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Yaki

Soba

By Sound And The MessengerPublished 7 years ago 7 min read
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Photo by Iyo Matsumoto

When I close my eyes I can smell the sea, but I don't know what sea it might be, as I have seen and touched many parts of the ocean so far. I think anybody can do that. They can close their eyes and see flashes of the life that they've lived up to their own point of currently living. For me, a multitude of different things come. There's the feeling of cold glass against my forehead as I take an evening train into Tokyo or there is the smell of Naraha immediately after it has rained for days on end and a crisp bright light blue floods the sky with a new sun and starts to dry everything. It feels so good to walk on the street then and breathe in perfect fresh air coming from millions of trees. There also is the smell of sweet teriyaki sauce poured over fried ramen noodles during a hot humid day. When I arrived in Japan in the summer of 2009, this was a common occurrence and there were numerous summer parties that I was able to attend. They all took place in the late afternoon around a hot grill sizzling with yaki soba noodles. "Yaki" is "fried" in Japanese and everything becomes so in late July in Japan. The humidity pours over the land and fries everything, but also keeps it wet. It would be wrong to say that the air steams everything as this would be different and Yaki soba would instead be called "Jouki Soba" or steamed soba, which is not really a thing to my knowledge. That is not to say that soba is only served hot as my preference in the summer is when soba is prepared cold, but in this case, the noodle is boiled, but not steamed. I was able to see how this dish was made traditionally later in my travels, but that part of the story will be explained later.

The summer parties started in the heat of the day and then slowly the sun would dip low and create shadows and then when the night set in, dancing would commence. There are numerous festivals in every prefecture in Japan and Fukushima is no different. Each town has their own unique culture that embodies the spirit of each town and thus each location is steeped in tradition and color. Naraha was famous for its river fishing in past times, although I never saw many fishermen in the town. It is also famous for it's Yuzu citrus fruit that can be combined with sweetness to make an excellent frozen dessert in the summer. The village had a hot spring that overlooked the ocean. It was the only one that I was able to visit that had this feature. There were many evenings where I'd soak in hot water looking into a slowly setting day. How could so many colors flood into a blue sky? Truth be told I really didn't come to understand what the historical significance of what my town was in the past. There was an ancient feeling to it though. This emotion dug deep when I would listen to the students sing their class song at different school ceremonies, or it would creep in when I would later drive into the dense undergrowth that swallowed the land whole as I witnessed if I were to venture further inland. Old stories were sung by the wind when I took a moment of stillness walking somewhere. It was a land that even now remains a mystery. There was one thing that I was made aware of though and I had this awareness before I even arrived in Japan.

In the summer of 2009 before I would leave for Japan I received a letter in the mail that explained where I would be placed in Japan. When entering the JET Program I knew that the committee was going to randomly put me someplace. This was explained to me in the interview. "Do you have a preference John of where you'd like to be placed?" I stated that I wanted to be placed in the country and not the city. I wanted to be in a place like Aspen, Colorado. The JET application stated in its application that it would not be able to accommodate every applicants desired location for placement. I saw this as a spontaneity card! Reality hit when the letter came in the mail, making me reconsider my "fool like" approach. The little piece of paper read out "Naraha." I immediately ran into my room and punched in the location and some links popped up. There was one main attraction and one attraction only and that was the soccer recreation center that seemed to define the town as it showed up in all the links. That was all that showed up. Wikipedia gave a description of a small coastal town in the north in some random prefecture four hours north of Tokyo. Book covers on books can be deceiving and this played true in my journey regarding the soccer recreation center that I would later refer to and learn it's proper name "J-Village".

J-Village did, in fact, embody the spirit of the town. I think I have a hunch that this is why the student's uniforms were blue. As the year progressed and my Japanese level followed the same trend I came to learn that I was teaching a lot of soccer students. These were kids and particularly girls that were very talented at soccer. They had qualified to train at J-Village. Soccer was very popular in Anime comics and I believe it was a dream of many young school girls of my school to play soccer as their livelihood. Of course many students had varying goals and aspirations as well and I would even meet some of my old students later in different prefectures studying different trades. The girls of J-Village though had qualified and had left their homes in other remote parts of Japan to train and live life the the town of Naraha and play soccer at J-Village. They were in middle school and they came by themselves. I was humbled by their determination. J-Village was also the home training grounds to one of the professional woman soccer teams. They were known as the "Mareeze." I would come to know some of the players quite well and this will be touched on in the story later.

In the Inaka breakfast is very much a family home activity and I think many teachers as I myself found that breakfast restaurants were seemingly non-existent when they arrived in Japan. This came to me as quite an ironic facet of the culture as the Japanese breakfast is, in my opinion, one of my favorite meals. Breakfast was a new thing to learn upon arriving in Japan. When I first arrived I would often stroll the aisles of my local supermarket and look at the cereal boxes and milk cartons that were quite foreign to me. For a while that was breakfast. It was hard to feel satisfied after eating and I often found that my energy level was low by the time I arrived at my school, which was a five-minute walk from my apartment. I also found that I was always hungry. I would long to hear the rolling of the cart into the teacher's office that would signal the start of the school lunch.

School lunch in Japan is, in my opinion, a great deal more professional and nutritional than the lunch option I had at my school growing up. Furthermore, the school lunch is something which almost every student in Japan includes as part of their life rather than it being a simple special occasion or splurge as had been my experience when I had gone through schooling. The lunch is integrated into the teaching curriculum and each student has their hand at preparing the lunch and serving it. That being said I soon found that the lunch still did not leave me feeling very energized, although it was very delicious. The lunch came in a series of bowls and was always complemented by rice. It is then accompanied by fresh vegetables and then fried fish of some sort of pork. The combination left me feeling tired after work and more and more so the thoughts of being vegetarian were hitting my thoughts. All my life living in Colorado I had a vast array of high mountains that I could hike and in this way I was able to to feel quite healthy. For the first time, however, I felt that this outlet was non-existent. The journey was leading me to a new place and a new realm and yet for the first time, I was eating food that I had longed to eat for my whole life. I was eating the freshest sushi and dining on Japanese food in all its varieties. The riddle would continue.

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About the Creator

Sound And The Messenger

Hello and welcome. Creativity shows itself in a myriad of different ways for me. I intend to get out of my comfort zone on this page, be vulnerable and create. Follow me @soundandthemessenger

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