Notes to Self: Knife, Bend/Break, Unagi Pai

Knife:

At dinner the other night, I was teased about the knife skills class that I took some time ago with David and Kelly. During the class, I said that I didn't own a knife--and that is true. I actually don't own a knife. However, everyone took the statement "I don't have a knife" to mean that I had no experience with a knife. In fact, I have years of restaurant experience which translates into three years (at least) of cooking experience, and, yes, cooking involves knives. Similarly, I don't own a cello, but in fact I have about fifteen years of experience playing the cello.

Bend/Break:

At dinner the other night, Catherine was talking about her sister who lives with her (I think) American family in China and who, when she runs into the inevitable cultural clash-type interactions with Chinese merely thinks, oh, that's how it is in China. I think I did the same in Japan, but something about Catherine's statement stuck with me. During the conversation, I had said about my time in Japan that it was difficult at my age to bend to another culture. But in fact, bend I did. (The other option, of course, being to break.) I guess Catherine's statement stuck with me because I couldn't, at the time, see the differences between me and her sister. Later as I was thinking about it, I felt that, oh, it must be a very different experience to have your family with you when you move abroad. I mean, yes, there must be trouble with finding acceptable schooling for your children or finding something to occupy your time (a job or hobby) while your husband works. But at the end of the day, you have some support system to come home to. A large chunk of your interpersonal interactions are going to be familial and therefore familiar. I think that's got to be comforting on some level. When I went to Japan I was a lone wolf, sans family, sans a ready-made support system. Every interaction was unfamiliar. Even my fellow "foreign" teacher was from Australia (and a man, which conferred him with an automatically higher status). Everyday, most of my interactions were with Japanese, who, even when they speak English are still Japanese. They might be polite or not. They might be respectful or not. But they still engendered a culture unfamiliar to me, a culture famous for seemingly to be antithetical to Western culture. Sometimes when I ran aground in Japanese culture I could think, oh, that's how it is in Japan. But at the end of the day I had no one to say it to. No one with whom to commiserate.

Unagi Pai:

So, Kaori brought me some Tokyo omiyage that included a box of unagi pai. Unagi is Japanese for eel and pai is Japanese for pie. Yes, unagi pai is eel pie. They are a kind of cookie, similar to palmier, but, yes, made with eel. You heard me right: A sweet eel cookie. They're really delicious!