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me and Japan
Aug. 12th, 2007 04:15 pmMany of my friends are talking eagerly about their trips to Japan for the Worldcon in three weeks. I hope they all have a good time, and I'm looking forward to very long and detailed trip reports when they all come back.
Me, I'll be vicariously enjoying it, back here in the US. I supported the Japanese bid - many people in Japan have done a lot for SF and fandom over the years; if they wanted a Worldcon I thought they should have one - but I was never planning to go myself. Too far, too expensive, and - though it's ironic for a reader of stories about alien civilizations to say this - a little too different for me. The only non-English speaking countries I've paid significant visits to are the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy, in all of which I could at least stumble around with the native language, but in Japan I'd be not only mute but illiterate, and I wouldn't want to rely solely on the kindly English of strangers. Some of the prospective visitors have been learning a little Japanese, but I know my limitations.
Japan has played a small, distant role in my life. My father had served there in the US Navy, and came back with a few Japanese '50s pop records and a taste for rice candy, which he'd occasionally procure and give to his children as a treat. I still eat that on occasion, but despite my love for many other Asian cuisines, I've never much taken to Japanese. Even leaving aside the raw fish bit and all the stuff that comes with it which I don't like either, teriyaki is safe but I'm not wild about it. In my student days there was a place in Berkeley that served delicious yakatori chicken, but I've never found yakatori elsewhere to compare with that either. I'm sure the food in Japan is much better and more varied than what you can find in the US - that was certainly true of Italy - but it's not something I'm chomping to try.
On the other hand I do like Japanese art, though not as much as Chinese art, and of all Asians who've tried it, the Japanese have produced the absolute masters of western classical music. Most western visiting to Japan, I gather, goes on in Tokyo-Yokohama-Kyoto, but that's only a tiny part of a large and topographically challenging country. I know little of the geography or the regional variety of Japan, and would like to learn some.
Me, I'll be vicariously enjoying it, back here in the US. I supported the Japanese bid - many people in Japan have done a lot for SF and fandom over the years; if they wanted a Worldcon I thought they should have one - but I was never planning to go myself. Too far, too expensive, and - though it's ironic for a reader of stories about alien civilizations to say this - a little too different for me. The only non-English speaking countries I've paid significant visits to are the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy, in all of which I could at least stumble around with the native language, but in Japan I'd be not only mute but illiterate, and I wouldn't want to rely solely on the kindly English of strangers. Some of the prospective visitors have been learning a little Japanese, but I know my limitations.
Japan has played a small, distant role in my life. My father had served there in the US Navy, and came back with a few Japanese '50s pop records and a taste for rice candy, which he'd occasionally procure and give to his children as a treat. I still eat that on occasion, but despite my love for many other Asian cuisines, I've never much taken to Japanese. Even leaving aside the raw fish bit and all the stuff that comes with it which I don't like either, teriyaki is safe but I'm not wild about it. In my student days there was a place in Berkeley that served delicious yakatori chicken, but I've never found yakatori elsewhere to compare with that either. I'm sure the food in Japan is much better and more varied than what you can find in the US - that was certainly true of Italy - but it's not something I'm chomping to try.
On the other hand I do like Japanese art, though not as much as Chinese art, and of all Asians who've tried it, the Japanese have produced the absolute masters of western classical music. Most western visiting to Japan, I gather, goes on in Tokyo-Yokohama-Kyoto, but that's only a tiny part of a large and topographically challenging country. I know little of the geography or the regional variety of Japan, and would like to learn some.
