Renting a Room Part 1

I finally moved into my new apartment in Tokyo. I moved 8 times in the last 10 years, but this move was the most costly.

The move-in process for Japanese apartments requires the renter to provide his own refrigerator, laundry machine, and microwave ($700). Fluorescent ceiling lights are also another must (free because my mom stole them from her previous house). I even had to buy my own gas stove ($250).

What you do not see is the gas stove. I will install it myself shortly; the "faucets" are actually the gas line leads.

Japanese people love rice. We also love our rice cookers. A 5.5-cup rice cooker ranges anywhere from $75 to $500. I went conservative and spent less than $200.

All this amounts to an initial investment of $1,100.

I am not quite sure how this system developed in Japan. It's certainly a far cry from renting a room with a beat up gas stove, leaking refrigerator, and having your clothes pulled from the dryer because you were 3 minutes late.

This system is somewhat confusing to foreigners. It is less confusing than the security deposit (shiki-kin) and thank-you money (rei-kin). Perhaps I will write about this next time, because it is an interesting system, and might help explain why Japanese room rentals adopt a "bring your own appliances" mentality.

Vegetable Soup #1 - Burdock Root

Burdock root is a good source of Vitamin B6, Magnesium, and Potassium, among other nutrients. Japanese children use it to play burdock swordfighting until they are scolded by their parents.

The downside to burdock is its slightly bitter taste. It is known that sweet, bitter, and umami are used by the same taste receptors in the tongue, so I figured adding sweet elements to the soup would counter this bitter taste. I caramelized the onions in a pot before adding anything else to the soup, which enhances the onions' natural sweetness.

750 mL water
250 mL milk
Enough bouillon for 500 mL soup
2 large potatoes
1 large carrot
3 celery sticks
1 long burdock root
2 large onions
3 green onion sticks

Put the vegetables in the pot in the following order, with a minute or two between each ingredient:

onions -> carrots -> green onions -> celery -> burdock root -> potatoes

Simmer in low heat for 20 minutes, and then add milk.

Simmer 20 more minutes in low heat and serve.

Grammar Books in Japanese

I am currently reading a book on Japanese grammar （24週日本語文法ツアー、益岡隆志筆） . It is a complement to a comprehensive grammar book by the same author in that he focuses on sample sentences rather than grammatical theory.

Despite many attempts this past winter break to obtain such a book in a retail bookstore, I was unsuccessful and relied on the seller of last resort -- Amazon Japan.

Now, I am relearning ideas about various verb tenses, rules on how to use particles, and other minor facets of the Japanese language, all illuminated by clear examples. I am sometimes unclear or unsure about certain particles, so in that sense I am glad I spent 2000 yen on this book.

It took much effort to finally obtain this book. There were myriad books in retail bookstores on correct usage of polite Japanese (keigo), but virtually nothing on other topics.

Sure, the most difficult part about Japanese is keigo, often referred to in English as honorific form. There are two sub-categories of keigo; one way shows respect for the person being addressed (sonkeigo) while the other is polite and places yourself below the party you are speaking to (kenjougo). Verb conjugations between the two forms sound nothing like each other. Iku (to go) becomes irassharu in its sonkeigo form and ukagau or mairu in its kenjougo form.

Most Japanese grammar books deal with correct usage of polite Japanese. Young Japanese employees are often scorned by their elders for improper use of keigo, and honorific Japanese misuse is more common than misplaced apostrophe's in the English language.

I have enough keigo books to last a lifetime, and was not interested in adding another to my collection this time. My questions about 'basic' Japanese grammar books, however, were countered with confused or scornful looks. I felt like a circus clown who had trouble communicating with his audience.

Not that Americans are any different. Our computer screens littered with typos and incorrect grammar usage, and there is little impetus for people to polish their mediocre English grammar. Amazon user reviews for most English grammar books are filled with errors ("The index is very thoroughly laid out. I had seen this book on my writing workshop.")

As a side note, I was less successful in finding books on effective ways to write. Strunk & White's Elements of Style is required reading for all American schoolchildren, and every adult should take the time to re-read this book once in a while. I could not find such a book for Japanese, but I will continue to search for one.

Ito Yokado

I am staying in my mother's apartment close to Tokyo. She lives in Abiko City in Chiba prefecture, about an hour away from Tokyo.

My mother moved here a few days ago, and I am spending time helping her unpack. She lives alone, and she wants to unload 200 boxes in a 3 bedroom apartment. I want to tell her she is crazy, and occasionally do so.

I presume Abiko city has the essence of a suburban Japanese town. There is nothing in the near vicinity save the occasional convenience store, a local train station, and a mega-market called Ito Yokado.

There is nothing like Ito Yokado in America. It is similar to Wal-Mart and Target, except for one major difference: the supermarket is their main trip driver, whereas nobody would buy chicken from Wal-Mart because it tastes good. At least I hope not.

However, the fundamental idea is similar -- plant a huge shopping area in a residential district, and everyone will go there. Some will work there, and others will go there to buy daily necessities.

The Ito Yokado near my mother's house is a 5 minute-walk. The first story comprises a supermarket, a Starbucks cafe, a food court, and a sit-down restaurant to accomodate patrons with larger wallets.

The above pasta is from the said sit-down restaurant. The sauce was rather oily, but at least the noodles were cooked al dente. This, some foccacia bread, and an espresso set me back 1030 yen, or approximately $12 dollars.

The second story is dedicated to Ito Yokado's clothing and sundry goods. The third floor comprises third party vendor stores. Most Ito Yokado locations have a bookstore, a store dedicated to children's goods, and a store that sells eyeglasses.

Anyways, my only reason for this post was to show the above photo. So there you have it, a photo of some pasta with a long-winded explanation for where it came from.

Last Supper

This is my last dinner as a grad student. A super quesadilla from Ocean View Terrace for $5.50. I ate this in the IRPS computer lab while reading some instructions on "printing onto these printers from your computer" that were taped onto the wall.

People order different things at the "Mexican food" line at Ocean View Terrace this year. It was an interesting experiment in determining the demand elasticity among UCSD students. Until this year, the burrito, priced at $4.50, was considered to be the best bang for your buck in the dorms.

Nothing else could fill you up for $4.50 like an Ocean View Terrace burrito could. In fact, it was more than filling for the average student. Its less popular sibling, the super quesadilla, could be had for the same price, but was not nearly as filling.

Before, I envisioned myself enjoying a $4.50 burrito for my last meal at UCSD. I ate many burritos during my time here, and they were not bad. But as the above photo shows, this was clearly not how my dining experience at UCSD ended.

So what happened between the 2007 and 2008 academic years? Commodity prices went up. And then the burrito price suddenly jumped up from $4.50 to $6.50, a 44.4% price increase. You had one less option to fill yourself up for under $5.00.

At this point the UCSD student could make a choice. Either fork out two extra dollars and take the damage for the burrito, or look for cheaper options.

The UCSD student's eyes will then travel down the menu to find the second item listed: the super quesadilla. At a bargain price of $5.50, the prospect of having something less filling as a burrito for a smaller price suddnenly seemed to make sense.

Until this year, most students would line up at the Mexican food booth for the burrito. We are all poor, and thus need the most bang for our buck. It was the logical thing to do.

Strangely enough, the $6.50 burrito has become a luxury good, and students demand less of it; economists would say that the UCSD student's demand for the $6.50 burrito is quite elastic.

Today my last day of class as a student. I will graduate in a few weeks, and then cross off items on my to do list before I depart in March. I may learn to play more Bach pieces on the piano or learn to hit a fast tennis serve. I will not, however, eat a $6.50 Ocean View Terrace burrito, unless someone buys me one.

Black Friday Eve

I think Thanksgiving is one of the worst holidays in America. It should be grouped with Valentine's Day and just get chucked out of the calendar. It's another holiday that's there to remind you of how lonely you might be if you don't have a family in America.

However, I like Thanksgiving because of the food. A Thanksgiving meal is like a team effort at work or school, really; if people pitch in to the best of their abilities, the resulting Thanksgiving dinner is fantastic. I've been to some wonderfully executed Thanksgiving dinners, and they are some of my fondest memories of my time in America. I hope my contribution to the overall effort justified my attendance.

If the team effort fails, well, there's always Boston Market, or at least you get some amusing stories to talk about for the rest of your life, as I do.

Unfortunately, my distaste for Thanksgiving outweighs my affinity for it. It's like sprinkling some bitter medicine over some honey yogurt; you enjoy the yogurt, but the bitter medicine stays on your tongue longer than the sweetness from the yogurt.

Three reasons why I dislike Thanksgiving

1) If you don't have a ton of cash and have family far away, you can't go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You have to start talking to people in hopes of getting invited to Thanksgiving dinner, lest you be stranded eating a microwaveable dinner in front of a TV.

Or you can try to host a dinner / potluck yourself, if you are lucky enough to have the physical space. But then you have to worry about unwanted guests inviting themselves to your party whenever you talk to them, and your November conversations can get awkward at times.

2) If you go to school, you have Thanksgiving before Christmas break. It ruins the momentum you had going in, and it's difficult to study under a tryptophan-induced coma.

What would schoolkids say if they had to take a few days off before summer vacation, and then come back to school for one last week?

3) What is Thanksgiving supposed to mean? Now, people just think about Black Friday. They might as well rename it "Black Friday Eve."

I'm not going raise the point about Pilgrims, since Thanksgiving is just a bogus holiday fabricated by Abraham Lincoln. Maybe the turkey lobby had some kind of political clout in the 1860s.

Two Deadly Sins

Thanksgiving represents the paradox of American culture today. For a country that is founded on Christian principles, I still cannot reconcile the Seven Deadly Sins with how the average person acts during Thanksgiving weekend: gluttony and greed. And virtue is another idea that is worth discussing as well.

Gluttony - put a ton of food on your plate, waste the food on your plate you end up not eating, and then complain about all the leftovers that didn't get put on anyone's plate.

I make it a point to cook a whole bird whenever I can; if I had the option, I would like to buy a live chicken, slaughter and gut it, remove its feathers, prepare it, and then throw it in the oven. Unfortunately the most feasible option for me is to buy a whole kosher "organic" chicken at Trader Joe's and look at the lifeless corpse in the baking pan as I prepare it for its roasting.

I do this because it makes me appreciate the fact that an animal got killed so I could eat. It motivates me to do a good job as a cook, and makes me appreciate that I am lucky enough to have food on my plate for another meal. And it makes sure I don't waste any food.

Greed - buy a ton of shit and tell yourself that you are 'stimulating the economy,' and use that as an excuse to buy even more shit.

I am guilty of this. I bought a supposedly $250 suitcase for $80, because I needed a new carry-on. Oh, and I spent $50 on other things I don't really need.

I refuse to go to a store and partake in any of the mayhem we are all familiar with, though. I have eBags and Amazon to thank for my 20-minute shopping spree.

Let's do something nice

Some of us spend a part of Thanksgiving something nice to people who are less fortunate than you for some extra credit. I do not.

The variance in this extra credit activity seems to grow every year; either that, or I am noticing more of it. For instance, some people travel to Mexico to build houses, while others their local Wal-Mart, and complain when they have to leave the store because an employe died.

Aside from the periodic donation I give to a certain relief group (based on a % of my annual net income, which right now is around $1,000 a year), I have come to realize that I don't have it in me to go to a soup kitchen and donate a few hours of my time on a constant basis to help distribute food to the homeless.

At present the contribution I could make is low, both financially and having a network of well-known video game players does little to convince someone to point his wallet at your cause. There are charitable causes, for or not for profit, that can, and are, undertaken by people well into their careers. And that is something I hope to do someday.

...

Thanksgiving is another holiday whose meanings are obfuscated by shortsightedness and mediocrity displayed by the general public. While I contribute to this mediocrity in my own way, one may be justified in telling me to go back to Japan if I had such a huge problem with Thanksgiving.

And I am leaving America soon, but not because I dislike Thanksgiving more than I like it.

Le Jack in the Box?

@ the Jack In The Box on Convoy & Balboa

A test market, or a precursor for permanent change?