyoto.)

So, if you are in the market for a useful fake marriage, try Kyoto’s kirk upon the hill, Myoshin-ji Hanazono, and look out for a gentle-faced Buddha-clone called Takafumi Kawakami.

For a price, he can fix you up.

Poképotatoes

15 March 2016 Joy Kundig

Before I begin, let me make it completely clear, that nothing on this earth can beat the finest and freshest of Japanese food. An artistic sushi with the rice just-so; rigorous rectangles of tuna sashimi on freshly grated radish; the most delicate of green teas. These things are gifts of the gods.

However, to alleviate boredom-due-to-deliciousness, the Japanese have invented some other foods that make one sit up and take notice.

Until he came across Shirako my husband had prided himself on eating anything that Japanese cuisine could throw at him – Hoya (sea pineapple), Namako (sea cucumber), Uni (roe or gonads from sea urchins) were all as nothing. He thrilled to Fugu, (potentially poisonous puffer fish), Sazae (horned turban sea snail) and Kegani (horsehair crab).

Out for a company dinner a few nights back, he met a dish which he thought could have been either intestines or brains. Nothing so pedestrian. It turns out to have been a popular snack or starter called Shirako which means “white children”. It is fish sperm in its original long and windy sack.

Well, I suppose one could combine a dollop of Shirako with a blob of Mentaiko (marinated cod roe), wait a while, and come up with Shirouo no oodorigui (small dancing fish) that one eats exactly as a whale would–alive.

So, before going out for a regional sake-tasting evening yesterday, I looked up some exotic tasty treats that I thought might make a surprise appearance amongst the sake glasses. On the way there I craftily asked husband’s Japanese colleague if HE ate them, and I am extremely pleased to report that there are some culinary challenges that even the most seasoned of all Japanese diners avoid.

Husband’s colleague is a sprightly older gentleman and no wimp. He quite loves sea cucumber and fermented shrimps; however, he draws the line at Skiokara (salted and fermented fish guts that is served as a heaving smelly orange slime). When questioned about Nankosu (breaded and deep-fried chicken bone cartilage) he said you needed very strong teeth. And he was very firm that Funasushi (made of carp fermented for up to 4 years) was a real stinker.

Well, it turns out I had nothing to fear but fear itself. The sake restaurant menu had pictures of the most pleasant of foods—vegetable tempura, minced chicken grilled on sticks, a slice of pork. For a walk on the wild side we also had a plate full of wieners. And we all know what healthy goodness is inside them.

My sister suggests I never leave the house without a boiled potato in my pocket. That way I can casually whip it out and put it on the plate with the Fugu ovaries pickled in rice bran paste or beside the Tobino (flying fish), spear it with my chopsticks, and ignore all the rest.

We are heading to the island of Okinawa imminently. There, we have been told, the gastronomic specialties include Rafute (pork belly), Mimiga (pig’s ear), Umibudo (seaweed in the shape of grapes) and Yagi Sashimi (raw goat meat).

I have a pan of potatoes on the stove.

Bliss in the Sock Drawer

7 March 2016 Joy Kundig

I quite like books with the word “joy” in the title, so how could I ignore the Japanese author Marie Kondo’s latest book, Spark Joy? A bit disappointingly, it is not about a female pyromaniac or a woman wrestler, but about a method of having an uncluttered living-space and mind.

For some strange reason, I had completely missed her earlier book (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up) which was a super-hit world-wide a couple of years back. It tells you how to arrange your possessions. Each thing must be held (preferably close to the heart), and if you do not feel a deep orgasmic thrill (i.e., it does not “spark joy”) you must throw it away. You are then left with only cherished possessions and both your outer and inner worlds are greatly enhanced.

Your happiness is a combination of how many garbage bags you can fill and your folding skills. It can actually even reach a level of bliss, as once your house is tidied properly, you can see what is really bothering you, and husbands have been known to be been tidied away by this method.

The philosophy tells you how to fold your underwear into neat rectangles (her new book has illustrations of a little rabbit doing this) and then place them standing up in compartments in your drawer. You do the same with t-shirts and socks. Your drawers become works of art and you dream about them. You can suddenly see everything at once.

A friend came over and I showed her my drawer which I had used the KonMari method to tidy. She gasped and a glint lit her eye. She has since sent me photos of her newly-arranged pyjama drawer.

It is a creeping, possibly addictive, illness.

One problem than I can see emerging is a profound reluctance to change your socks, underwear or t-shirt as the alignment in the drawer compartment is disturbed. Another aspect that is troubling, but of great interest, is that in her first book Marie Kondo does not seem to wash or clean. This is rectified in her sequel, and dirt is classified as “natural”. A special wipe-down towel is necessary for both bathroom and kitchen. (Different one in each place.)

Her latest book also lets up a bit and allows you to keep, for example, the much-loved material of an old never-worn dress. This fabric can be used to wrap ugly electrical wires or drape a plastic water bottle holding flowers (as you have thrown out your real vase). She also suggests taking the garish labels off laundry soap and decorating the bottle with a ribbon. A frying pan can easily be used to pound in nails, so you can discard a little-used hammer. Family photographs can be joyfully used to decorate your clear plastic closet-arrangement-boxes, and all reading material, once read (or left unread) is redundant.

So, urgent message to my poor, dusty much-loved, read, unread, half-read books almost 10,000 km away: do not worry. I am throwing out Marie Kondo’s two books, and I am soon coming back to you all.

The Grandmother Warrior vs the Highway Robber

1 March 2016 Joy Kundig

I almost didn’t make it to Japan. The Geneva countryside holds many surprises–not all of them pleasant.

If you ever are approached by a man suddenly running, then crouching, behind your car breathlessly explaining that he has seen flames shooting out the back of it, don’t believe him for a minute. He is a crook and wants to steal your car, your handbag, and your groceries. He has an evil friend hiding in the bushes. You and your car and your pork chops are all dead ducks.

However, last Saturday, I DID believe him. I grew up watching Cannonball, 12 O’Clock High, Combat! and Highway Patrol. Despite (or because of) extremely restricted TV-time I have retained much crucial information. Based on realistic action TV and Gerry movies in my formative years, I still seriously believe in spontaneously exploding cars, trucks, helicopters and airplanes.

I believe in fireballs.

When the man urged me to get back into my car and turn on the ignition while he fixed the problem of the alarming dangling wires, I point-blank refused.

When he insisted that I get some water for him to throw on the smouldering ashes of the car’s undersides, I knew that this was wrong. One needs foam, sand, perhaps a fire-blanket or a thick leather bomber jacket. Not water.

So, secure in my ancient knowledge of 1960s television I held firm. I got my purse, I locked the car, and told the near-hysterical man that I was phoning the Swiss Touring Club, and he’d better get away if he didn’t want to be melted into a red-hot puddle in the middle of the road.

Turns out, this was a well-known sting operation. Lone women pulling into countryside drives are targeted. Lone women in parking lots are targeted. A mechanical problem involving drama and confusion is created. Dangling wires are attached. If all goes well for the villain, the car key is placed in the ignition. The panic-stricken lady runs off to get some water from somewhere. A car and credit cards and a sack of groceries are lost forever.

But, girls, do not fear. Forewarned is forearmed. Snap a photo of the villain as he supposedly fiddles with your car. Lock yourself in and call the cops at 117. If he gets too close grab a finger and snap it back. Run in circles, scream and shout. Be brave. If worse comes to worse, slap him with a pork chop.

Be a red-hot grand-mother warrior.

(Con)fusion Food — Boudin (noir) and Whale Soup

24 February 2016 Joy Kundig

I have just learned that Japanese people don’t really like to eat whale. I, personally, have always found it over-rated. The meat is fishy and chewy – exactly as one would expect.

It seems that whales were eaten as a last resort when the country was hungry after WWII, and the hunting of whales today is just a bureaucratic remnant of that trying time. For a generation of kids (of about my age), whale soup was a staple of school lunch.

Normally-constituted Japanese people today prefer beef or chicken or shrimp and there are only two whale meat sellers left in the Tokyo fish market. No one cooks whale at home; it would take months to get the deep dark smell of the sea out of the apartment.

Of course, the good things you eat as a child are what you like and, thus, certain traditions are established and preserved until they die a generational death. My daughter is a pure cultural-fusion product and her food choices are totally outlandish and at first glance incomprehensible.

From the Swiss side of her family she has picked up an abiding love of boudin (noir). I used to serve this once a week in winter blood-sausage season. I, personally, ate only the boiled potatoes and apple sauce. One extremely embarrassing day, I was pulled over by the lady running the crèche as the morning’s diaper had revealed a product of the most alarming colour. I explained about it being Wednesday, and boudin day was Tuesday. I believe I was put on some sort of Crèche Culinary Watch List.

From my side of the family comes that old Canadian staple of wieners and beans on toast. This was eaten with my daughter exclusively when Swiss husband was absent – preferably out of the country and as far away as possible. Always a bit of a food snob, only Heinz beans were served and the best brand of wieners cut into perfect rounds. A little Swiss friend was brought home for lunch one day; she had never had such a wondrous meal. Departing for school she thanked me effusively for the nice soft meat.

Anyway, from where I come from whales, rabbits and horses are all left to roam around uncooked. Instead Sloppy Joes, shepherd’s pie, fish-fingers, macaroni & cheese, Yorkshire pudding, hamburgers and hotdogs and scrambled eggs with ketchup are grist for my version of the Canadian food mill. Coming originally from the north of England potatoes figure at least once a day; and the existence of Swiss rösti has contributed greatly to my perfect cultural integration and happiness.

Yes. We are what we eat—individual memories and comforting confusion. Whales included, one presumes.

Packing for Japan

19 February 2016 Joy Kundig

As a general packing rule, a few weeks before departure you designate a surface where you arrange all possible portable objects that you might need – edible, wearable, electronic, recreational. As departure time approaches, you discard what will not fit in your suitcase, and make rational choices.

For example, I have learned that the little Tokyo apartment I will be living in does not have central heating. This fact, combined with the current (wavering) cold snap in the Far East, means that serious slippers are a must. Warm air is blown into each room from little vents up at ceiling height which results in the well-known hot-head-cold-feet Japanese Syndrome.

So, at the moment, I have two pairs of slippers on the packing bed – one a delightfully multi-coloured floozy pair, called “snoozies” with martini glasses printed on them, and a more refined second pair of white leather, lined with rabbit skin, and decorated with Native American bead work. A choice must be made.

Then there is the current (wavering) butter crisis in Japan so I’ll have to take a Swiss block or two. Due to “el Nino” the usual supply of New Zealand butter has dried up a bit. Japan’s own butter comes from its northern island, Hokkaido. Miniscule little delicately-wrapped pads of butter are arranged in tiny little hand-crafted trays of six. I think they might be numbered and signed by the individual cows. Despite their high price, they disappear off the shelves immediately, and I’ve only once succeeded in purchasing my own butter set.

Then there are the Swiss tube-staples that can be used for all emergencies – Cenovis (marmite/breakfast), Le Parfait (liver paste/lunch), Euceta, and Vita-Merfen. I was extremely shocked to find out that these last two items (medical rather than edible) no longer exist and replacements must be found.

The phrase book, Japanese at a Glance, is a psychological crutch, and can never actually be used, as people tend to run away (often moaning) when directly approached. It has been explained to me that this is because people don’t want to be embarrassed by 1) not speaking English 2) not understanding 3) and anyway don’t want their day ruined by an unpleasant event. I keep the little book with me at all times in case I ever want to phone an unknown number to tell the emergency services that I’ve just had a car accident and think I’m having a heart attack and would like to send a telegram.

Then there are the presents. Fortunately, most of these (calendars, chocolates, prints, pens, and pencils) have gone on ahead. All I have to take at the moment is a little box of spices for the Swiss winter-time specialty “vin chaud”. This perks up no end a glass of ordinary (affordable) Peacock Department Store wine and is much appreciated by knowledgeable Tokyo wine experts.

So that’s already quite a good start an I’m feeling quite exhausted. Time now for a little rest and, hopefully, some serene cherry blossom dreams.