Today’s kyushoku (school lunch): Squid soup, seaweed salad, and egg loaf.

Here’s a Japanese phenomenon I just learned about this weekend: Tsundere (ツンデレ)

Tsundere is a fairly new term in the Japanese language that has spawned from Japan’s manga culture.  It’s a combination of two onomatopoeias: tsun-tsun (ツンツン), which means cold, cranky, and belittling, and dere-dere (デレデレ), which means warm, sweet, kind, and affectionate.  The term is used to describe a female personality archetype that has apparently gained popularity over the past few years, in which a girl is very tsun-tsun with her boyfriend in public, but becomes incredibly dere-dere when they are by themselves.  You can imagine the kind of drama that would ensue from being in a relationship with a girl like this, and I suppose that’s what makes it such great fodder for manga.

The tsundere type female has become such a hit within the Japanese otaku (nerd/geek) subculture that it has given rise to the tsundere cafe. I‘ve watched a few videos about this (including the above) and they all feature the same restaurant (in Tokyo’s Akihabara district), so this may in fact be the only tsundere cafe in the country.  Like the classic Japanese maid cafe, the waitresses wear a cute maid-like costume, but at a maid cafe the hostess greets you by saying something along the lines of, “Welcome home, master. I’ve been waiting for you.”  When you walk in the door of a tsundere cafe, the hostess greets you with a cold, “What the hell are you doing here?” or, “What took you so damn long?” and “Hurry up and sit down!”  They then continue to berate you for the duration of your meal.  The idea behind this particular cafe is that the waitresses treat you the way a bratty younger sister would treat her brother when he comes home after being away for a while.  They’ll throw the menu at you and say, “Hurry up and order!” and after you’ve told them what you want they might respond with, “ugh, what a pain in the ass,” or “No, I’m not making that for you,” or if you take too long, they may just snatch the menu from you and bring you whatever they choose.  When they bring your food they say, “now eat and get out!”  If you call for the waitress, she will probably ignore you, or perhaps even yell “shut up!” from across the restaurant.

The missing ingredient in this, you might think, is the dere-dere—where is the sweet, affectionate personality promised in the tsundere name?  That doesn’t come until after you’ve eaten and gotten up to leave, when suddenly (like an insane, bipolar girlfriend) the waitress(es) will become upset to see you go, and say things like, “I’m sorry, don’t leave because I was mean to you!” or “Please don’t go so quickly!” or “Don’t be gone long; I’ll miss you!” or some combination of those.

I kind of want to experience this place for myself, but it seems like a waste of money. If it’s anything like a normal maid cafe, then it’s probably overpriced, and if I’m gonna pay a good amount of money for food, I want to be treated well (and I want to get whatever I want to eat!).

February 3rd is a minor holiday in Japan, called Setsubun.  Setsubun is the day before Risshun, or the start of Spring, but just like Christmas Eve, Japanese people tend to prefer the eve of an event to the actual event itself.  It’s sort of related to the Lunar New Year (or rather, the eve of the Lunar New Year), so Setsubun is a sort of festival to cleanse away the evil of the previous year and start afresh for the next year.

For some reason, this is done by throwing around roasted soybeans—like those pictured above.

Mamemaki, or “bean-throwing,” is the main event of Setsubun.  Roasted soybeans—called fukumame, which means “good fortune beans”—are seen as a cleansing element of some sort (maybe because of the effect beans can have on your bowels), and so on February 3rd every year people throw them out the front door of their house to rid their family of evil (basically misfortune, disease, and really bad sushi).  If there is a man in the house whose zodiac sign is the same as whatever year it is (this year it’s the Tiger), then traditionally he gets to do the mamemaki-ing, otherwise it’s generally done by the head of household.

At some temples and shrines, or even at schools and in some households, one unlucky person (who most likely lost a game of Jan-ken*) will dress up as a demon (or oni) and prance around while everyone pelts him with fukumame.

And, of course, what Japanese holiday is complete without a signature chant to go with it?  Well, you can’t let Setsubun go by without shouting this passage (preferably into your neighbors’ window, as my neighbors seem to enjoy doing): ”Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” which means “Demons out! Good fortune in!” (the ‘out’ and ‘in’ being literally ‘outside’ and ‘inside’).

Finally, the last thing to do on Setsubun is to cleanse your body by eating your age in fukumame—assuming you didn’t throw them all out the door.  This is especially taxing for grandmothers and grandfathers, who often lose count (or pretend to) before they even get halfway, and just end up faking it.

* Japanese kids use Rock, Paper, Scissors (or “Jan-ken” as it’s called here) to decide everything.  Seriously, as a teacher, I end up playing Jan-ken at least 5 times a day with my students.  I could go on and on about it, and I probably will some day soon, but for now just trust me when I say that if someone has to dress up like an oni and get beans thrown at him all day, it’s almost certain that he’s doing it because he lost at Jan-ken.

Just saw these childrens’ books about Barack and Michelle at the local bookstore.  I’m quite certain the Obamas are more popular here than they are in the US.

Continuing with the theme of “sea creatures that we fry and eat whole,” yesterday we had fried shrimp for lunch—with eyes and legs and all.  But we also got a sweet potato crepe to go with it! (in the plastic package in the middle)

Saw this in the drugstore the other day.  Apparently “Jesus Body” is the hottest new diet pill on the market in Japan.  I wonder if they mean you can get a body like Jesus’, or if it’s an exclamation, like “Jesus! Look at that body!”

It’s been a good while since I posted a picture of my school lunch, so here’s what I had today: a typical Japanese salad, some bite-size fried fish (the entire body), a bizarre miso-ramen concoction with corn and quail eggs, and, of course, rice.

The sun was especially bright this morning as it rose over the snow-covered mountains and rice fields

Here’s a look at the more than two feet of snow I had to dig my car out from this morning to go to work.  I miss LA.