As I have already established, I live in a pretty rural place. This excludes me from many of the activities you usually associate with Japan (**cough** Tokyo**cough**) like bright arcades, wacky vending machines full of not farm products, cafes with cute themes like Sailor Moon or cats, technology of the future, and many other things. However, it does afford you some unique opportunities. Between my still fairly low Japanese ability and the strong accents of townsfolk, it's difficult for me to understand the people around me but I've found the rural folk to be friendly and happy to laugh.
My neighbors with the cats have taken a particular interest in me. The husband drives school buses for the local schools and the wife is a friendly housewife who likes to talk and feed you. They invited me into their house a few weeks ago to meet their dog and show me various foods and I frequently go back to visit their cats. While I was in their house, the husband wanted me to try something called "fuki" and his wife was not a fan because she said it tastes too strong. I liked it actually, but I don't think anyone believes me. The bus driver then told the teachers at the school about it and the vice principal tells me I should make tempura with the vast quantities of fuki growing all over the roadsides and mountains. The bus driver even went and found a fuki sprout on the school grounds to give to me. The Japanese language teacher saw this and told me the vice principal is crazy for liking fuki tempura so much hahaha. The talkative wife told me to make tempura with the leaves (but when it's bigger I think) and that her husband is weird for liking fuki with miso (what he had me try). Who knew a mountain vegetable could create so many polarizing opinions XD
Recently I was playing with Obaachan (my favorite of the three cats) and my talkative neighbor saw me and decided to take me on a walk around our neighborhood. First stop was the roadside between our houses, from which she pulled something that looked like grass but smells like onions. Said it's good in nabe, so that's what I had for dinner that night. Apparently it's something called にら(nira), which is I think garlic chives. Very nice flavor, would definitely recommend them. Just wash well if your neighbor or yourself pulls them from the side of the road.
She also took me to another neighbor's garden, both a Japanese style ornamental and vegetable type. Her garden even had koi fish, but only black ones because apparently those are the best at surviving. Her ornamental garden had some nice plants that have yet to bloom and she has a huge vegetable garden and greenhouse, which has everything from mikan trees to broccoli, even now at the end of winter. She is a small woman who lives by herself and is probably in her 80's. The gardening neighbor and the talkative neighbor enjoyed giggling at my inability to understand her thick accent. Maybe someday I'll be able to understand more than 10% of what she says.
My talkative neighbor then took me to a local shrine, which also had something called お地蔵さん(ojizou-san, apparently the translation is Kshitigarbha). Since I don't know what the translation means and I assume you don't either, the simplest way to describe it is "house with little statues." It's a Buddhist structure, housing various Buddhist statues of various amounts and complexities. Some are just rocks in approximately Buddha shapes, whereas others are elaborately carved. Right now they are all covered with cloths to protect them from the elements. Apparently the particular one she took me to is one meant for women and babies. The Buddha within is a woman holding a baby, and as she lifted the cloths to show me the baby three cockroaches fell out, which was pretty funny to say the least. In the little house there are some fabric tubes hanging down with a bell at the top and she said that when a baby is born you go ring the bell, or if you are struggling to conceive (at least I'm pretty sure my Japanese isn't that good). It's also literally 3 feet from a shrine, which I've been told is odd because the little houses are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto, but it seems that this area tends to blend their religious structures.
One last note is when I first met my neighbor I explained my allergies to her and recently she brought over some お萩(ohagi), which is a rice ball covered in sweet red bean paste. I'd never heard of this Japanese dessert before but it was really good and very sweet of her to think of traditional things I can eat. I'm grateful to have such caring neighbors.
One more picture of Obaachan, coming over looking for treats and attention.
Comments