ok, ok, sorry i took so long and i'm such a failure at life. here's mine. i just wanted to warn you all before hand that i'm increasingly become fed up with academic discourse and writing in certain ways so i think i'm going to try to be more experimental in this course so if my writings are weird, i apologize, but i can't take it any more yo!! oh yeah, it's kind of long too... and the freaking blog wouldn't accept it at first wassup with that.
btw, there's a huge Caterpillar bulldozer with the long neck that digs up earth thingie outside my window digging up the lawn they just put in like a couple weeks ago. wtf.
If harmony is described as the divine balance of opposites that are consummated in a graceful dance that cannot make one help but think that there is something as perfection, pork chops and apple sauce used to be that dance for me. Okay, not really but it’s still a funny image to think about with the pork chop dragging its feet or ass(?) across the dance floor while the apple sauce droops over the hunk of meat with bits and pieces getting flung around. In my idealized view this was one of my favorite meals as a child. Mashed potatoes, sticky rice, steamed vegetables, sautéed peppered mushrooms and pork and applesauce. In retrospect and with my boogie analytic skills, I’ve come to see how this meal contained many problematic elements.
Whenever I could, I would help out as much in the house. Usually I would come back from playing sports at school pass out on the floor for a while and then get the shopping list hop on my bike and ride to the “super market”, although that word does not do justice to what was called the suu-paa, which is an abbreviation and japanesization of super market, as it was much more markety than super markets here. Perhaps on a market-super market continuum it would place slightly center left like a good ‘ol democrat, I’m looking at you Obama and Clinton. Anyways, I had to bicycle through the alley like streets with bicycles jam parked on the side like neatly aligned dominos, leaving me no less than about 2 feet worth of street to avoid running over shopping moms who occupy the full width of the street as they talk and acknowledge that I am coming but absolutely refuse to let me pass. Once I get passed that trial, I see the hustle and bustle of the main street of the shopping arcade and start hearing the shouting of youthful employees trying to get people to buy the fruits and other products that they have to sell before they close. Strawberries, strawberries! Two packs for 200 yen! I park my bike and look at the apples as the fruit section annexes a small portion of street, as if trying to make you trip on the fruit and take responsibility by buying it. I keep forgetting what kind of apples are the best for applesauce, from fuji to ourinn to mutsu. I can’t ask the employees because applesauce isn’t really eaten here. After making usually the wrong decision and buying the other ingredients, I get back and I start helping with cooking the rice and peeling and cutting the vegetables and fruits. After that my mom, or Rieko as we are required to say, finishes the rest. Even if the meal was prepared, often times we would wait for my dad to come back, even if that meant waiting an hour or two. Once he gets back we would start eating. Once finished I would wash the dishes.
What is interesting about this dish is that it is surprisingly indicative of not only our food habits but also various power positions within the family. Rieko is Japanese and my dad is Irish-American. Although he does eat Japanese food, Rieko often alternates between western and Japanese food, mostly for him. Additionally, although I helped a little, she usually worked all day and often came back and started preparing for dinner, while my dad would often come back just in time for eating, very excited about eating. Finally, he would always rejoice over emphatically when dinner was something western or things that was more familiar to his palate, such as steak, pasta, beef stew or pork shops. This brought up an interesting dynamic that I did not really consider. It is true that my dad probably liked such foods more than Japanese foods, as he was living in Japan and foods that you were brought up on when growing up often holds a symbolic value of home and familiarity. When I am in the US I intensely crave Japanese foods, although I like all kinds of foods, and the meal itself provides a lot more value than merely its taste. Nevertheless, by excessively enjoying the meal and never showing such appreciation for Japanese foods that Rieko worked hard in preparing, he was quietly denying Japanese culture, or at least showing noticeable preference for western culture. His preference for western culture was not marked by praising one kind of foods and disrespecting of other kinds of foods, but the silence was enough to affect Rieko, whose culture is steeped in interpreting little signals where nonverbal cues reveal as much as verbal affirmations. Why do I bring this up? To me it seems that in many ways he was disrespecting the host by favoring some types of foods despite all the hard work and love she put into cooking while additionally working as much as he did, although he did make more money possibly due to being a male and having a advanced degree at the time, which Rieko taking care of us allowed for. Finally, his participation in the ritual only as financier and consumer was also indicative of his status in the family. The family tasks were definitely gendered although he did help with laundry and dishes occasionally. I say gendered as I began taking on tasks Rieko usually complete and I was merely an assistant to her rather than being designated that I should do certain chores, and thus I was merely an extension of Rieko, working in her sphere of tasks and not my father’s.
Growing up bicultural and eating both western and Japanese foods I had never really discriminated between the two culture’s foods, or for that matter other things such as Thai, Chinese and Mexican foods. I appreciated all kinds of foods, or at least I think I did, and this was perhaps because how my family, mainly Rieko, raised me. Although I am sure he meant no harm, my father’s reaction was in many ways indicative of the latent sense of cultural superiority that westerners have in Japan. Many come to Japan perhaps attracted by its exoticness, make money by teaching English, hang out in their clique of foreigners and then trash Japanese culture. No doubt, this surely happens in various immigrant communities, but none are accorded as much freedom to remain aloof and not assimilate, while not facing the backlash of nativism.
I am not sure how this particular dish has affected Rieko. To a certain effect I may be imposing my own values upon her. Nevertheless, her feeling that she was not culturally and humanly validated has been an on-going theme. As a Japanese female living with an Irish-American male, she felt that she was not given agency and the right to live the way she wanted to in her own country. Even when cooking, which was her sphere of influence where she supposedly had total control to pick what she was going to cook and how, she was faced with double consciousness, seeing herself through the eyes of the dominant gaze of the family, which coincidentally was the white male.
Obviously my father wasn’t constantly saying negative things about Japanese foods or culture, and thus this could all be mere speculation. But in many ways whatever his true feelings be, his actions did portray disrespect to someone who sacrificed so much only to please him. This dish, although is undeniably wholesome and delicious, brought up various issues that arise in international marriages, especially one of a western male and a Japanese female; issues of transnational racism, sexism, symbolic power within the household was most salient. Although when I look at the point of view of my father, it certainly doesn’t seem like there are any problems, but when looking at the psychological and material effects it had on Rieko I begin to see how this meal was problematic in many ways. Although at the time all I saw was the beautiful dance of the dish itself, I did not realize how it was a messy dance that left various emotions all over the place.
Recipe:
Rice, Pork Chops, Potatoes, Carrots, Peas, Broccoli, Apples (still don’t know which kind is best), Shimeji mushrooms, Milk, Salt and Pepper, Cinnamon, and Flour.
Cook rice.
Steam carrots, peas and broccoli.
Peel and cut apples into little pieces and put into pot with cinnamon and some water and simmer.
Boil water and put potatoes in. after 30 minutes, wash in cold water, peel the skin, put into bowl and mash. Add milk, salt and pepper and butter if it pleases you.
Cut fat off the pork chops if it’s fatty and bread it with flour. Heat frying pan up, put some olive oil in and sauté? (don’t know exact word)
Cook mushrooms with salt and pepper
Bon appetite!
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