Thanksgiving in Japan

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday with their loved ones.

My Thanksgiving passed fairly uneventfully and without most of the traditional food stuffs. I don’t know how available turkey is in the rest of Japan, but here in Kumamoto, it has to be special ordered. Pumpkin pie was also absent. Though the Japanese eat a lot of pumpkin, it’s really only used in savory dishes. The idea of pumpkin as dessert strikes many Japanese as odd. And though I do prefer Japanese savory pumpkin to the sweet route Americans take, many traditional Japanese desserts are made out of rice paste with beans, so I don’t really think they have any room to talk. Sweet potatoes were to be found on many dinner tables, including my own, but it’s not the mushy orange dish covered in burnt marshmallows that I think of when I think of sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes in Japan are more yellowy-white and are usually boiled in soups.

Japanese do celebrate Thanksgiving in their own way, however. Japanese Labor Thanksgiving is observed on November 24th to celebrate the rice harvest. It’s not quite as big a holiday as American Thanksgiving, but they do make steamed glutinous rice dumplings. I know, sounds delicious. These dumplings had a place in many of my school meals during the past week and though I wouldn’t say I am a fan, they’re not as unappetizing as they sound. Often they are filled with anko - a sweet bean paste and much more delicious than it has any right to be considering it is sweet bean paste - and served as a dessert. They can be savory, however, and filled with minced meat or veggies.

Though I didn’t do anything special on Thanksgiving, I did join some fellow English teachers the following night for dinner and drinks. I introduced them to a Mexican restaurant downtown that serves delicious, authentic Mexican food. One of the other teachers, a guy named Bobby from Hawaii, and I had to laugh at the way the tortilla chips were served in a very small bowl, about the size of a coffee cup at a trendy coffee shop like Central Perk, when we were both used to getting big baskets full of chips at Mexican restaurants in the States.

After dinner, the other teachers introduced me to a German restaurant that is known perhaps as well for their extensive beer menu as they are for their food. I think we’re planning to have dinner there next month.

Just as I was finishing up this post, Ricky Martin’s Livin' La Vida Loca came on the radio here in the teachers’ room. Except, it isn’t Ricky Martin and it isn’t Spanish. I have to admit that I despise the song, but there is something incredibly funny about hearing it in Japanese.

Album Currently Playing on my IPOD – 1990 The Narada Nutcracker – in spirit of the season.

- Jenny