1. “vajazzling“
2. “vuvuzela“
3. “Eyjafjallajökull“
4. “squeakquel“
5. “Cleggeron“

I found this disgusting little monster stuffed and safely caged behind class at the charmingly out-of-date Horniman Museum the other day. I tried my best to draw it accurately because I thought it was so weird. It is called a tenrec, and it is an ACTUAL ANIMAL that EXISTS on PLANET EARTH! Ugh!

In the Wikipedia entry, the tenrec isn’t so bad looking. It’s actually kind of cute, in a pitifully ugly kind of way. But the real thing that I beheld at the Horniman (which actually may have been a different species) was utterly demonic. Why oh why would God – whoop, I mean why would an intelligent designer ever think to make something so hideous?! There are two explanations:

1. The creator of all life on earth is cruel, disturbed, and/or artistically impaired.
2. There is no creator of all life on earth.

Take your pick!

Now begins the annoying, convoluted, and potentially long process of getting myself a UK visa. The multifarious intricacies of the application process and of UK immigration law in general reminded me of a post I wrote on my embarassingly personal old blog, soulgrowl.xanga.com, when I was frustrated with the unnecessarily fiddly bureaucracy at my alma mater, Occidental College. Here it is, followed by a classic cartoon that also came out of my frustration. Enjoy!

Welcome to the Institution. We hope you enjoy your stay.

Your first week will be spent in rigorous and delightful orientation programs. You will be tickled, yelled at, washed, spun to dry, and fed. You will not be given maps, instructions, pamphlets, guidebooks, calculators, refunds, lemons, or access to our file cabinets. Please be aware that the Institution assumes no responsibility if you are unable to be oriented.

During the first week, you will attend mandatory socialization seminars, in addition to safety, health, sexual hygiene, oral hygiene, moral hygiene, awareness, recognition, and catharsis training sessions. You will not be briefed on protocol, expectations, disciplinary measures, animal husbandry, home improvement, “Home Improvement,” or authoring. Carnivals are provided free of charge every 10 minutes in the parking structure. Failure to engage in at least 3 carnivals by the end of the second week will result in automatic suspension of your identity. If you do not reclaim your identity by the end of the third week by filling out the requisite application form, with all required stamps and signatures, your files will be purged from the Office and moved into the Department, where they will come before a panel to decide on a date for their partial incineration. Applications to reclaim your identity will be unavailable after the third week. Thereafter, you may petition for a retroactive application with a minimum of 50 signatures (40 of which must be from people you have never seen before). Your petition will then be brought before the Committee, who will carefully review your petition and reach a decision by no later than 5:00 PM (HST) on the third Thursday of the following month. If your petition is accepted, you may apply to reclaim your identity, but you will incur a penalty fee of no less than 1/250 of the Supervisor’s projected salary for the next fiscal year (this is approximately equivalent to the cube of one month’s engagement fees). Retroactive applications will only be accepted after a thorough examination by the Office. You must explain all extenuating circumstances (including the number of igloos in which you have resided, and the length of time spent in each one) in an essay not to exceed five (V) words in order to prepare your retroactive application for the recommendable procedures.

For more information on orientation and identity reclamation regulations, please revisit Part B of your Institutional Handbook, Section 2, item J, psalm 4:23, line 3.

During your first year at the Institution you will be offered the opportunity to sit at a desk. It is recommendable that you accept this opportunity and thank the Supervisor with at least three (3) signatures in the log.

Approximately 55% (or 2/3) of your time at the Institution must be spent trying to destroy the other 45%. The Intranet will assist you in determining the most efficient and acceptable way to manage your percentages. Percentage negotiations are not permitted, except in the case of accidental death (excluding murder, suicide, Japanese “love suicide,” or spider bites), in which case your family will be reimbursed with at least 35% of your time. Time spent in mandatory orientation sessions, form completion exercises, spheres, or altered states of mind are considered extraneous and/or frivolous and will not count towards your time quota. The Department recommends that you attain your time quota by enlisting in activities specified by the Annual Report on Substantive Activities (ARSA) published by the Institutional Commission on Fulfillment and Development (ICFD). Activities listed in the ARSA database from previous years are considered problematic and will be discussed (we recommend discussing problematic activities with the Associate Mentor, who has access to this paragraph). Contradictions found between various ARSA publications should be reported to the Office, who will then audit the ARSA as well as the Institutional Handbook and the United States Constitution to determine the flavor of the activities in question (for more information on this process, please consult our page on ARSA Degustation and Digestion, located on the G drive, accessible through any Intranet outpost operating on LINUX or Windows 95). After the audit has been completed, you will be asked to undergo a routine physical examination from the Medical Center to test for psychosis, IBS, foreign languages, dental caries, and acne. If you are diagnosed with breast cancer or Remedial Pregnancy Disorder (RPD), we will be forced to (temporarily) revoke your identity until the Council on Breast Cancer Misdiagnosis has touched your genitals (occasionally, this may cause discomfort and possibly asphyxiation; you will be given more information on this during the mandatory health training sessions administered during the first week). Your physical examination can only occur after you receive your Institutional Insurance card, which is provided to all users of slang for approximately 113% of your current insurance premiums (or the square of two (2) months’ engagement fees). Please keep in mind that you will not be permitted to engage in any Substantive Activities unless you have verified your identity and stapled it to your identification badge, to be carried at all times.

If you wish to submit activities from other Institutions to count towards your time quota, you will be served a subpoena and a light brunch. In accordance with the Institutional Mission Statement and the Intranet User Agreement, you may not refuse the light brunch (free samples of this brunch are available upon request, but please be aware that you will only receive the most tasty morsels of the brunch usually reserved for the Trustees). Failure to attend the brunch or accept the free samples will result in immediate suspicion and cause unrest in the Department.

If you have any questions, please feel free to submit yourself to the Brig, located on the basement level of the Founder’s Hall of Symbiotics.

When they beat on a broken guitar
And on the streets, they reek of tropical charms
The embassies lie in hideous shards
Where tourists snore and decay
When they dance in a reptile blaze
You wear a mask, an equatorial haze
Into the past, a colonial maze
Where there’s no more confetti to throw

Beck, “Tropicalia”

“Let’s send him to Burma!” Okay, where is that exactly? And isn’t it called Myanmar now? And isn’t there some reason I’m not supposed to go there? Sure, whatever – I need this job, so who am I to argue? But I really don’t want to be away for Christmas. I’m flying in from Taipei with six hours to kill at Suvarnabhumi. Burger King – a welcome break, then a disappointing break, from Chinese food. Meeting up with Nick, landing at Yangon. The airport is surprisingly modern – the city, not so much, but in the dark it looks a bit like LA. Our hotel is rubbish, the windows don’t shut and there are bugs in the room – but it’s only one night. Gmail is blocked; the military plutocracy makes its presence felt for the first time (but at least they don’t block Facebook, thank goodness).

Driving to Kyaiktiyo with a stop at a WWII cemetery. Lunch – a tasty Chinese stir-fry with peanuts as a starter. These peanuts – they’re unusually crunchy and robust! Bottled water and a flatbed truck ride overflowing with people halfway up the hill to the Golden Rock pavilion (I heard one of them tipped over last week and killed eight people) – then a refreshing hike up the rest of the way. The Golden Rock – huge, and gold. I wonder when it will roll off the cliff and kill a dozen pilgrims, but it’s beautiful in the sunset. A crepe filled with palm sugar and coconut. A dance performed by tribal insurgents. A stunning sunrise. How high up are we, anyway?

Walking, then driving down the mountain – the same guy who carried our suitcases up the mountain on his back carries them down. Wow. I bought some spicy fruit preserves then let myself get ripped off by a flirty banana vendor. What the hell am I doing to do with all these bananas?! The drive to Mawlamyine – impossibly uncomfortable and bumpy through miles and miles of rubber plantations. Half the road isn’t even paved. It’s hard for people to get around, and I suspect the government likes it that way.

Mawlamyine – an hour on the internet at a cafe costs less than 50 cents, and Gmail works here! What the hell, this government is so rubbish they can’t even censor the internet properly. Y’know what else costs less than 50 cents? A glass of draft Myanmar beer! But isn’t it brewed by the government? Who cares? It’s cheap and I’m bored. I’m also starting to get sick of temples (but not Burmese sunsets – yet).

The next day was rubbish. Another torturously bumpy drive, first to a pleasant war cemetery, then to a wholly unpleasant former Japanese onsen and POW camp. If I had known I’d be trudging through a muddy river and sulphuric muck I’d have worn sandals. I’m probably going to get worms. At least lunch was nice – stunningly fresh seafood from Setse Beach. Back to the hotel to get slightly less drunk than I did the night before.

Driving back to Yangon via Bago for six hours – not nearly as horrible as I expected (I was actually able to sleep in the van). More peanuts come with lunch – why are the peanuts in this country so good?! I am getting sick of mosquitoes, and of Buddhas, but these four in Bago are remarkably cool. But not as cool as our hotel tonight in Yangon – The Savoy. Damn, I wish we could stay here for more than twelve hours! This is colonial chic; I wonder how many temples were plundered to decorate this place. And the happy hour is a damn good deal, too, but you call this a Manhattan? I’ll stick to ABC Stout for the rest of the night – one good thing about the British Empire is that it brought extra stout porters to the most unlikely corners of the globe. The sun never sets on decent dark beer.

Waking at 5:00 to catch a 7:00 flight to Bagan. Bye bye Savoy! (Sometimes this job is awesome.) A glimpse of Bagan’s red brick temples from the plane, of what may be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in my life.

(I know, I should have turned on the spell checker in Photoshop.)

This is horrible news. I love taco trucks. They are one of my favorite things about Los Angeles, specifically East LA. They are delicious, cheap, open all night, and most importantly, they are unique. It’s not that other cities don’t have taco trucks, but nowhere has quite so many as Los Angeles. They are a true cultural emblem.

My favorite is Leo’s in Eagle Rock. Rarely does a week pass here in Japan when I don’t crave Leo’s hearty bean burrito or carne asada tacos, topped with onions and a brilliant green sauce: limes, cilantro, and avocado. Mmm. Somebody at my alma mater made a documentary about Leo himself. You can (and should) watch it here.

Anyway, please visit this site to sign a petition to stop this evil law from being enacted. You don’t need to live in LA to do so.

Save our taco trucks!

Thailand. Bangkok. That awful musical “Chess.” Whores and neon; I didn’t see too much of either. I did eat bugs, though. And chicken shawarma with creamy garlic sauce and pickles so Zankou-esque it made me homesick for Los Angeles. Down the street there were gaijin bars, which I suppose would be called farang bars, along with upscale shops bordering gas stations and bootleg designer clothing stalls and pharmacies and convenience stores (usually 7-Elevens). It was around there that I found and ate my bugs. What an odd area; two blocks away is an area so thick with Middle Eastern people and culture that it feels and smells like Syria, according to Xander. He’s very well-traveled. I trust him. He was a rather excellent tour guide, inside and out of Bangkok. A three-hour train ride that actually took more like four and a half, with no air conditioning and seats so uncomfortable and stops so long they would make any seasoned, coddled Japanese commuter such as myself cringe with discomfort. But it got us to Petchaburi, and that’s all that matters; for there I experienced my first wat, sharp and dark against the sunset, populated by swarthy men and sickly dogs.

Wandering off into the night markets; ooh, are those bugs!? Nope, just some hairy root vegetable. Sorry. But I could go for some of whatever that lady is cooking, the eggs with condensed milk all slippery and browned with butter. But that wasn’t even the good night market; the good one was marked by an elephant, a real elephant, taken for a walk by her master along the perimeter. Taking in the smoke of chili and garlic, coughing, looking around. Petchaburi is famous for its thong yod and other sweets; but those came after a Muslim, probably Halal meal. Fried and sauced-up sweet tofu with crisp greens; a meaty skin and a soft, gelatinous middle. Meat and potates in red curry; fish and chili haw mok, spicy as hell. What else? Beer. Singha vs. Chang. Singha: weaker, 5% ABV, crisper, dryer, cleaner. Chang: cheaper, stronger, 6.4% ABV, sweeter, a few off flavors, but somehow I think I prefer it. Not bad at all. Back to the sweets; thong yod, is that rose water? Vaguely floral but not at all vague when it comes to sweetness; syrupy. Black sticky rice, why on earth can’t I find this in Japan? With fresh shredded coconut, caramelized coconut, a mixture of salt, sugar, and black sesame seeds, wrapped in a banana leaf. What did I say about food wrapped in leaves? Very nearly always delicious. Petchaburi. On the bus – no, song thaew, to Kaeng Krachan. A quick stop in Tha Yang; bottled water and a shot of cold, sweet bird’s nest soup, something like Frosted Flakes softened in unflavored, unset Jell-O. Better than the Essence of Chicken I had the night before. Better by leaps and bounds. Back on the Song Thaew, then on the back of a scooter. Who are these people? Swift, unsafe? The lake, Lake Kaeng Krachan, it’s beautiful. Bordeaux smiles. That poor woman trying to communicate with us; the biggest and scariest centipede I have ever seen in my life. Trying to hitchhike to the checkpoint, can we rent a tent there? L. Bruce Kekule (was that him?!) was no help, though he did recommend that fried rice. No night safaris. Stop trying to set up the tent yourselves, you’ll just screw it up. Thanks for your help. Relaxing at the lake; no matter about the jungle, we still saw very pretty birds and cute squirrels and avoided leeches. And monkeys would come later – the next day.

Caught a ride on the bed of a pickup truck back into town, then took a minibus (or was it a van?) back to Tha Yang, then piled onto an express bus to Prachuap Khiri Khan. Beautiful mountains, rock formations. Monkeys! Oh my god, there are so many of them; the monkeys are clearly in control. Watch your back and walk with your hands wide open. Walking along the sidewalk along the beach; hopping onto a samlor gai na to Aow Noi Sea-view Resort. Nice work, Alexander. Nice work. A beautiful beach, a beautiful room (with air-con!). The only mini-bar I’ve ever been able to afford, but then that’s to be expected; this place is only 1000 baht for the night! Kao was so nice; the mussels, not so much. Exceptionally tender, fresh squid, warmed by chili and basil, tamed by crab fried rice and Chang. At least the dog liked the mussels. I can’t believe the dog ate that, it was so spicy! Back on the samlor to the resort. Litter and crabs, tiny ones, then one big one, the color of sand. Sunset. Lazing in the hotel room, on the beach; walking towards the wat in the distance, turning back because it’s getting too dark. An amazing meal, maybe the single most amazing meal I had in Thailand. Much more than the sum of its parts, but oh my, how splendid its parts were: a whole fried fish with a papaya salsa, meaty and tangy and crispy; the cheek, the skin. Crab curry, mild, and sweet, with something that tastes like celery. Steamed rice, more fish, this time with prawns, fried, sautéed? with sugary palm dates, the nutty crisp of fresh water chestnuts, and cashews; delicious. And then of course, the tom yum kung, the best tom yum kung I will ever have in my life; creamy, even buttery, with coconut milk, alive with chili oil and lime juice, butterflied prawns, ginger, kaffir lime, and the verve of Thai basil (my favorite herb? probably). Finish the Chang. Watching god-awful and surprisingly violent Thai soap operas. Reading Fat Land and falling asleep.

Waking, paying, getting on a samlor for the last time, riding to the bus stop. Back to Bangkok, this bus is much nicer than the one we took down. A stop near Petchaburi for lunch; more sweets, lots more sweets, plus pommelo with sugar-chili-salt, plus butaman – pork buns, different, leaner than the ones in Japan. Getting home, resting up, heading out to find bugs and shawarma. A stop at Siam Paragon; an amazing grocery store. Red rice, black rice, purple rice, I bought them all – leaving behind the yellow, blue, orange, grey, brown, and white. Chiang Mai sausages, packed with kaffir – we’ll have to pick up some of these later. I can’t eat them now, or anything else – I need to have an empty stomach for when we find the bugs. Hunger is the best spice, after all. The grasshoppers – delicious. Airy, three inches long, nutty and a bit like potato chips, if slightly lighter and blander; easy to eat but for the itty bitty spines on their legs that embed themselves in one’s tongue. Crickets (the big ones, about an inch and a half long) – very nasty, reminiscent of middle school dissection labs and rat cages. Not crisp, rather disturbingly mealy and dry. The giant water bug, the crème de la bugs, exceptionally tasty but exceptionally difficult to eat, with a flavor like artichoke hearts but a texture like artichoke leaves; the head, however, tasted like slow-cooked pork. Frogs, which I thought were geckos at first, much to Bordeaux’s dismay (why aren’t Xander and Bordeaux trying these?!) – gritty, extremely gritty (what do these frogs eat? sand?), with chewy skin and a flavor similar to chicken giblets. Grubs, nasty and mealy like the crickets, but with a distinct peanut buttery edge and a texture like red bean paste. And finally, the bamboo worms, the shoestring potatoes of the insect world, pure, sweet, crispy fried air with plenty of salt and a faint lemongrass zest. Bugs. Surprisingly good, some surprisingly bad. I could eat these all the time.

The next day; Chatuchak. Sprawling, cluttered, hot, colorful, noisy; banana roti and cool t-shirts. Gifts for Laura, too many choices! Gifts for myself: a Donkey Kong shirt, a Pizzicato Five shirt, a shirt with the lyrics from “Downtown” written out on it, ties, northern Thai curry, an ice cream sandwich on a hot dog bun with sticky rice. Delicious. Glassware, so much cheap glassware! Middle-aged white men and their Thai brides. Young white women and their floral print halter tops. Beggars, stray dogs. I can’t believe we were there for five hours, and then back to Siam Paragon, to pick up some food for dinner; definitely some of those sausages. And some fruit, some papaya, some pineapple, for sure, and some durian – I have to try it while I’m here. Of course, you can’t have fruit and sausage without cheese, so give me some of that mature cheddar, maybe 150 grams of the Morbier, and some of that Rocinante. Hmm, can’t have cheese with out beer – some Erdinger, maybe some Salvator, maybe some Chimay? Oh my god, 330 baht, are you kidding me?! No thank you. As it turns out, you can’t buy liquor until 5:00 anyway. What the hell? Oh well. We got our cheese, our fruit, sausage, not to mention pork-stuffed crab shells and cupcakes. I am looking forward to dinner. The durian is ten times stinkier than any stinky cheese I’ve ever smelled, like a hunk of Spam in an unclean urinal. The flavor? Not bad, not good. I think I hate it, actually. Vaguely sweet (with a hint of vanilla?) and very custardy, but with a horrible, haunting echo of stench ever present on the back of my tongue. I hate durian! No time to acquire the taste. I’m sorry, Thailand. Excellent pineapple, though, and excellent papaya; they pair splendidly with the Cheddar and the Rocinante, respectively. Fusion cuisine. Very nice, so nice there was no room for cupcakes! Changing into pants, heading to the Sky Bar atop State Tower; loads of farang, especially Germans and Brits? Disastrously inefficient service, expensive and mediocre cocktails (you call this a piña colada?), but look at that view. Wow. Bangkok. It’s hot.

My last day; dreading going home. No, dreading leaving Bangkok, dreading bland food and cold weather and nothing to do. New Year’s Eve at the airport. Getting up at dawn to make the most of the day, first to Lumphini Park for street breakfast. Unfortunately all the food stalls are gone; Alexander realizes it’s a national holiday, but no matter; I got to experience the daily Orwellian 8:00 AM broadcast of the national anthem, during which everyone has to stop what they’re doing, including moving around. I could never, ever live here. Creepy psuedo-democracy with their monarch worship and endless chain of coups. But I did see a water monitor and turtles! Breakfast, what to do? Everywhere is closed but Au Bon Pain. Drugstore. Guava juice. Piling onto a riverboat, speeding up the brown channel to Wat Arun, staggeringly detailed, beautiful, like a pile of confetti. Imagine what it looked like when it was first built; back onto another boat, heading to the other bank, to Wat Pho. The Reclining Buddha; how long is this thing?! Tons of tourists, and it’s not hard to see why.

Another ice cream sandwich, then a ride in a tuk-tuk to a university neighborhood for some coffee, and then the best vegetarian meal I’ve ever had. Green curry with big, meltingly soft chunks of pumpkin; banana flower salad with plenty of cashews. The banana flowers, they don’t have much of a flavor, do they? No, there’s something to them, something subtle and tropical, like Tropical Skittles, do they still make those? Pineapple and banana, that’s what this tastes like, just slightly, ephemerally, or is that something in the dressing? I don’t know, but this is delicious. Going home. Resting up, we got up early. Showering, changing, dejectedly preparing to go home. My last meal? Something I really wanted to try since I got here: MK Restaurant. A family restaurant, Thai gentrification. Cantonese, Japanese, a touch of Thai – we chose MK Gold, that’s just how we roll. What is this, some sort of nabe? Cantonese hotpot? Let’s get the roast duck, the “suki suki set” and the vegetable set. Surprisingly good if a bit bland, and very filling, and still cheap. Plenty of meat, plenty of veg, though we could have gone without the “MK salmon” (basically pink fish sticks). Off to Tops, buying a few beers (Korbinian? in Thailand? for 121 baht?! hooray!) and some oddities for friends back home. Boring flavors of Häagen-Dazs. Back to Xander’s apartment for just over an hour, then I catch a cab to the airport, reluctantly. It’s 2008. Bye bye Bangkok!

For example, the headlines that came up on Friday, February 16 at 13:41 JST were:

• Japan Proposes ‘Aboriginal’ Return to Killing Whales for Profit (Bloomberg)
• Japan urged to use Greenpeace ship to tow its stricken whaler from Antarctic coast (China Post)
• Yen Heads for Weekly Gain on Speculation Japan’s Rates to Rise (Bloomberg)
• U.S. Presses Japan on Farm Imports and India on World Trade Imports (Voice of America)

Wow, three out of four headlines related to two of the most pressing food issues in Japan: 1) commercial whaling and 2) agricultural trade restrictions. But before I get into these, let me tell you about what I did last Monday.

Oh, and I also ate whale.

Somewhere between duck breast and beef heart, it was certainly the darkest meat I’ve ever eaten, a blackish brick red, the imperial stout of seafood. Rich, tender, and robust, but not ferric or oily despite having been deep-fried, I must say it was actually one of the tastiest animals I’ve ever put in my mouth. Better, I thought, than oysters, foie gras, and caviar. I was impressed.

Which brings me back to last week’s news…

Meanwhile, a Japanese whaling ship is on fire near Antarctica, having rejected a Greenpeace vessel’s offer to tow it back to harbor. Why? Basically, because the Japanese government doesn’t want to lose face, and it doesn’t want to concede to Greenpeace such a diplomatic bargaining chip. If the fire burns out of control, there’s a serious risk of a major oil spill.

So I feel kind of guilty about eating the whale. Or at least conflicted. Would I eat it again? Probably. It’s easy to forget about the consequences of what we eat when they seem so far removed from us (don’t make me cite Anthony Bourdain again). It’s interesting to think of how this relates to my last post; I was talking to my dad about this whole thing on the phone, and he said I probably wouldn’t have eaten the whale, or at least I wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly so much if there had been, say, picketers outside the fish market. I took it one step further and said that I also probably wouldn’t have eaten it if I had seen the whale being killed, or even seen its bloody carcass. Context is important.

Anyway, right now I’m having a little crisis similar to the one I had when I learned about the dolphin drive hunts in Japan. What’s more important: culinary enjoyment or respect for intelligent mammals, including international diplomats? The answer should be obvious… but keep in mind that about a week after I wrote about how icky killing dolphins is, I was eating raw horsemeat in Kumamoto.

Special thanks to Laura Tedesco for the photo.

This, I later learned, is the “spinning top” model for a healthy shokuseikatsu 食生活 (“food lifestyle”) published by a non-governmental organization called the Zaidan Houjin Shokuseikatsu Jouhou Saabisu Sentaa 財団法人食生活サービスセンター (the “Information Service Center for Food and Foodways”). The foundation draws its support from a long list of corporations, including Kikkoman, the Calpis Company, Kewpie Mayonnaise, and all four of the major beverage producers in Japan – Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo, and Suntory. These guys are big. Real big. So I guess that explains why the glass of liquid forming the axis of the top is labeled as water and tea (not that Japanese people don’t drink plenty of tea as it is). It’s also interesting how far down dairy is. Sure, there’s not much of a history of dairy culture in Japan, but I wonder if it may also have something to do with the fact that out of the forty-some companies listed as cooperators in the foundation, only two are dairy producers: Meiji and Morinaga.

For comparison, here is the American food pyramid, both its classic form and the hopelessly ugly – but functionally improved – new edition:

Note how much more important dairy products are in the American models, especially in the new one. They’re given just about the same weight as vegetables, more than fruit, and almost as much as grains. Hmm. Do American nutritional scientists know something about milk that the Japanese don’t? Or did dairy lobbyists just work a little harder last year?

Anyway, I got to thinking: what would a food pyramid look like if sponsored by the Japanese government? Based on my dim knowledge of Japanese agricultural domestic policies and trade laws and on my own observations of Japanese food and foodways, I’ve drafted a modest proposal:

Are you reading this, Abe?! You can thank me later!