Food Illiteracy

Picking my way through the brightly-lit supermarket aisles, I try futilely to look like I know what I’m doing. I was here yesterday, and clung to my Japanese-speaking roommate like a leech. Today I know the routine. I just need lunch. I’m sick of sitting in my room, and I don’t want to bug my roommate again. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and I’m sure she doesn’t have time for an ignorant hanger-on. Some canned drinks catch my attention at the front of the store, and I scan them for any English words, finding coffee, a few different teas, and the mysterious pale “Calpis” and “Pocari Sweat”. Two small bottles of tea go into my tan plastic basket, and I move on.

I ignore the sacks of rice, ranging from sizes small enough to hold in one hand to others big enough for two arms. I have no idea how to use the rice cookers provided for students at the dorms.

The 100 yen (roughly $1.07) aisle looks tempting. There are bags of chips and rice puffs with names like “Wasabeef” and “Real Taste!” on one side of the aisle, and chocolate bars and bags of colorful hard candy on the other side. I haven’t yet learned a single character of Japanese in my two and a half days in Japan. How do people go through life illiterate? I pick a bag of shrimp flavored rice puffs and two candy bars and duck out of the aisle so the other customers can feel comfortable entering it. The country’s language surrounds me, and I have no choice but to tune it out like the cheerful pop music in the background.

After passing through the meat, fish, frozen entrees, green tea-flavored ice cream, and styrofoam bowls of instant noodles, I make it to the ready-to-eat packaged food. There are cut green beans with sesame seeds, potato salad with too much mayonnaise, and thinly sliced purple octopus with cucumbers in one section. There is a table is filled with fried meat, fish, and vegetables called “tempura.” Another has trays of a variety of foods, including rice, fried meat, pickled vegetables, and rolls of scrambled egg, called “bento.”

Yesterday I bought my first bento, and was sick of rice by the end of it. I hadn’t seen the sushi, but the seaweed-wrapped rolls caught my eye today, on the other side of the shelf of bread.

In America, one of my favorite foods is sushi. Whenever I’m feeling rich, I go to the grocery store to buy a tray of California Rolls or a Full Moon Combo for lunch. It makes me feel cultured, different from the shoppers around me buying beer, flour, or cereal. Sesame seed-covered sticky white rice is spread over the dark seaweed covering the other rice, cucumber, avocado, and imitation crab rolled up inside. It’s a gently exotic mix of seafood and fresh vegetables that I fell in love with after tasting it at a friend’s birthday party.

This sushi looks different, though. There is no rice to hide the dark green seaweed. There are more varieties than I had ever seen before, and nothing looks like what I buy in America. Best of all, it’s much cheaper! I can afford to get almost anything for less than the price of my American sushi, but my mom’s frugality has already taken hold. I won’t allow myself anything over 200 yen.

After much deliberation, a plastic tray of nine rolls of shrimp sushi looks well worth its 160 yen. I will not notice the mayonnaise slathered into it until I get back to my dormitory. I stick it into my basket along with some melon bread and a chocolate-filled pastry, and head to the line of cash registers.

“Irasshaimase!” The cashier greets me with a smile a bit too wide to be natural, after an awkward moment at the sight of my pale face and hair. I set my basket on the counter and watch helplessly as she scans the barcodes and sets the food into another basket.

“Sen nihyaku nijuu kyuuen desu.”

The cash register says “1229” so I take out 2000 yen and set it on the tray by the register. Yesterday I made the mistake of handing the money directly to the cashier, who regarded it with horror and took it with the greatest embarrassment. I watch carefully as she counts out the change and sets it on the tray with the receipt. We both know that she could charge me too much and I would never know the difference. I blindly shove the silver, copper, and aluminum coins into my purse, bobbing a small bow to her “Arigato gozaimashita” before I stuff my food into the plastic bags provided, set my basket on the stack, and walk towards the door framed by drink and cigarette vending machines.

On my way out, I pass four other Americans. We share the eager smile of familiarity as we pass. They enter the store discussing the bastardization of American food in Japan as they head towards the packaged spaghetti and sauce.