A Lesson in Efficiency

 Saturday, I had the shakes in more ways than one. It started at 4:00 am this morning when a second earthquake struck Niigata Prefecture with a magnitude of 6.2. The magnitude in Ishikawa rated: wake me up and realize you left your space heater on and might die in a ball of fire. Luckily, I grabbed the control knob, turned it off and huddled watching my walls rumble around me. Again, I was very fortunate and no damage was done. Another earthquake came thirty minutes later. This one rated a 5.5 magnitude in Nagano Prefecture. Once again, Ishikawa escaped scot-free.

Just after I finally dozed off into semi-peaceful slumber and had all but forgotten the traumatic events from my pre-dawn morning, my alarm went off reminding me that I had to teach an unknown amount of Japanese oba-sans how to make tacos for 36 people. Shake. Shiver.

 I hoisted myself out of the warm cocoon of my bed and prepared for the mornings events. Balancing all needed spices, several cans of beans, and a box of guava juice in my bike basket I headed to Oouya Community Center. Ito-san, the lady-in-charge (whose name I have unfortunately forgotten), and I set up stations for tortillas, taco meat, guacamole, pico de gallo, and sopapillas. The lady-in-charge had kindly written japanese instructions to accompany my English ones as well as printed the bi-lingual recipes on large pieces of paper and taped them to the giant white board on the wall.

 All of the helpers began to arrive around 10 and we got started around 10:30. Possibly the worst part of the entire day for me was when they asked me to describe to everyone step by step each of recipes in Japanese. Um...I can't speak Japanese! So, it was more like me saying a few words and my Taiwanese friend and goddess, Wawa, turning my fumbling vocabulary into coherent sentences. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.




As things in Japan go, there are always a few kinks to be worked out such as too many cooks in the kitchen; attempting to give directions in English to a group of cooks my grandmother's age who only speak Japanese; inaccurately converting flour measurements and food estimates and ending up with too-thick tortillas, not-puffy-enough sopapillas, and enough food to feed fifty Japanese people. After the hiccups and three hours later, we sat down to eat.

There was none of the customary constant chatter of "oishii desune" ("oh how delisious") when as we dined. I've experienced this chatter at nearly every Japanese meal I've ever been to, so I'm pretty sure they were less than impressed by the taste. And so I'm sticking to the excuse that everyone seemed to enjoy the process of making a new and exotic dish.

Following lunch a few of the ladies put on a koto performance, which was followed by a flute performance put on by a few older men of the community. The koto is a gorgeous traditional Japanese stringed instrument. After the performance they asked me to try playing the instrument. It takes some effort to keep the finger toggles on and push the strings with enough force to create a harmonizing vibration. The flutes that the gentlemen played were really beautiful as well. They were made out of bamboo.