Best books I've read this year

And just like that, it is nearly Christmas. Autumn finally began in October, then stalled, (we had  unseasonably warm days) only to return and stall again. Like summer, autumn has seen record high temperatures. 

Autumn 2023 in Showa Kinen Park

This year flew by quickly because we've been busier than ever before. E has had a lot of extracurriculars. Her school offers after school clubs in anything from cooking and yoga to origami and jewelry-making. She wanted to sign up for everything, and we let her sign up for as many as she could. With ballet and piano outside of school, we are rushing through the weekday at breakneck speed. It's Monday, and then suddenly it's Friday. Repeat, again and again. I wish we could slow down so time slows down. 

Despite this, E had a school break back in October and we were able to enjoy some time in Ishigaki, one of the southern Okinawan islands. It is closer to Taiwan than mainland Japan and is a popular beach destination, especially with expats in Japan. It is marketed as a domestic Hawaii, but its jungly beauty is far rawer than any of the popular Hawaii destinations. More on Ishigaki in a separate post. 

In this post, I want to focus on one of the best things about my year: books. For me it was a slow transition from paper books to digital ones. For months after receiving a Kindle, I didn't use it. But the world of digital English-language books is much, much bigger than paper ones in Japan. Now that I've gotten used to reading on my Kindle, my world has opened up in the best way. 

The obvious downside of digital reading is that you never know what you will get, since you can't normally browse through it before committing. So if you have similar taste to mine, maybe you will also enjoy some of these favorites from this year.

Whalebone Theatre

Lyrical, epic, and captivating. This is the best book I've read this year, and it spared me no tears. I cannot believe it is Joanna Quinn's debut book. It's about a girl and her family set for the most part in the coast of England, through the 20s and World War II.

Chemistry

I first came across Weike Wang's writing from "Omakase," her New Yorker Fiction piece. The author studied chemistry at Harvard and started her pre-med before adjusting her career path. I enjoyed Chemistry so much that I read her second novel Joan is Ok in quick succession. Her characters' matter-of-fact narrative belies a lot of hard truths, deep emotions, and humor. I don't think I have ever related to the Asian-American experience as much as the ones represented in these books. 

Upper Bohemia

An unlikely choice for me, as it is a somewhat random memoir about the author's childhood. Hayden Herrera, now 83, writes about her unconventional childhood with upper-class "bohemian" parents who, by any standard today, were negligible at best and by her own admission, terrible parents. For the parent-reader, the child's perspective is especially interesting. It made me think about how my kids will remember their childhoods and how they perceive our actions. The story is a fascinating one, and I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would. 

The Book of Form and Emptiness

The first book I read by Ruth Ozeki was A Tale for the Time Being, which was so good but so, so sad. My favorite of hers is A Year of Meats, which smart and funny. This is her newest novel, and like the other two, it is imbued with irony, absurdity, and sadness too. The ordinary and extraordinary run together in a hodgepodge reality that is her speciality. 

In the Unlikely Event

I hate flying, so this was a terrifying book to read. It a fictionalized story based on some real characters and real plane crashes - three crashes that happened in Elizabeth, New Jersey in the winter of 1951-1952. As an American living abroad, I appreciated this book in a way that I couldn't have if I had been still living in the U.S. The main character is a teenage girl, who really takes you back to that era of the country in all its anxiety and wholesomeness. The book represents how different America of the 1950s is from America today. 

Munich and Paris with Kids

I wanted to write this three months ago when it was all fresh. But you know how it is after a trip: it's unpack now or never, everyone's drop-dead tired and jet-lagged, and - since it was summer - time to set a new routine in motion. Summer was eventful for us, with a couple of important guests, but I wanted to write in chronological order presuming that my memory also fades in chronological order. 

Munich

I was last in Munich fifteen years ago during study abroad in college. It was January, and I was flying in from relatively balmy Barcelona and underdressed for winter in Germany. My roommate and I stayed with her Spanish cousin, who lived and worked in the city for one of the German auto manufacturers. We hit all the major tourists sites in less than three days. 

That was a different time and place. This summer, while we flew into Munich, we spent most of our time in a town west of the city. The day of our arrival the fire brigade was holding their annual safety demonstration, which sounds dry but was something like a festival. The kids got to climb onto fire trucks and operate hoses. M was most interested in endlessly throwing small sticks into a brook. There was of course lots of Leberkässemmel, the traditional Bavarian sandwich made with a ground meat loaf (leberkäse) on a roll (semmel). 

The beer garden was the highlight of the town. It's one of the oldest in Germany, and besides the nice relaxed ambience you might expect, the food was good - definitely not just sausages and pretzels. The kids playground was the best thing. There were a lot of families with kids, who flitted between the playground and their parents for a bite here and there. A warm summer's evening spent outdoors drinking and eating with friends while the kids play - there is no better way to spend summer. 

Most of our time in Germany was spent outdoors. Summer weather can be fickle in Middle Europe, but we were lucky with only one day of rain. We picked strawberries (last of the season!), went to the zoo, walked in the forest, visited the neighbor's new German Shepard puppy, went to a neighborhood barbecue, and hiked (more like "walked," as we took a lift more than halfway up) in the Alps. It was all truly as wonderful as I had hoped it would be. 

Paris

Paris was a different story. I knew Paris would be a challenge for a three-year old. While M has not been in diapers for over year, the time you have to find a toilet once she realizes she has to go might be 15 minutes...or it might be 5 minutes. And Paris is not the best city for public toilets. M is also at an age where she can go around without a stroller in daily life, but she cannot walk an entire day exploring a city. Husband did not want to travel with a stroller; I could not envision surviving a day without one. I mean, it's Paris. If nothing else, you go there to eat pastries and walk. We ended up borrowing and bringing my friend's supremely compact stroller. Turns out, even the six-year old could use it at times. The stroller was rarely left vacant. 

I have to digress here to comment on how different stroller culture is in the U.S. and Japan. I've written about this in my post about childhood in Japan. Here you almost never see a toddler over the age of two in a stroller. If they can walk, they will walk. My Japanese friend once joked that American kids go from riding in a stroller straight to driving a car. I guess I fall somewhere in between while the husband falls squarely in the Japanese way of thinking, thus our contrasting opinions about bringing a stroller to Paris. But even he would admit in hindsight that the stroller was well-appreciated by both the kids an adults. 

I will only say that the first half day was a struggle and that it was uphill from there. It just took some time to get used to navigating Paris with kids. We had lots of picnics, went to a lot of parks, took the metro everywhere. We couldn't afford to chase widely acclaimed restaurants all over the city, so we ate at places we knew and loved and places close to us. If there ever was a city where you can do this and still be dazzled, it would be Paris. We didn't go to all that many places, but spent a lot of time in each place we visited.

Off to breakfast in the city of croissants light

The place that topped them all was the Jardin d'Acclimatation. It is one of the oldest amusement parks in France. It was established by Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie and has a storied past, but was recently renovated. The rides were perfect for my kids. There are also playgrounds and wide open spaces with peacocks inexplicably roaming around. The lines were at most five minutes long. I do wish that we had bought more food at the neighborhood Monoprix to have sustained us a little longer. There were not many food stands and restaurants, and kids are ravenous when they play! 

My precocious E wanted to see a performance at the Paris Opera, but we weren't able to make that work. Instead we headed to the Centre Pompidou, where we visited the works of some artists that E had been studying at school (the modern curriculum is so multidimensional!). We also took a boat tour of the Seine, opting for that instead of squeezing in all the iconic sites. 

In the end, I didn't regret taking the kids to Paris. 3-4 rural days for every urban day was just about the perfect combination of city stimulation (with lots of planning) and easy country living (little to no planning). And there is no replacing the Paris bistro experience! Even my toddler, who leans more towards Japanese flavors than any of us, proclaimed the meal delicious. 

Goodbye, Paris. Goodbye, Munich. See you in a few years when we are stroller-free. 

Flying from Japan to Germany

Happy first of September! I wrote this on our flight to Munich, thinking I would post in a day or two. That turned into a couple of months. The temperatures still feel like summer, but school has begun. Reading this now takes me back to July, in all the best ways.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If your international flight departs from Haneda airport in Tokyo, I have a few tips for you. It is smaller than Narita and more crowded. The international departure is not as organized (few signs, unclear signs). If you have little kids, you automatically qualify for priority security check. At the customs area for exiting Japan, Japanese passport holders and non-Japanese ones split into two groups. However, the Japanese group gets facial recognition scans and exit through an automatic gate. Little kids are deemed incapable of going through this properly and so must stand in the foreign passports line regardless of whether or not they are Japanese citizens. 

The nicest thing about Haneda is the flight observatory. It’s a nice rooftop area where you can see planes take off and land. Plus, there are plenty of nice restaurants and cafes. Terminal 3, where we left, has a drugstore that sells things beyond what your would expect  – cool eco bags, artisan goods, interesting toys even. For everyday essentials, there is a slight markup, but nothing as criminal as what your would find at U.S. airports. No bottles of water for $5 when you are desperately thirsty. For souvenirs, the price is comparable to what you find anywhere else. Japanese airports are the best for souvenirs. 

As our habit, we boarded last to minimize time sitting on the plane and allow for last minute toilet runs. Our plane was a 3-3-3 formation. H offered to sit with the kids in the middle aisle for as long as his sanity would allow. I sat next to them across the aisle. 

E"s professed hunger. She was really excited about her economy meal...until she started eating it. Food on Lufthansa economy is not a highlight, though the service is excellent!

Taken by E

The passengers are mostly German and Japanese. The Japanese crowd on the plane are a bit less well-coifed than your average Tokyoite, and more casually dressed. I wonder what their stories are and why they are going to Germany. Also on our flight is a couple sitting in front of the wall panel at the center of the plane. They have a baby, and I guess that they are there to take advantage of the bassinet that can be attached to that wall. We did the same thing (five years ago now!) when we traveled to Japan and Greece with E. The joy of discovering that an in-flight bassinet existed! It felt like a free seat, or a free upgrade, though we still envied everyone else who did not have a baby on their hands. I nostalgically observe this couple whilst thinking about how difficult it was then, and how time can so drastically change your perspective. After a couple of hours, the dad is up with a baby bottle in hand, searching for hot water. 

Our flight is over 14 hours. It is perhaps the longest flight I have ever taken, because we now have to fly around Russia. I think fleetingly how it now seems easier to manage an infant than two little kids; the grass is truly always greener on the other side. But I remind myself that we may one day be traveling without kids, and that that might seem difficult in its own way with 14 hours stretching on endlessly with no demands and no live entertainment. 

Calm times 

Leaving for a Trip

A trip to Munich! This was our first trip outside of Japan since we arrived two and a half years ago. When we lived in America, it seemed so easy to fly here, fly there, and most of the world felt so accessible. I didn’t think living in Japan would feel any different. A flight is a flight, whether you fly over sea or land, right? But in fact it has felt more like living on an island than I could have imagined – both physically and culturally. Not to mention that the yen has been very weak. The biggest challenge is that my spouse doesn’t have many vacation days. Then I started working, and of course E has school. It becomes very complicated. 

I reached a point where my desire to travel outweighed these challenges. If we wait for the perfect time: low tourist season, good weather, strong currency in our favor, and all our schedules aligned, we would be waiting for a long time. E is now also old enough to remember trips. I find that we are beginning to enjoy things together, rather than me enjoying things through her. All the trips I took whenI was a child have stayed with me and become a part of me in a way that no other trips have. After three years of no international travel – except for that one international move of course – it was time to leave again.  

This morning, with one big suitcase, one small one, two backpacks, two purses, and a stroller, we set off for our flight to Munich. We will be visiting family friends there. I have been once during study abroad in college, and H has been multiple times. But neither of us has been there since 2008. 

I was really rusty at packing for a trip for a family of four this far from home: brought the water bottles, toothbrushes, emergency medicine for the kids; forgot the water bottle straps, toothpaste, and melatonin gummies for the adults. How much to feed the kids before getting on the taxi in the morning? An empty stomach can exacerbate motion sickness, but a full tummy doesn’t necessarily ward it off, and it could be even more disastrous. Should we bring a stroller? We live in a city where both kids are used to lots of daily walking. For Munich, maybe not. We plan to spend most of our time picking berries and sitting at beer gardens. For Paris, maybe. It may make our lives better, or it may make it worse – that is the risk and adventure of traveling with little kids.  

After months of pining to leave the country, I start getting prematurely wistful at the airport. Goodbye, pristine toilet. Goodbye, convenience store where you can find anything you forgot for a reasonable price. Goodbye, rice. This is what travel does to you, right? It gives you perspective, even before it has officially begun. Now all the things to look forward to – cooler weather, less air conditioning, the forest, the Alps, summer fruits, and the best breads. Next post from the airplane/Munich. 

Signs of Spring

When I started drafting this, it was still Sakura season. There are countless varieties of these blooms, so while the most famous variety appears for only a few days, I think of Sakura season being a weeks-long affair. 

Taken by my sakura-smitten daughter

According to Wikipedia, licensed courtesans in 17th century Japan were not allowed outside their quarters except to visit dying relatives and, once a year, to view the cherry blossoms. Such was, and is, the significance of this season. It is the renewal of both the academic and fiscal year, a syncopated step off from most of the rest of the world. If you are visiting Japan during this time, my advice would be…head for the countryside. Forget Tokyo, Kyoto. This year foreign tourists returned will full force alongside domestic tourists spurred on by the government’s travel subsidies. Points of the city became no-go zones. Can barely walk and breathe, let alone enjoy cherry blossoms. So go country, or come earlier or later for the less iconic (though no less spectacular) varieties. 

It is also the season for fresh bamboo shoots, takenoko. This is Japan’s takenokozeit. Its ubiquity is such that it turns up at roadside pit stops in the form of soba and takenoko. It’s sold fresh for bags at supermarkets (for only the equivalent of $5 usd). 

It's hard to appreciate how big they are...each is the size of my foot.

Cooking fresh shoots is a bit of a production, but the taste is worth it compared to the prepackaged type. The shoots have to be washed well. They underground and come with a lot of dirt, which I somehow take as a sure sign of freshness. The tips have to be cut off and the outer layer slitted to ensure the insides cook. Most importantly, they have too simmer in rice bran, or absent that, the water leftover from washing white rice. This helps neutralize the bitterness and natural toxins found in bamboo shoots. Finally, after cooking, the tough outer layers are peeled off to reveal the tender center.

My favorite thing to do with these is to sauté them with Japanese mayonnaise and season with sea salt and seaweed. I’ve embraced Japanese ingredients and given up on sticking to old favorites. It is just easier (and less expensive) to make Japanese curry compared to American chili. I haven’t seen a cannellini bean or a fennel in two years. I do miss them, but...when in Rome, right (does this apply when you are actually living in "Rome")? 

What else? It's May 1st today and I am reminded of all those who work impossibly hard - even on the day that was meant as a tribute to them - so we have food delivered to our doorstep the exact time we want it, so we don't deal with the garbage we produce, so we can place convenience on a pedestal and easily forget all the inconveniences necessary to create it. It is a day where I am thinking of all the things I too often take for granted. 

In Japan, the first week of May is Golden Week, a volley of holidays within a seven day period. It began with Showa Day at the end of last week. May 3 will be Constitution Day, marking the establishment of Japan's postwar constitution. May 4 is Greenery Day (because it is said that the former Emperor Showa loved plants and nature...), and finally, May 5 is Children"s Day, marked by the iconic carp streamers fluttering outside homes, parks, and other public spaces. Golden Week is possibly Japan's most popular week for travel, and it will be insanely crowded everywhere. The husband is on call anyways. The plan is to stay put, clean the house, put away our winter clothes, cook things we don't usually have time to cook, and play lots and lots of Uno, to which E is completely addicted. 

A Day in the Office

I started a new job a few months ago, happily but unexpectedly. I work for a Japanese company that is hoping to increase its global presence and therefore anglicizing things (that's what globalization means right?). Yet it is still very true to its Japanese roots, which makes it an interesting experience for me. Living in a foreign country is one thing. Working is quite another. I wish I had the time to post more because everyday brings delights, surprises and sometimes horrors that I would love to share here. 

Japanese work days begin later. Standard office hours are 9:30am-5:30pm or 10:00am-6pm. I have an alternative schedule that allows me to drop my kids off at school and come home in time to prepare and eat dinner. I'm grateful for this, as it is definitely not a given at Japanese companies. 

My employer, like most here, pays for my commute. I'm sure you have heard it before: the efficient public transportation system and lack of space means most Tokyoites commute to work. My husband and I both do, just separately. We each take a kid, cycle to school to drop that kid off, cycle to the nearest station, park the bicycle, and squeeze onto the train to go to work. 

The good of my commute is that the trains are prompt, the stations clean, and my pass is paid for. What's even better is the women's car, usually the first two train cars dedicated solely for female commuters during rush hour. It's mainly so women can commute without getting groped. In Japan, sneaky crimes that likely go undetected (like groping on a crowded train) is just as common as anywhere else. The bad of my commute is how crowded it can get. There used to be station attendants whose sole job was to push people onto cars like cattle. Now, people push themselves onto cars using their backsides. For more details, visit my husband's account of his commute. The ugly, then, is commuting etiquette, or lack thereof. When it comes to commuting, the gentle, courteous facade emblematic of Japanese manners melts away - it is now every woman for herself (in the women's only car). People will literally shove you out the way to get a seat for two stops. According to my husband, it is worse when men are added to the mix. 

I'm lucky enough to work in a building connected to a major station. It takes only a few minutes of walking underground to get to my office. My office is close to the Imperial Palace, which has a popular running path surrounding it. At first, I was hesitant about running during my lunch hour. It's not something anyone does here. As the new employee and a foreigner, I wasn't keen on standing out even more. But a full-time job and little kids makes it hard to find time to run outside working hours. Eventually my desire to run got the best of me, and I started running about once a week. I do feel eyeballs on me when I step into an elevator full of heels and suits, but it's totally worth it. 

My office has lots of shoe cubbies, where you can park your footwear if you'd like to switch from commuting shoes to office shoes. After a week of doing this, one day I found a scary pink notice on my shoes. I pulled out my phone to use the translator app. The notice was informing me that I must register for a cubby through the company website and place my shoes in the appropriate cubby. I noticed, comfortingly, that there were plenty of pink notices stuck on shoes. Apparently they do a shoe audit a small handful of times a year. It blows my mind that this is actually someone's job. The thing is, there are more than enough cubbies to go around, so it doesn't seem like the best use of anyone's time. 

Just like the commute, lunches are often subsidized at Japanese workplaces. My employer subsidizes half of the cost of meal so that my lunches rarely cost more than $5 USD. I wrote a separate post detailing the different lunch options offered. I have always worked in either non-profit or government, so this is a novel perk that I must admit I am enjoying immensely. 

Then there are the funny little quirks that take on new life and context when experienced in the workplace. For example, it is well known that Japanese toilets have multiple functions, most of which the user doesn't use. The "privacy" button is one of these functions. Press it, and you will be treated to a deafening white noise (or sometimes the sound of birds chirping). You can always adjust the volume. I used to think people rarely used it unless they were having a particularly bad time. How wrong I was. At work, everyone uses this button almost all the time. As soon as I walk into the bathroom, any person in the stall would immediately turn it on upon hearing someone else enter. This tickles me - l mean, what else would we all be dong in a toilet stall? No wonder Japanese people who visit the U.S. often comment on the massive gaps in public stalls. In America, we have no auditory privacy and limited visual privacy.

Another funny thing is the absolute silence of the office. At first, I wondered how it could be that I was the only one typing. Or was it that I was typing really loudly? The answer was that nearly everyone else has a silent keyboard that is designed to cut out typing sounds. Then there is the nose-blowing, which apparently no one does in public unless it is an emergency. I used to considered myself a pretty quiet person. Now, I am just about the loudest person at work. 

Since my office building is located directly above a train station, there are lots of shops at my disposal. There are restaurants, convenience stores, and kiosks selling various specialties. I have therefore developed the habit of stealing downstairs to buy a quick snack during the late afternoon slump. The choices are endless, though. One kiosk is called the Sweet Corner, which a different business rents out each week. One week, it's cream puffs. The next, pies and tarts. Never before have I been so spoiled for choice. 

I usually leave work promptly to pick up my kids and get started on dinner (I just have to be super efficient sometimes - a testament to the fact that parents make efficient employees!). However, the majority of my co-workers stay late. How late? I might never get first-hand knowledge, but I hear 8 or 9pm is not unusual. Overwork is, sadly, still a fixture of the Japanese workplace. Sometimes I feel like it is less because there is too much work and more because the collective takes comfort in the tradition/appearance of working hard. In any case, this is one of the reasons for the scarcity of working mothers. For the sake of not appearing too eager to leave, I usually wait a minute or two past the official end of my workday. Because of my appearance and Japanese surname, some of my colleagues used to mistaken me for being Japanese. A few months in, amidst the running, noise-making, and all the administrative faux-pas, it is clear that I am not. 

8 Office Bentos

I started a job a few months ago. My first job in Japan. My first Japanese job. The cultural differences I encountered in daily life before were minuscule compared to the stark cultural differences (both good and bad) I've encountered working in a Japanese office. But I'm going save that for another post, because there are just too many. This post is dedicated to the amazing lunches my office cafeteria serves. My employer subsidizes both food and drink, so a standard lunch is only $5 USD. 

500 yen; grilled fish, clam rice, fried chicken, simmered veggies, croquette, and pickles. 

400 yen: air-fried chicken rice bowl with carrot salad, eggplant, broccoli, and grated daikon topping.

500 yen: Spicy fried chicken, multigrain rice, curry shrimp potato salad, simmered greens, and cabbage salad.

500 yen: peppery steamed fish, multigrain rice, meat cabbage rolls, macaroni salad, and spicy cucumber and beansprout salad. 

300 yen: arrabbiata pasta.

500 yen: pickled daikon, rice with nori, hardboiled egg marinated in soy sauce, grilled salmon, croquette, shrimp fry, port cutlet, and pickled ginger. 

500 yen: grilled fish, multigrain rice, miso tofu, ratatouille-ish veggies, and spinach egg salad.

500 yen: Pickled daikon, rice with umeboshi, potato salad, and Chinese-style (Japanese-style Chinese food) shrimp and veggie stir fry. 

It's amazing, isn't it? I used to work in downtown Chicago, where there was plenty of good food, but not much under $10 USD and most over $12. And my workplace had neither a cafeteria nor a subsidized lunch. The subsidized lunch is quite common in Japan, though. I think my office may offer a wider variety than most. We have 5-6 hot lunches and 5-6 bentos to choose from, in addition to daily sides such as salads, fruits, yogurt, etc. While the lunches are made on-site, the bentos are delivered from a third-party caterer/restaurant. The one downside is all the single-use plastic, the constant and terrible byproduct of eating out. 

A few months in, I still get excited at 11am when the daily bentos come out. As an American, will I ever get used to this? Probably not.