Culture shock tarts.

Culture shock - A condition of confusion and anxiety affecting a person suddenly exposed to an alien culture or milieu.

When I began to tell my friends and family that I'd be living in Okinawa, I heard nothing but praise about how much fun I'd have here. Between my dad (who was stationed here while working in the Navy) and various friends and cousins who have lived here (all on the government dime!), everyone told me that I would love it here. To their merit, they weren't liars! With all the good eats, breathtaking sights, and its fascinating culture, Okinawa truly is an experience to itself. While there isn't a day that passes by that I don't think to myself how truly fortunate I am to live and learn in such a wonderful and peaceful part of the world, I'm somewhere between being really ecstatic and also painfully anxious over the process of adjusting to this place thousands of miles (and dollars) away from home. 
 
First, it's understandable for anyone to get a little homesick. After all, it is a stressful experience in itself to move from one place to another, let alone adjust to a completely alien environment where the subtleties of the local language and customs escape one's understanding. The experience is compounded when you take into account that as a military spouse, you're not there for your own career, you're following your husband's (or wife's) career. Now, I'm not saying that as a military spouse (or any kind of spouse for that matter), one resigns a sense of autonomy, but there is a clear difference between "going" versus "following".

Second, and perhaps the most annoying aspect to living in military communities is that there is this very specific stereotype of Filipino women who are married to Americans. It is assumed, primarily by the soldiers themselves, that the woman is probably a former PROSTITUTE.

/facepalm

As if there is no chance in the world a nice, college-educated Filipina-American could or would even want to marry someone because they actually love someone who just so happens to be a soldier. O_O

From my understanding, the assumption comes from soldiers who, when serving a tour in Southeast Asian countries, encounter Asian bargirls who refer to themselves as "juicy girls". Not all of these bargirls act as prostitutes but the stereotype is all the same. There have been a couple of times where my husband has been asked if I was "picked up" in Korea or the Philippines and I swear, sometimes it makes me question the merit of even having a college degree (from one of the top universities, mind you!) if I can't smash it in the face of the next ignorant jerk who assumes that I have lived a life far removed from what I have actually lived.

I'm not even going to waste the energy into writing an essay on how I wish the world was less judgmental or how people need to listen before they speak to save themselves the embarrassment of looking like an asshole. However, I am going to say that life here, as a wife and as an individual, is challenging. It is incredibly scary to rest the future of one's fate in the hands of another person's career goals. Especially for me, who has spent the majority of my life learning how to be a leader. While I accepted to live a life married to someone in a mobile career, part of that love is living with the challenge of constantly being uprooted and transplanted. In that state of disorientation, not only must one build a foundation for the family, but also transcend the negativity (both within and outside oneself) and find a way to grow as an individual.

In spite of it all, I consider myself an optimist. As I drift through this country, trying to keep my head above water while trying to figure out what opportunities are available for me here, I am reminded of the night I was consumed by a piece of candy.


This takes place about a year ago. In the company of one of my childhood friends, we spent the evening evening eating ramen and talking about my insecurities about living the mobile life and the fear that by constantly moving, I might be missing out on great things if I had just stayed home. At the end of the night, we stopped by a candy store and my friends picked up a bag of the most delicious milky, chewy candy. It was chewy like a Hi-chew, with gummi and fizzy tart pieces in the middle of each piece. Every bite was savory and comforting, engaging in sensory overload of the palate. It was the most exciting candy I had ever tasted since Pop Rocks.

When I arrived in Japan, I looked for the same candy in every store I visited. I searched every candy aisle, only to be stumped by the fact that 1) I can't read Japanese and 2) I didn't even know the candy's name. All I knew was that its packaging was blue and white and might have some sort of circular designs on its packaging. Of all the places I searched, I eventually found the candy again at the local commissary; hidden in an area full of Japanese treats. There are perhaps hundreds of different kinds of candies here in Japan and it didn't take me too long before I found exactly what I was looking for. When I found this, I swear, it was like the scene in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, where Charlie unwraps his chocolate bar and finds he's the lucky winner of the golden ticket. I danced in joy and sang my happiness over finding MY candy! In that moment, I truly believed that if I can find exactly the type of candy I'm looking for, despite not knowing how to read Japanese, I can find anything.

There's a snake in my drank

A funny thing happened on the way to the candy store. While taking delight in being surrounded by local treats and goodies, I came across this treat: habushu.

Habushu is a liquor that combines awamori (a local liquor similar to sake) and the preserved body of a habu snake. From watching some of the more educational programming on one of the AFN/MCCS-based channels, I have gathered that somehow, this drink is believed to have some kind of medicinal properties. The awamori itself is based on the distillation of herbs and honey, which sounds tasty in itself, but obviously the real allure of the drink is the addition of the snake itself. I've heard that the snake is supposed to get you more eff'ed up as its venom shuts down the kidneys so that the body doesn't filter the alcohol. As you continue to consume the drink, once the liquor is consumed, you just keep refilling the jug with more awamori until the snake is dissolved. Makes economic sense when you realize that a jar of this bad boy can cost upwards of US $1000.

I'm not sure whether I really want to try this. God forbid a fang gets stuck in my gums. How do you floss that out?

How do you say "cheap eats" in Japanese?

So we've been here for a week and I wish I could say that I've accumulated a week's worth of foodie-worthy pics but somewhere between developing a case of cabin fever and learning really quick just how expensive moving and being a food lover really is, there hasn't exactly been a lot of opportunities for food to inspire some sort of enlightening experience. As anxious as I was to just hurry up and get here, settling in is moving slower than expected.

Before I got here,  I thought we would be staying at some hotel with tatami mats for floors and small pods for beds. Thankfully, Okinawa is much more Americanized than I thought. We're staying in the Shogun Inn at Kadena AB. It's not a bad gig. It's not the Holiday Inn but it's cool. There's a small kitchen, complete with microwave, fridge and sink.  

I wouldn't say that the living has been shitty but let's just say that it is, as a friend of mine once said, "it's a little better than terrible." I love having lots of space to move and this place doesn't afford much of it. I'm literally getting sick of looking at my husband all day. Kidding! *nervous laugh* It could be worse. One of the hubby's coworkers once stayed at the Shogun Inn when they first got to Okinawa and apparently the piping was all messed up and somehow they got some sort of blackish-brown substance oozing from their bathtub. O_O Luckily for us, there hasn't been any problems with the water. Another plus, we are walking distance to a huge commissary/exchange (like Super Wal-Mart status huge) and some supercute vending machines that sell drinks like this:

... an aloe and white grape drink with little jellies inside. It tastes like a green Hi-Chew candy! Haven't seen any vending machines that sell women's underwear just yet but I haven't lost hope.

It sucks not having a car.  I hate having to constantly ask for a ride to go places. But I'm not exactly in a position to feel comfortable driving on the other side of the road. Thankfully, we're within a fair distance to a number of different low-cost food vendors, so we've been eating a lot of junk food and, once in a while, indulge in relatively low cost meals like Okinawan soba and chicken karaage:

 

The pictures don't seem to do the food justice. I mean, Okinawan soba really is my new favorite comfort food. There's fish cake and the most tender (and mildly sweet) pork belly and pork ribs I have ever tasted in my life. Both meals totaled to about $20 US total, which is pretty decent considering that both dishes came with a lot of ways to stuff your mouth with carbs on top of carbs.

A close second is udon, which can get much more hearty than the the oriental stores in America taste like. Just the other day, I had a bowl with egg, tofu, tempura, scallions, and fried onions and holy moly did that put me in a food coma.

Now that I think about it, it's probably a good idea that we're forced to walk everywhere. With all this eating that I'm doing, I could use the exercise =X

Konnichiwa!

Greetings! Welcome to my modest page. A work in progress, if you will. Excuse the hot mess.

The idea to start a blog came when I discovered that my husband and I were going to move to Japan. I was in LA, with my most glamorous ladyfriends, when I thought that I could share my delicious experiences living and adapting in a different place and time(zone). Yes, delicious, because I am here to talk about food.

You see, food tells you a lot about people: their openness to try new things, the sense of community, a person's strength (and vulnerability). If you go to a place, any place, and choose to only sample the dish that looks most closest to what's familiar, what's to say that a lack of openness to things that are different ends with the palate?

I always did love the story of Alice in Wonderland: a young, inquisitive girl trying to make sense of the cultural absurdities of Wonderland. She engages in all sorts of exchanges with the locals, often resulting in her getting more confused or facing the possibility of getting her head chopped off. But my favorite part of the story is how food is a catalyst for unearthing the different possibilities of one's fate, understanding where she is and where she could be going.

In short, I love food.

For all intents and purposes, attached is a relevant picture.