For years, I feel like the London food scene has been dominated by this idea that all good food is fine dining, and if it’s not fine dining it isn’t good food (unless it’s home cooked, but that’s different). In 2011 we saw that notion completely inverted, as fine dining took to the streets and lowbrow food worked its way into highbrow contexts. Diners seem to be less uptight these days, and more casual, honest, and adventurous in what they spend their money on. Beer is cheaper, more food-friendly, and more diverse than wine; there’s more to China than dim sum and duck; fusion cooking works when it’s inspired by flavor, not forced by concept; burgers don’t have to be “gourmet” to be good; great barbecue requires as much thought, practice, and care as French haute cuisine. These are all important lessons we collectively learned last year, lessons that New Yorkers and Angelenos learned many years ago. I’m not trying to be snobby or patriotic; there are obviously great things about British food culture that Americans would be wise to take on board. But I do think that until quite recently, most major cities in the US have been more exciting and more diverse food destinations than those in the UK. And I think the UK has taken note of that.

Not convinced? I submit a few more thoughts for your consideration:

• In April, an American won the MasterChef title by serving burgers as a starter. (It was me.)
• There is now a restaurant in London called Burger and Lobster. Burger and Lobster! And that’s all they serve! That sounds like Maine, not Mayfair.
• My completely average corner shop here in Bounds Green sells Sam Adams, Morrisons stocks Sierra Nevada, and Tesco carries Goose Island.
• Ramen is finally coming to the capital.

This last point is important. Ramen’s obviously not American, it’s Japanese, but it isn’t entry-level Japanese. For many people in both the US and the UK, sushi is the first Japanese dish we try, and the first one we come to love. The whole sushi phenomenon is a little bit vexing to me because it’s based on a frustrating contradiction: it seems exotic and sophisticated on paper, but more often than not, it tastes completely inoffensive and bland. Let me just clarify that good sushi is one of the most beautiful dishes in the world; if made with fresh, seasonal seafood and expertly prepared rice, it can be absolutely exuberant with flavor and texture. But for every Yatai there are a hundred outlets of Yo! Sushi or supermarket shelves hawking insipid pre-fab maki that tastes like nothing but rice. And poorly cooked rice, at that.

Because sushi so frequently lacks any flavor at all, it lacks flavors that may be unappealing or challenging. But for that reason, and because it’s fun to eat (even crappy sushi looks pretty and colorful), it’s a good gateway to more interesting Japanese cuisine. We come for the sushi, but we stay for the tempura, the pickles, or the gyoza (and we may even discover good sushi). We graduate from sushi and branch out into other kinds of washoku like okonomiyaki and yakitori. And then there’s ramen. Glorious, wonderful ramen.

If sushi is too often style over substance, then ramen is the opposite. Ramen is unrefined and rough; it isn’t delicate, healthy, or even particularly exotic; but what it lacks in terms of image it more than compensates for with soul. Ramen is one of Japan’s most rich and flavorsome foods, and also one of its most individualistic; whereas soba and udon are considered more traditionally “Japanese” and therefore subject to more rigid strictures, ramen is open to variation because it’s often thought of as not quite 100% Japanese. (Its roots are Chinese, and it’s occasionally still called “Chinese soba.”) Different regions boast different types of ramen, and within those regions, different shops sell endless permutations of that type. The question of which region and which shop makes the best ramen is hotly debated, with loyalties typically divided along prefectural borders.

In New York and Los Angeles, ramen has come to attract the same kind of devotion as it does in its native Japan. It started as an unsung staple among Japanese Americans (and dedicated Japanophiles), but soon caught the attention of the local press, and then the foodie community at large. With outposts like Momofuku injecting a dosage of modern coolness into an otherwise humble food, ramen has gone bourgeois, and it’s now as ubiquitous and essential an American urban food item as the taco or the hot dog. Of course, London has never had a very large Japanese community, so Japanese food has been slower to take off here than, say, Chinese or Indian. But by now we’ve all crossed the sushi bridge, and we’ve arrived in noodle country.

It’s not that ramen didn’t exist in London until now – it’s just that nobody cared, not even the restaurants that sold it. There are a few dedicated ramen shops in Soho that churn out indifferent and totally mediocre soup, while the best ramen in the city has been shrouded behind a speakeasy-like veil of secrecy. Cocoro, Nagomi, and Roka all serve mighty fine ramen, but up until recently, none of them listed it on their menu. To be fair, Cocoro and Nagomi advertise in Japanese-language magazines and newspapers, which is how I found them. I think they just assumed non-Japanese folks weren’t interested, but I always figured that if a restaurant were to serve good ramen and put a little marketing behind it, the foodies would come flocking. And that’s exactly what’s happened with the ramen events held by Tsuru Sushi. So far they’ve generated quite a lot of buzz around their three previous ramen lunches, all of which sold out and received universally positive, sometimes gushing reviews from those in attendance.

When I first discovered Tsuru Ramen on Twitter, my eyes widened and I got goosebumps. It’s happening, I thought. I got a similar feeling when I first discovered Daikokuya in LA back in 2004, but this is exciting on two levels. I was happy that good ramen might become easier to find in London, but it also validated my hunch that there is a general ramen void that needs to be filled. I’ve been planning to open a ramen-centric izakaya since winning MasterChef, and the rousing success of the Tsuru Ramen events seems to be a good sign that the time is right for it. It is possible that ramen may be just a fad – but that’s what they said about sushi.

At any rate, the arrival of ramen, burgers, beer, and highbrow/lowbrow shuffling all makes me feel very at home; I guess it seems like Americanization because to me, it seems like America. London has always been a good place to eat out, but it’s just now becoming a fun place to eat out, and it’s going to be awesome to see what happens in 2012 – and to be a part of it myself.

Hey! I’m on TV. BBC1 to be exact; I am now one of the final 12 contestants on MasterChef! If you’re not in the UK and want to watch, you can download Expat Shield, which will give you a British IP address and allow you to watch the show on BBC iPlayer. It only works on Windows, though, and I haven’t been able to find similar software for Mac. Annoying, I know, but for now it looks like you’ll just have to find a spare PC to use. Stay tuned!

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

Though Jørn Utzon isn’t exactly a household name outside of Denmark, you are almost certainly familiar with his work. He is the architect behind one of the twentieth century’s most iconic buildings, the Sydney Opera House.

The late Utzon was born in Copenhagen, but he spent most of his childhood in Ålborg, which is now home to the Utzon Center, a museum of modern architecture and art designed by the man himself, in cooperation with Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Ålborg is also home to the ambitious Søgaards Brewery, whose range encompasses a variety of international styles and includes some unusual experiments. The Søgaards brewmasters have taken inspiration from the places that inspired Utzon’s architecture to brew two beers for the Utzon Center: Blond and Dark. The label on Utzon Blond explains:

This beer follows Utzon’s footsteps from Australia, where we have gathered the herb lemon myrtle; across Asia for the refreshing character of kaffir lime leaves and ginger; to Spain, where we have selected an orange flower honey to round off the beer and add a light floral flavor. The noble conclusion comes from the Middle East’s delicate and luxurious spice saffron.

Pretty neat. These ingredients may sound weird, but remember that before hops came into favor around the turn of the fifteenth century, bouquets of herbs and flowers called gruits were used to add flavor and bitterness to beer. Dandelion, heather, ginger, burdock, nutmeg, juniper and spruce were common. So while this beer is cosmopolitan and contemporary in its selection of international ingredients, this method of flavoring also recalls ancient brewing traditions. Especially interesting is the inclusion of honey, since the vikings were fond of a sort of mead-beer hybrid that was also flavored with odd spices and herbs.

Utzon Blond is an amber-gold ale with a pillowy white head, and it actually does hit all the notes described on the label: Australian lemon myrtle and kaffir lime leaf provide a pleasantly soapy, citric top note, while the honey gives the beer a sweet foundation. Floral, savory saffron floats by in the background. All around it is very fruity, slightly tangy and rather robust – probably not as arresting as Utzon’s designs, but just as intriguing and unique!

Most Danish craft beers, just like most craft beers from any country, are ales. So it is very vexing to me when I hear somebody say, “I don’t like ales.”

Unfortunately, the actual definitions of “ale” and “lager” are not widely understood in the UK outside of beer geek circles. Come to think of it, they are probably not widely understood in any country, but the problem in the UK is that people think they know what they mean because of a functional familiarity with certain kinds of ales and lagers that have come to dominate pubs and bars throughout the country.

Ale and lager are simply the two main categories of beer based the two main types of yeast used in brewing. (Wild yeasts, like those used to ferment sourdough bread, are also used to brew obscure styles in Belgium and America, but nevermind those for the moment.) To put it simply, ale yeasts are top-fermenting, which means that the yeast rises to the top during fermentation, whereas lager yeasts are bottom-fermenting. Ale yeasts also ferment more quickly and at a warmer temperature than lager yeast; typically ale takes three to four weeks to brew to completion, while lagers can take two months or more.

Broadly speaking, these two types of yeast produce different characteristics in finished beer. Because it ferments longer and more slowly, lager yeast tends to produce drier and lighter-bodied beer because it has time to eat up more sugar. It also leaves a lighter yeast footprint in the beer, allowing malt and hop flavors to stand out. Ale yeast tends to leave beer somewhat sweeter and fuller-bodied, plus it leaves more of its own character behind in the form of esters. Esters are organic compounds that create fruity, spicy, or earthy aromas, including the classic banana-and-clove notes of Bavarian wheat beers.

But beyond these very general characteristics, there is no real way to differentiate between ales and lagers based on flavor alone. This is because brewers can use any ingredients they want in their beer, regardless of what kind of yeast they’re using. Consider the Schwarzbier. Schwarzbiers are a variety of black lager from Germany that use dark-roasted malts to produce flavors of toast, coffee, chocolate, and sometimes smoke. However, if one were to start off making a Schwarzbier, but then pitched in ale yeast instead of lager yeast, what you’d get is something like a porter or stout. And in practice, stouts and Schwarzbiers are actually quite similar – the main difference is that Schwarzbiers tend to be somewhat lighter-bodied.

My point is that both ales and lagers encompass an incredibly broad range of styles and flavors, and ales and lagers really have a lot in common. But in the UK, “ale” has come to denote what is actually “real” ale, or cask-conditioned ale, which is served only slightly chilled and has natural, soft carbonation produced by living yeast in the cask – causing many drinkers to complain that British beer is “warm and flat.” On top of this, the vast majority of cask-conditioned ales found at British pubs are bitters or pale ales; both are fairly hop-forward styles and tend to be unpopular among drinkers unaccustomed to noticeable bitterness in beer. Of course, ales can be quite mild in bitterness, and they can also be cold, sparkly and refreshing – it just depends on the ale in question, and how it is stored and served.

Similarly, ale aficionados tend to turn up their noses at “lagers,” meaning the international but virtually interchangeable array of Pilsner-derived fizzy yellow beers that have depressingly come to dominate the beer market. There is such a dearth of variety among lagers that people have come to associate the term with that one, overwhelmingly prevalent lager style. And this is why people generally tend to place themselves in one category of beer drinker or the other – because they just haven’t been exposed to the whole range of ales and lagers. When people say “I don’t like ales” or “I don’t like lagers,” what they ought to be saying is “I don’t like cask-conditioned English bitters” or “I don’t like mass-produced imported Pilsners” – because in general, that’s what they mean. It would be very unusual to find a bona fide beer geek who claims to dislike either ales or lagers – and I wouldn’t take that beer geek’s advice anyway.

Last night my company hosted a Danish beer tasting event at Skandium, a Scandinavian design store in Knightsbridge. The event was a success – eyebrows were raised, beer was enjoyed, people were made slightly tipsy. I tended bar along with two waitresses, who sampled the beer so they could talk about it with the crowd. One of them, who confidently told me she didn’t like ales, was amazed to discover that her favorite beer of the evening, Hvid from Indslev, was an ale and not a lager. Hvid is a Belgian-style wheat beer, unfiltered and cloudy, soft on the palate and very refreshing with restrained hops and a light spicy-citric edge from the addition of lemon zest and coriander. It is crisp and effervescent, low in bitterness but still quite dry – it fits the accepted definition of “lager.”

Both waitresses also thoroughly enjoyed one of the stars of our lineup, Ærø No. 5 from Rise. No. 5 is a brown ale brewed with walnuts, and it has a mellow, maple syrup and raisin flavor. There is no question it is delicious – and the self-professed ale-haters were perhaps more impressed with it than anyone, surprised at how sweet and drinkable ale can be.

Hold your judgement. If you are told ‘they are all this’ or ‘they do this’ or ‘their opinions are these’, withhold your judgement until all the facts are upon you. Because that land they call ‘India’ goes by a thousand names and is populated by millions, and if you think you have found two men the same amongst that multitude, then you are mistaken. It is merely a trick of the moonlight.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday. Here’s why:

1. Sunshine.
2. Pork.
3. Beer.
4. Fireworks.

Of course, just about any Japanese summer festival also features this same happy quartet. And Japanese festivals are fun, too, but they just aren’t the same. I like Independence Day partly out of nostalgia, but I also like it because it’s uniquely American. It’s a holiday I can call my own.

We Americans don’t have a lot we can call our own. Apple pie? Dutch. Hot dogs? Austrian. Mexican food? Mexican. Sure, we have jazz, Pixar, and Mr. T, and as for holidays, we have Labor Day,  Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, and a smattering of other minor holidays. But all of them are pretty lame. When was the last time you threw a party and lit sparklers for Washington’s Birthday?

So it’s nice have an American holiday that’s actually fun. Thanksgiving is fun, too, but it’s in November, a month that burdens the human soul with an inescapable air of doom and melancholy. Thanksgiving food is arguably better (and perhaps less ordinary), but Independence Day is no slouch when it comes to cookery: ribs, burgers, bratwurst, and potato salad are pretty stiff competition for turkey and stuffing.

When I lived in America, it was the specific customs of Independence Day that I enjoyed (like the food and the fireworks – the parade, never really excited me). Its Americanness was immaterial, extraneous, unnecessary – I just liked hanging out with my friends and family, stuffing myself and watching things explode in the sky. But now that I’m a minority in a strange, inscrutable island nation, the fact that the Fourth of July is a distinctly American celebration is suddenly crucial. I feel as though I must assert my culture against the indifferent shrugs of British hegemony!

It’s not like I’m some kind of patriot. Alright, maybe I am some kind of patriot, but I’m not the gun-totin’, Limbaugh-lovin’, “Never Forget” kind of patriot. This bit of Fry and Laurie pretty much sums up how I feel about that sort of thing:

I can’t even really say I’m proud of America, or proud to be American. I can’t take credit for the achievements of other Americans, and my nationality is mostly a geographical accident. I am also not proud of America in any political sense, although the Constitution is pretty brilliant, and this Obama character seems fairly capable. But if I’ve developed a certain affection for America, I think it is a direct consequence of my expatriation. For one thing, I’m just nostalgic for America – I miss it. I miss my friends and family, but I also miss very particular American things, like In-N-Out burgers, enormously wide roads, the LA skyline, honeycrisp apples, and cheap ska shows. So there’s that sort of homesick aspect to my patriotism, but then there’s also a defensive quality to it. America gets picked on a lot – rightly so, in most cases. But sometimes criticisms of American culture are provincially ignorant; I am reminded of those French girls I met who dismissed all American cheese as abhorrent yellow trash. (Then again, I suppose the fact that processed cheese is usually labeled “American cheese” doesn’t help our reputation.) When confronted with attitudes like that, my reaction is “Hey, wait a minute! America isn’t all bad!” But of course, what I’m really saying is “Hey, wait a minute! I like America!” or even “Don’t tread on me!”

So as I trawled the world wide web for Fourth of July celebrations in London, I was thrilled to discover an event that will let me celebrate American cultural autonomy, indulge in one of my favorite American specialties, and subvert certain misconceptions about said specialty all at the same time! I’m talking about beer, people. American beer. The White Horse, an airy, elegant, ale-centric pub in Parsons Green, is having an American beer festival this weekend, coinciding with Independence Day. They boast the largest selection of American draft beer ever seen in the UK – and while some pubs would be satisfied to fill their lineup with any number of InBev-distributed, mass-produced lagers, the White Horse has corralled an impressive lot of craft beers from across the USA. Some of the featured breweries are Stone, Flying Dog, Victory, Sierra Nevada, Goose Island, and Dogfish Head.

These are some of America’s finest breweries, and it’s exciting to have them represented in England not only because their beer is delicious, but because it provides an opportunity for Londoners to glimpse the innovation and diversity that have become hallmarks of American craft brewing. Like American cheese and American politics, American beer is misunderestimated abroad – few people are aware that the United States produces anything but Bud, Miller, and Coors. I see this festival as an exposition of beer that has the potential to change perceptions about American gastronomy, at least in some small way. I also see it as a chance to drink dangerous amounts of Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans… mmm.

American Beer Festival at The White Horse
3 July – 5 July 2009

1-3 Parsons Green
London
SW6 4UL
020 7736 2115

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!

Though I spent almost all of high school and college consistently dreaming about moving to Japan, the specifics of my Japanophilia have changed over time. At first, I was enthralled by the general exotica of Japan as well as nerdy-yet-awesome pop cultural imports like J-pop, Super Nintendo RPGs, Pocky, and anime – I never did become a full-fledged otaku, but I love and have always loved FLCL, Cowboy Bebop, and Hayao Miyazaki movies. In college my penchant for things Japanese became more expansive yet also more focused. As I learned more about Japanese culture via classes at Occidental and trips to Little Tokyo, I became less excited by “Japan” in a broad sense, but much more excited by particular things like the aesthetic concepts of wabi, sabi, and mono no aware; art both traditional and modern by Akira Yamaguchi, Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, and Yoshitomo Nara; the literature of Natsume Soseki, Haruki Murakami, and Banana Yoshimoto; and the music of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, and Pizzicato Five. And then, of course, there was the food. What started as an infatuation with the theatrical eccentricity of Iron Chef developed into a personal quest to eat and to understand as much Japanese food as I could, from humble ramen to haute kaiseki ryōri.

When I lived in Japan, it was a joy to indulge my interests on a daily basis, and I left feeling fairly satisfied with my time there. But I also came to love other things that I still pine for almost one year later. I probably won’t ever get to live in Japan again, but I do hope I get to visit at least a few more times, so I can re-experience some of the day-to-day pleasures of life in Japan.

Karaoke

Larry David had a great line in Curb Your Enthusiasm about karaoke. He called it the “third thing” that you can do after dinner: you can go to a movie, you can go bowling, or you can go to karaoke. Obviously, karaoke exists outside Japan, but in so many ways, it’s just not the same. The standard setup in America and the UK is a completely bastardized version of the Japanese original; I have no idea why people figured it would be an improvement to change karaoke from a private affair to an all-too-public one. American karaoke bars seem designed to annoy: extroverts don’t get to sing as much as they want to because there are too many people, introverts don’t sing at all for fear of public embarrassment, and just about everybody who isn’t singing gets irritated with the noise. What a bad idea! It is nothing like the sweet release of secluding yourself in a dark room with a handful of friends, drinking heartily and singing your lungs out while admiring the absurd background videos on the karaoke monitor.

Unfortunately, unless you live somewhere with a pretty large Korean population, Japanese-style karaoke boxes are hard to find outside Japan. There are quite a few in Los Angeles (mostly thanks to Koreatown), and in New York it is a budding trend. But in London it’s slim pickings – slim, expensive pickings. You’ve got to book ahead of time even for small groups (the towering karaoke complexes of Japan can almost always accommodate an impromptu singing session) and be prepared to shell out up to £20 per hour, plus loads more for drinks – an astronomical cost compared to the all-you-can-sing-and-drink deals that many Japanese karaoke joints offer for around ¥2000. Japanese karaoke is cheap, hassle-free fun, and more often than not, it isn’t the third thing at all – it’s the delightful default option for after dinner entertainment.

Convenience Stores

Like karaoke, convenience stores do exist outside Japan, but by comparison, they suck. I read something about Japanese conbini on the internet a while back that sheds some light on why they’re so awesome. They use a distribution model called “dominant strategy” that entails placing as many stores as possible in a small area, which cuts shipping costs so that they can make more deliveries throughout the day. This allows them to use less store space for storage, so they have more room to sell more stuff, and it also keeps fresh food coming into the store throughout the day. The egg sandwiches up for sale at the end of the day aren’t the same ones that were up for sale in the morning – they’re a fresh batch, or maybe the second or third fresh batch. I remember my favorite donut shop in LA was so great partly because they were in there cooking the donuts all day long – most just make their donuts in the morning and let them sit out, growing ever staler by the hour. But cooking them in smaller batches throughout the day kept them fresh and tasty – we’d even go for tipsy donut runs late at night, and the maple old-fashioneds and apple crullers were still soft and moist with a freshly-fried crispy crust. You get the same result from “dominant strategy.”

But the joy of conbini goes beyond fresh shrimp-mayo onigiri, yuzu-chicken salads, and ham-and-cucumber sandwiches; they are also treasure troves of Japanese junk food. Ordinary potato chips and candy bars don’t excite me much, but that’s just the thing – Japanese junk food is constantly changing and far from ordinary. Stocks change on a seasonal or even weekly basis – if you want that limited-edition mentaiko-tonkotsu Baby Star, that choco-melon KitKat bar, or those monjayaki rice crackers, you’ve got to act fast. I found it nearly impossible to resist the thrill of old snacks outfitted with exciting new flavors – and I’m not the only one.

Regional Specialties

Some of the new or limited edition snacks that appear on the shelves of 7-Elevens and Family Marts across Japan are based on regional foods – like Miyazaki chicken onigiri, Uji green tea chocolate, or Hiroshima okonomiyaki crisps. But of course they cannot compete with the real McCoys, and culinary tourism is big in Japan; travel agencies advertise package tours focused on food and drink, while Japan Rail offers special discounts (called “day trip gourmet” tickets) for excursions to restaurants specializing in local foods in nearby prefectures.

Maybe I was just suckered in by the marketing, but I also got caught up in the food-as-destination mindset of Japanese tourists. Whenever I vacationed in a new city or prefecture, I researched the local food and drink as much as I could before I left, and only vary rarely did this lead to food that was less than excellent (as in my disappointing experience with Kobe beef). Usually the food I found was not only delicious, but special – not necessarily something you can’t get somewhere else, but something that tastes better the context of the region, because it’s fresher, or just because it “fits” the local climate and atmosphere. A meal of Genghis Khan and Sapporo beer would be good anywhere, but sizzling-hot lamb is simply more enticing in the cool Hokkaido air, and when it comes to Japanese lagers, the fresher the better. The same goes for soba in Nagano, takoyaki in Osaka, or pork in Kagoshima. And one of the best things about train travel in Japan are the ubiquitous food souvenirs and ekiben (station bentō) that act as samplers of local dishes or ingredients – so just in case you missed out on the meibutsu while you were away, you can still enjoy them on the journey home, a nice way to consummate your trip and soften the blow of returning to normalcy.

Hospitality

On my first visit to Tokyo, the kindness of strangers made an impression on me as indelible as the neon of Shinjuku. For our first meal in Japan, my dad, a friend, and I tried to order set meals at a First Kitchen; without a word of Japanese, we pointed and gestured and struggled our way to burgers and bags of “Flavor Potatoes.” The cashier was clearly distressed by the ordeal, and yet she tried her damnedest to help us, mustering all her fractured high school English and a patience that American cashiers seem to never have even when they do understand you. Later on, an elderly woman beckoned me off a train, smiling sympathetically as she realized I had no idea I had reached the end of the line. When I visited Japan to do research and later moved there to work, Japanese hospitality continued to impress me – in fact, it often made me feel vaguely guilty, like I didn’t deserve such generosity and helpfulness.

The pleasant (but meticulously performed) politeness of Japanese clerks, bus drivers, bartenders, and waitresses was something I didn’t fully appreciate while I was there. It wasn’t until I returned to America, where rude is simply the default setting for most customer service types, that I realized bowing, keigo, and service with a smile make life just that much more livable, even if it is fake. I became so accustomed to a certain standard of courtesy that occasionally I interpreted mere disinterest as surliness. But of course formal niceties were nothing compared to how giving and accommodating my Japanese friends and close co-workers were. Even before they knew me very well, members of my taiko team and other teachers at my schools opened their homes, cars, and refrigerators to me. Though Japan was by and large an easy place to live, it wasn’t without its stresses. I could always count on the warmth of my Japanese friends to lift my spirits, and often, to make me forget that I was a foreigner.

Novelty

One of the greatest things about living in Japan is not really Japanese at all. The sheer newness of living in another country was a daily delight. On a daily basis, and without even trying, I learned new words, sampled new foods, and discovered new places. Though the Japanese language is frustrating, it was exciting to deduce the meaning of kanji compounds based on their basic parts or to follow conversations further than I ever thought possible. There was something really fun and rewarding to realize that I could read just about every sign in my neighborhood after two years living there.

And of course I had a wonderful time exploring the peripheries of Japanese gastronomy, through samples in department store food halls and faraway train stations’ souvenir kiosks. The local pride in Japan is something that has stuck with me – I’ve developed a fetish for the local, not only because regional food is usually really fresh and tasty, but because it’s new and unique. But of course, that neophilia has also led me in the opposite direction and given me a taste for the distant and alien – which is part of why I couldn’t be happier living in London. I do miss the quotidian exotica of a Japanese existence, but I don’t think I’ll go wanting for novelty anytime soon -for if I do, then I fear I will be truly tired of life.

He seemed excited to find a young American interested in British real ale.

His son-in-law is American, and he had been to America several times. We talked about American beer, and he said that the Americans have “mastered” the IPA.

After that he kept bringing me glasses of his ale to try. We both gushed over Black Cat, an amazing beer at only 3.4% alcohol.

Sometimes it’s fun to meet other geeks.

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.