Sara Backer's Blog, page 21

Christmas Cake

Christmas Cake, a strawberry sponge-cake with whipped cream, is a British tradition the Japanese adopted. (Though many Japanese think it's American, and were astonished that I never ate Christmas Cake. I was tempted to wear a button saying "Ask me about pumpkin pie.") However, in Japan the tradition has a twist. In American Fuji, a Tokyo woman, Jiyuko, explains to Alex why she doubts she will get married (p.17-18):

"I'm twenty-five. I'm Christmas cake. It's too late."

"I don't...

Bonenkai

The end of the year is bonus time (yes, professors in Japan get bonuses!) followed by company parties to celebrate the bonuses. Loved that bonus. The parties . . . not so much. In Japan, drinking is a social mandate and I was a light drinker. My trick was to hold a drink, sip from it (or pretend to) whenever a kampai toast occurred, and not let the liquid level fall below the halfway point of the glass. If you drink below the glass's equator, servers magically appear to refill it and it'...

American Fuji on the Top Ten List of 2009

I am deeply honored to have American Fuji selected as one of the top ten book picks for 2009 by Shannon McKenna Schmidt of Shelf Awareness. She has put my novel in excellent company!

Mikan

The type of tangerine we call Clementines, Japanese call mikan. Shizuoka, the California of Japan, was the top mikan growing region. The classic winter treat is to eat mikan sitting on the floor with your legs under a kotatsu, a low table with an electric heater under its surface and a comforter-type blanket on top to trap the heat below. Sitting on floors was never comfortable for me, so I didn't care for kotatsu, but I loved buying mikan fresh from neighborhood orchards.

Dharma Doll Goals

Omnipresent in Japan, especially approaching the New Year, Dharma dolls, named after the founding monk of Buddhism, are sold with blank eyes. When you set a goal, you paint one eye of the doll. When you realize your goal, you paint the other eye. Most of the dolls (just heads) are like this one: made of paper mache with brushy beards and eyebrows and painted red, but some come in the colors of their regions. I saw a lot of one-eyed Dharma dolls in Japanese homes, but I don't remember seei...

First Snow: 6 Dec 2009

I didn't experience much snow in Shizuoka City. Winters were cold, but snow didn't accumulate. Apartments had little to no insulation and no heaters (tenants buy their own). I recall laying my long underwear between the covers of my futon in order to make it warm enough to put on in the morning. Now, back in New England, I have snow outside (on my informal Japanese rock garden) and heat inside.

Remember OUTRUN?

Remember the early 1990s video arcade game in which you virtually drove a red car across the country as fast as you could? Believe it or not, I was one of the top ten players of Outrun in Shizuoka City. My initials remained on the scoreboard at least as long as I lived there. Closest I ever came to being a jock!

Win Free Books!

Powell's Books of Portland, Oregon is the most famous Indie bookstore in the Pacific Northwest, and now you can have a chance to win free books from them by commenting on the new edition of American Fuji. Just click this blog entry title and go. Let me know if you win, and good luck!

Kaki-no-ki

The Japanese for persimmon is kaki, which is the same word for oyster. Context is crucial for understanding Japanese and rarely would "persimmon" and "oyster" occur together. . .except on a new fusion-style restaurant menu. Ki is tree, and no is a particle that indicates an adjective. Without the photo, though, it's easy to hear kaki-no-ki as "oyster tree" and, in Japan, who knows what that might be.

Thanksgiving in Japan

I tried to celebrate Thanksgiving Day my first year in Japan but it didn't work out well. Thanksgiving, of course, is not a holiday in Japan and my job, six days a week, was more than full time. Not that I needed time to prepare a feast. I could neither find turkey for sale nor did I have an oven in which to roast one. Cranberries and sweet potatoes were also unavailable. Baking a pie without an oven was out of the question and while you could get pies in Tokyo, the bakeries of Shizuoka ...