When I still worked at an elementary school, the kitchen staff decided to have a British cuisine themed school lunch one day. This was very nice and flattering and all but despite asking me for food suggestions it was obvious that the menu had been designed by someone who had never been within 500 miles of the UK. So that day, in spring 2012, we ate something similar to shepherd’s pie, vegetable soup, cheese bread, an apple and tea jelly.

Having tea jelly was certainly an experience but what stuck out most for me that day was something written on the Paku Paku Dayori. I noticed that they had written the old proverb, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” on the sheet. It was a delight to see this translated in Japanese to “１日１個のりんごを食べるとお医者さんがいらない”  which kinda means “1 day, eat 1 apple and you don’t need a doctor”.

This led me to wonder about other proverbs said by Japanese people which might be similar to the ones we use in English.

It turns out there are quite a few.

ローマは一日にしてならず
Roma wa ichinichi ni shite narasu
Rome wasn’t built in a day.

This one is literally exactly the same.

一石二鳥
Iiseki nichou
1 stone, 2 birds.

Same meaning as “Killing two birds with one stone”, only this time maybe the birds haven’t been killed, only slightly maimed.

猫に小判
Neko ni koban
Coins to a cat.

Have you ever given money to your cats? Did they know what to do with them? Nope… This one means the same as “Pearls before swine”.

手前味噌
Temae miso
The miso soup in front of you.

It’s annoying if a person goes on and on about how great their home-made miso soup tastes. The same as “Singing one’s own praises”

There are loads of proverbs that aren’t in English though

馬の耳に念仏
Uma no mini ni nenbutsu
A buddhist prayer into a horse’s ear.

There is no point saying prayers to a horse because he won’t understand what you are talking about. This one basically refers to a person who shows no sign at all of listening to what someone is telling them. It is also related to my favourite Japanese idiom, “Bajitoufu“. Which basically means in one ear and out the other.

However my favourite proverb is:

猿も木から落ちる
Saru mo ki kara ochiru
Monkeys also fall from trees.

This is basically saying that even experts can muck things up too. I have yet to find an opportunity to use this in conversation but when that day comes I will be a very happy man indeed.

As you learn another language you start to realise that words which are commonly said in one language simply don’t exist in another. Either that or the usage of one word in a certain language is changed.

Walking about Tokyo, getting on with my life, I’d noticed that people tend to say natsukashi a lot. After looking up this word in my trusty pocket dictionary I discovered the definition for this word is nostalgic. That was good enough for me and I went on my merry way.

That definition suited me just fine for the longest time until one school lunchtime the kids were getting exceedingly happy about having jelly served up for the first time in ages. Almost in one voice they all exclaimed “Natsukashiiiiii“. This almost made my brain explode. I could not comprehend quite how any 8-year-old could justify calling anything nostalgic. “They’re eight”, my thought processes were reasoning, “They haven’t had the time to get nostalgic, everything is still new”.

It was that time I realised that natsukashi and nostalgic didn’t so much have a one to one correlation but natsukashi meants something more like, “This reminds me of something I enjoyed once, sometime ago”. I guess it could be something from your childhood anywhere up to 6 months ago.

This month, meanwhile, has been natsukashi overload for me. Recently I watched the live action remake of Ranma ½, which brought back so many memories. I first saw the original cartoon version way back when I was 14 in Colombia, in Spanish. It was the first cartoon I watched that I realised was from Japan and it set me off on the slippery slope that eventually led me to come here. I remember buying a new VCR that could play American videos just so I could import some from the US and watch it in English. I remember buying the comics and being shocked that I spent so much money on something I could read through in an hour.

Watching the live action show, it reminded me about all the silly gender bending humour, the original kung fu panda, love struck doctors, lost piglets and perverted old men. So much so I just had to procure all of the cartoon series and finally watch it through in Japanese and I’m having so much fun seeing it all again. I’m especially enjoying the early episodes I watched in English, way back when, and comparing how they originally sounded to the memories of the English version in my head. The American pronunciation of “Shikoku” still haunts my soul.

After writing this I realise that I have just described something that could be classed as nostalgic as well as natsukashi, oh well. On Friday I ate a saffron cake for the first time in ages, that was natsukashi, I guess.

I have spoken before about packed lunches but not about the cooked lunches they serve at Japanese schools. Unlike in the UK, in Japanese schools everybody eats the same thing. The children collect the lunches from the kitchen and then dish it out and eat it in their classrooms. Once everyone has been served their food the class rep for the day reads a sheet given to all the classes containing a few facts about what they are eating.

These sheets of paper are delightfully named, Paku Paku Dayori. Paku paku is one of many Japanese onomatopoeic words which translates to the sound of chewing, while dayori means information. A serious translator may render this as Lunch Information but I prefer to call them Munch Munch Information sheets. These notes contain the menu, something about one particular piece of food being eaten and, this being Japan, a little mascot. Sometimes there is even a quiz.

While sitting down and trying to read the Munch Munch Information I have found that sometimes the way that Japanese classify and teach the children about food is very different to how it is done in the UK. For those interested, here are a few sample school meals that I’ve had recently and translated Munch Munch Information to go with them.

Lets put our hands together, yell Itadakimasu and tuck in.

Today’s menu:

• rice
• sesame seed soy sauce mix
• soup with fried tofu, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, sweet potatoes and daikon
• tuna ageni [Note: ageni is a Japanese style of cooking which first fries the meat and then boils it after]
• milk

Fish… Protein rich food which makes your body strong.

Fish is rich in protein which makes our bodies. Chiefly it works to grow muscle and produce blood. Also, because you can eat this fish’s bones, the calcium will make your bones, teeth and other things healthy. Today’s ageni is made from grilled and simmered tuna.

Quiz!

What colour group of food is fish?

1) Black 2) Red 3) Green

———-
Original Sheet

Wow! When I said that food is classified differently, I wasn’t joking. I guess that the quiz at the end is confusing you a bit. In Japanese schools food groups are classified into colours . In the original text it talks about food in the ‘red’ food group. My Japanese teacher tells me that the red group is basically food high in protein so I translated it all mention of it to ‘high protein food’ instead. I kept the question a more direct translation simply to fry (and then boil, much like tuna ageni) your brains.
———-

Today’s Menu:

• turmeric rice
• minestrone soup
• curry
• milk
• fruit salad

About spices

Every time spices are used they can add colour, smell and spiciness to cooking. Curry powder is an ingredient in today’s curry. In order to add things like sharpness, spiciness, yellow colour and a nice smell to curry powder many spices are mixed. The turmeric which is in turmeric rice is the source of curry power’s yellow colour.

———–
Original Sheet

This one was a bit more straight forward but for those who can read Japanese have a look at the last sentence on the original paper. After I read that, I thought the Japanese language had begun using some form of recursion.
———–

Today’s menu:

• Sliced bread
• spinach sauté
• chilli con carne
• milk

Spinach

There are dark coloured (high beta-carotine) vegetables and light coloured (low beta-carotine) vegetables. Spinach is a dark vegetable. High beta-carotine vegetables contain lots of carotine which makes things like your nose and throat healthy . Today the school lunch has high beta-carotine vegetables other than spinach in it, such as carrots.

———-
Original Sheet

Here was another example of different Japanese food terminology, referring to high beta-carotine vegetables as dark coloured and low beta-carotine as light coloured. I was also shocked that the Japanese words for high and low beta-carotine (which obviously I had to look up) were being written down willy-nilly on a sheet that 6-year-old Japanese kids are supposed to read. Hell, I had to check what that meant myself, I wonder if the little kids could get their heads around it.
———–

That was 3 days worth of Japanese school food, aren’t you just jealous of my tasty lunches?

I remember a long, long time ago, back in primary school, everyday I would eat a packed lunch. Wrapped inside a plastic box with the latest, greatest cartoon characters embossed on it were tasty selections such as sandwiches, crisps, an apple, some kind of drink and if I was really lucky, a chocolate bar. Now, I work in a primary school and have to eat lunch with the kids. Usually cooked lunches are served every day but since the end of the summer holidays the kitchen is in the process of being renovated. This means I have to bring in a packed lunch to school everyday to eat with the kids.

In Japan packed lunches are called bento. In general they are available in everything from disposable plastic containers to hand crafted lacquerware. For the school kids though, they too have reusable plastic boxes with cartoon characters on, however they are kind of different to their European counterparts. For a start they generally have 2 removable compartments, one for rice and one for other stuff. Also they have a pair of reusable chopsticks attached to them. In the ‘other stuff’ compartment there is generally a selection stuff like sausages, chicken, vegetables, omelette, fruit, seaweed or more rice.

The first time I came in to work after the summer holiday, I walked in with rather a shitty plastic bag full on food I picked up from the conbini that morning. The bag contained a pasta salad, an onigiri, some Jagariko (crisps basically) and some delicious Calpis. Come lunch time, I was not prepared from the reactions this got me:

“Oh, that’s not fair”, came the cries.
“I want some!”
“Can I have your Calpis? I’ll swap you my wheat tea!”

And that was just the teachers.

In all seriousness, the teachers told me that what I had was not lunch but just a load of snacks. The surprised looks of the kids around me showed me that having crisps for lunch was a very unusual thing for a meal. It seems that in Japan what constitutes a packed lunch is very fixed. Housewives will spend ages slaving away at the bento for their kids or husbands, trying to make them interesting. I guess that because you always more or less know what is going to be in there, so having a nice picture makes a difference.

I’ve seen kids with little characters in their bento made from cabbage, other vegetables made to look like flowers and even the word “LOVE” written in seaweed. Check these ones out too.

The main thing I’ve got from this is that while kids always get the same thing in their lunch boxes everyday they really just want something yummy. I wonder if I have inspired anyone to be a rebel and do the unthinkable and ask for something different from everyone else, something which they would rather eat.

I doubt it.

No one likes to be the odd one out and the simple act of bringing crisps as part of my lunch made me feel more of an outsider than anything else that has previously happened to me in Japan. Still, the upshot of all the strange looks, disbelieving expressions and giggling (that actually was from the teachers) has taught me many new expressions in Japanese.

One day, I think I’m going to bring a Kitkat into work, hide it and then put it on the table just as everyone is finishing their meals and observe the kids reactions. My only worry is who is going to clean up the mess after 30 kids heads simultaneously explode.