Essay

Caveat emptor

By Kit Pancoast Nagamura

I had been in Japan only a few weeks, starting a yearlong fellowship far from home. I had a tiny apartment in a close-knit neighborhood, and was settling in nicely. There was only one difficulty: I had trouble getting dinner.

Often I came back from work just as restaurants were closing.My fellowship stipend made eating out at night a pricey luxury anyway. Noodles and onigiri? I ate those for lunch. I shopped on weekends, but local grocery store items were unfamiliar, and I couldn't read the packaging to find out how to prepare them. So I ended up living on the basics — butter, bread, fruit, eggs.

One evening, I boldly threw together a dinner salad with my very first daikon. I chopped up one-fifth of the giant radish, and hacked up the remainder to fit the Tetris game of my tiny refrigerator. I mixed the daikon with lettuce and a packet of chrysanthemum flowers my friend told me were edible. The Chinese poet Qu Yuan writes that one should only eat the "chrysanthemum's falling petals," and he's right, because the rest tastes like potpourri.

That night after dinner, I worked on a report. Around 10, I became distracted by my own growling stomach. I was still hungry. I recalled seeing a vending machine just around the corner of my apartment. I could sneak down, grab a snack from the vending machine, and zip back up to work.

Grabbing my change, I ventured out to streets fairly crowded with my neighbors returning home from work or just socializing. I went up to the vending machine, and tried to determine which treat would be most satisfying. The only package I could read, Rich Black, looked like a small bar of dark chocolate. I bought one, but when the machine dispensed it, I was amazed at the measly portion. I knew tiny servings of food were the norm in Japan — a healthy tendency — so I shrugged, and proceeded to buy half a dozen more.

Neighbors passed by, staring over their backs at me. One or two gave me scornful looks, and a few even laughed. Yeah, yeah, I thought, laugh if you want, but I love chocolate. To a few passersby, I flung out one of my few fail-safe Japanese phrases: "Suki desu yo!"

Back at my place, I lined up my stash, opened the first box, and found individually wrapped pieces inside. Ripping into one, I found to my horror that it wasn't chocolate. Not even close. I'd just made myself a special reputation in my neighborhood by buying a massive pile of condoms.

I became a motivated student of Japanese language from that evening on.

Shukan ST: May 16, 2008

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