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This Smells Delicious! ~
(And Other Misadventures of a Meat-and-Potatoes Girl in Japan)
Article by Shauna Billings
WAVE Journey
Women's Adventures, Vacations & Experiences ~
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“This smells delicious,” I said, before asking my Japanese host-sister, “What’s in this soup?”

“Shark fin,” said Shoko. “It’s a very special dish.”

This was the first course of a banquet at a fancy Chinese restaurant, where my Japanese
host family had taken me to celebrate my arrival.

Spoons poised, they waited for me, the guest, to take the first bite. As an unworldly
suburbanite, I’d been expecting the Chinese food I knew and loved at home. But if
everyday Japanese food was appalling to my Irish meat-and-potatoes palate, this meal
was over the top.

I pulled up a mucousy yellow broth that had what distinctly looked like hair in it. I
swallowed the sour soup, and the short, bristly potential hairs, and flashed a big smile.

“Oishii!” I said, trying desperately to remember if sharks even had hair. “Delicious!”

I managed to eat everything set before me on that day. The family looked thrilled. The
nausea I felt all the next day was worth it.

We were 11 American students on a sister cities friendship visit between my town of
Salem, Mass., and the Tokyo suburb of Ota. My host family, the Abes, lived in a nine-room,
three-story townhouse in Ota’s Kamiikedai district. A home of that size is practically
unheard of in Tokyo. I slept on a futon on the tutami mats in the ceremonial tea room
downstairs, separated from the Western-style living room (with its giant karaoke system)
by shoji, or sliding rice-paper doors.

My host father, Ken, a CEO of a sound system company, spoke only a few words of English
and would change into a comfy white tracksuit whenever he returned home.

Michiko, my tiny, smiling host mother, spoke only a little more English than Ken and was
never without her dark hair perfectly curled and her lips carefully painted red. Their three
children, 16-year-old Toru, who wanted to be a deejay; 25-year-old Shoko, who was
always smiling but posed stony-faced in photos; and 28-year-old architect Junko; all spoke
English beautifully. But I knew only 10 words and phrases in Japanese.

On my first night in their home, Michiko carefully prepared a traditional Japanese dinner
with steamed vegetables, rice and raw beef and fish. I filled up on the delicious vegetables
and rice and, so as not to offend the family, ate what I though was an acceptable amount
of the beef and sashimi. I followed my rule of eating half of everything put in front of me for
the remainder of my stay.

I thought I’d pleased the family until one day Michiko pulled me aside.

“You have anorexia?” she asked me in careful English. “You eat little.”

Toru later explained that his mother thought all American girls had eating disorders, a point
the local media insisted on. My eating half of my portions was proof of the U.S. anorexia
epidemic. I hoped my performance at the restaurant had redeemed me.

I saw both modern and traditional life during my weeks in Tokyo. Some days, I would visit
arcades, stand high atop the city in Tokyo Tower or race Toru through the obstacle courses
in the fitness parks. Other days, I watched kabuki theater, attended ceremonial teas and
toured museums, like the Folk Museum in Ota-ku.

Often, I was homesick, and there existed the constant reminders that I did not fit in.




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