Month: January 2003

Caucasians are apparently in high-demand to perform Christian-style wedding ceremonies in Japan. The key word here is “perform” since being an actual priest isn’t really necessary for the job.

Christian-nuptial fad calls on fake pastors
In a country where Christians account for just 0.8 percent of the population, the huge prevalence of Christian-style weddings can only be explained as vogue. This has led to especially high demand for Caucasians to perform the rites, leading many noncleric foreigners to work as “part-time pastors” or “weekend pastors.”
“It is of course not a religious experience that people seek in a Christian-style wedding, but to make a fashion statement,” said a spokeswoman for a Tokyo-based wedding service company that dispatches nonclergy foreigners to hotels and wedding halls to perform nuptials.

Last fall in Tokyo, I met an actor from New York who was in Japan for three months performing sappy love songs at western-style weddings. Here in Nagano, there’s a little white steeple church down by the river that’s used exclusively as a wedding chapel. Some might call this religiously offensive. I’d be more of the mind to call it just-desserts for a relentlessly proselytizing religion. They tried to sell Jesus and salvation, but all the locals bought was the fabulous wedding ceremony.

We had finished an amazing day of snowboarding and were coming home. Five of us crammed into a car the size of a shoebox, with as many snowboards and skis strapped to the top. As we careened down the road, a 7-11 beckoned with promises of good food and drink.
(A side note for those from the U.S. The 7-11 chain is also ubiquitous here in Japan—to the point that many Japanese think it’s a Japanese rather than an American-based business (UPDATE: oops—so much for fact-checking). But unlike at 7-11’s found in the States, you can actually find decent food at a 7-11 in Japan. Convenience stores here offer so much more than junk food and slurpees.)
We piled, or rather exploded, out of the car in search of sustenance. Along with a generous helping of snacks, all but the driver chose alcoholic beverages to top off a great day and to make the hour-long, cramped drive home a little more enjoyable.
I was in the mood for something hot — and sake sounded just right. I found the sake shelf and grabbed a self-heating can. Peel a plastic lid off the bottom of the can and press the bottom inwards until it pops. Three minutes later, the can and the sake have magically heated to an acceptably warm temperature.
I was happy, but not for long. After we were back on the road, I opened the top of the sake can to enjoy my beverage. The first problem was that, unlike most soda cans, the entire top was to be opened. I could see right away this was going to be a challenge in the cramped quarters and on a bumpy, windy road. Then the smell hit me. Dead fish was my first instinct — and, unhappily, it was accurate. I tried a sip and the taste was just as bad as the smell. As my stinky sake sloshed out of the can, I noticed the special added ingredient that was the source of the foul smell and taste. A small piece of dried fish floating in the can.
A comedy of sorts ensued as we tried to pass the can to the front so the contents could be tossed out the window as soon as possible.
I love sake, but make mine without fish.
(UPDATE: I’ve subsequently found that the odiferous item was squid.)

There was the young guy on the slopes today who, like many others, looked as if he was just learning to snowboard. After a fall and a tumble, he lay on the ground and the bottom of his snowboard was visible to those of us below. In big, big letters, it said, “bitch.”
Is this particular board only marketed in Japan, or are there bitch boards throughout the world?

I lost both my arms recently, and these dear, kind ladies — Emiko, Hiroe, Noriko and Miyuki — took me in and fed me when no one else would. They even sent me home with leftovers.