Liberate Your Plate

Happy Fourth of July, everyone, which was of course yesterday here in Japan. I celebrated it, in spite of Donkey Kong occupying the presidency. I still believe in America's ideals. So I put together an American dinner last night comprised of American imports and locally brewed products, of which there are plenty, despite what Trump says. I had some pork chops from America, a common sight on the grocery store shelves here. I snacked on some California raisins, one of my favourite snacks over the past few years, along with American peanuts. I had some Coca-Cola and a can of Budweiser, despite it being my least favourite beer, but I kind of enjoyed it this time. I made some french fries from locally grown potatoes although I have seen produce from the U.S. In fact, I remember seeing blueberries that were grown in the U.S. I found this amusing considering, when I lived in the U.S., I typically found blueberries that were grown in Mexico. It's a funny musical chairs game, this international trade.

And, last night, I had rice grown in California, which has indeed been imported to Japan for a couple years. Yet it's misleading for so many news sites to claim Trump is wrong when he says Japan won't take American rice. Last month, the powerful retail company, Aeon, started putting Calrose rice on the shelves, the same brand I used to eat when I lived in California. Previously when Aeon put Calrose on the shelves, it remained there as the Japanese preferred to spend extra on Japanese rice, even as the prices of those have skyrocketed due to bad harvests and price gouging. Ahead of Calrose being put on the shelves again, I started asking students if they would eat it. The high rice prices have been a sore subject for a long time now so I figured a few would say, sure, they'd eat the rice from California, considering it's roughly half the price of Japanese rice on the shelves. But not one did. Every student I asked said they'd refuse to eat American rice. It may seem odd considering I routinely hear them speak rapturously of McDonald's or KFC. But rice is a sensitive commodity and it's bound up in national pride. Japan has rarely exported its rice. Every Japanese person I've talked to about it claims that American rice is too different from Japanese rice, that the grains are thicker and not as sticky. Personally, I can't tell the difference and I suspect it's an illusion clung to as part of a common mythology. It's for this very reason that Trump calling out the Japanese for not eating American rice is a particularly low blow, especially since not acknowledging someone else's physical or mental dysfunction as a burden is part of Japanese cultural protocol.

However, at least at my local Aeon, the Calrose rice did sell. Bags rapidly disappeared over the course of a week. I suspect they were mostly bought by restaurants who serve American rice to customers unawares. It's a bit like tricking Michael McKean's character on Better Call Saul into going near an electronic device. There's something faintly cruel about it.