Memoirs of a Gaijin - An Unlucky English Teacher in Japan: diarrhea

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Wasbi as a Meal, Mexican style

Wasbi as a meal, Mexican style

I can't even think of anything funnier than what it says.

What is real Wasabi? Well, I’d say its like a bee stinging your insides. Anyone who has eating a large amount will attest to.
If you've never tried real Wasabi its got a hotness to it like you wouldn't believe. As you may or may not know a lot of the stuff in the West is not real Wasabi. Its green food colouring and some horseradish mixed together. The flavour is different and the “kick” isn't the same. Its almost like the kick in Inception. Fast and unnerving.

Oh INCEPTION KICK, you are a shocker, just like Wasabi attacking my heart.

On a side note, if you are eating all you can eat sushi, I'm willing to bet its 100% fake Wasabi. They have to cut corners somehow. Oh and besides that just, an FYI they probably aren't refrigerating the raw fish properly. But for $10-$15 in Vancouver how can I complain. PS If the chef is smoking or didn't wash his hands its probably not authentic Japanese either. Tell tale signs mother truckers! Bon appetite!

Oh poor little Nemo. Eating at All you can eat, you probably ate him. Or a goldfish or two.

I remember one-time I went with my host family to sushi. My host mother told me its a great restaurant. I was so excited. She had ordered a beer for me. Although I'm allergic I figured I’d just take a few sips as a gesture of goodwill (and hoped for a gesture not of death). As I was eating a piece of sushi (with no visible Wasabi) I couldn't breath. My mouth was on fire and my brain frozen in a strange contrasting state. It was as if I had just found a hot pepper in my slurpee and had brain freeze. Should I throw up? (hopefully not out my nose for once) or cry? She asked me if everything was OK and I shook my head up and down yes, then started to cry. I felt like Wasabi was coming out my tear ducts. I grabbed the beer and swallowed the entire thing. I regretted that later, because when if you are allergic to anything don’t push your luck. The toilet became my throne (TMI?). Or maybe I should say I became its King and made it do my bidding. Insert evil laugh here.

Personally I never like to read the instructions at each sushi restaurant. They are all different. Some had orange plates which meant Wasabi already added, and if you add more you are about to experience a burning sensation of death (or close to it). If the plate was white, it meant no wasabi added, add a little till your heart’s content. Mine was content quite fast.
As such, I would just add a little in my soy sauce and mix it around. That way I thought I would get enough either way. The general consensus is that Wasabi is there to kill parasites that may be remaining. Bad news for those that are eating all you can eat, on top of cheap sushi that is probably not kept to the correct temperature the fake Wasabi isn't killing parasites. I generally equate cheap sushi with guaranteed diarrhea “Or your money back.” Anyways, I had a Mexican-American friend and he loved to go out to sushi with me. He was also somewhat cheap like me as well. Since he knew I enjoyed a cheap sushi place in town he often joined me. (Which I mentioned in previous blogpost called Akindo). He liked his food spicy, as I'm sure most Mexicans do. I saw him fill his plate with Wasabi a few times and munch down like it was a freaking enchilada (I can't remember what an enchilada is but go with it). His eyes didn't water, but he did seem a bit spacey. When I asked him if he was about to order another plate he would often respond “Nah the Wasabi is so good, I love that tingling sensation”. When my bill came to about 1500 yen or $15 his would come to $5. I never asked him how things went south of the border upon extraction but I would imagine tingly as well. If it was anything close to the pain of it burning my tear ducts I wouldn't equate it with being enjoyable by any means.

On the whole Inception theme and a word of caution, DON'T MESS WITH CHUCK NORRIS!

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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Food Poisoning by Special Students

Food Poisoning by Special Students

Anko and Unko
Similar words very different meanings.

I used to love my special needs students. At first, the main English teacher would go to class himself. Then, he introduced us and said we could team teach with him. That seemed good. At that time there were three special need students. They seemed to lack emotion sometimes but on the opposite end of the scale were very extreme other days. Very angry or upset. And I wasn't sure what their level of communication was in general, let alone their English when I first went to the classes.
Instead of team teaching it became alone teaching, as in just me. It would have been OK if there was someone there to discipline them, but I'm a little soft and I didn't want to upset them (in their fragile state).
One girl liked to scratch her nails on the board. I asked her to stop in English. Other-times while teaching them something, she would repeat “Moshi moshi” five thousand times. It means “Hello” on the telephone, but can also be used to get someone's attention. She was relentless with it, so I started to go insane (the joke was on them, I already had!).
Another mistake I made with her was to give her my telephone number. She said she wanted to text me. I was under the impression she meant once in a while, not every ten minutes. When I didn't respond she would send hate texts about how I was ignoring her and being rude. I informed her I was asleep as it was night-time and she shouldn't be using her phone so late.
Eventually I gave up and told her teacher I needed her to delete my number and inform her not to scratch her nails on the board as I was living in a horror film being around her (I think the RING).
That was true, it was a horror film life.
One boy, I wasn't too sure what his situation was. He hung out with the bad kids and swore a lot in Japanese. I think he liked me but it was hard to tell (he didn't hit me or scratch his nails, so bonus there). One time during my farewell party with all of them, the special needs teacher mentioned they had made lunch for me. Lucky me I thought!
I was excited, until I saw the bad kid pick his nose, then scratch his bum and put his hands back into the rice. I was a bit horrified. I contemplated how I could come up with an excuse to get out, since I was already there.
He kept repeating he had put “unko” into the rice balls. If you didn’t know unko means excrement or crap in English. I hoped that it was just a special needs joke, or he was mispronouncing.
It sounds a lot like “anko” which is sweet bean and fairly common in rice balls.

Well it might look like "unko" aka crap, but this one is "anko" red bean.
The taste shouldn't be similar, at least in theory.

I really hoped he had not put “unko” into the rice balls. As I went to put my first bite into the balls he had an evil grin on his face, “Enjoy the “unko”!”, he said. It seemed he had added a lot salt and seaweed as well, which is weird if its sweet bean. I'm no cook like Jamie Oliver, but those don't go together. If it was indeed crap then he had covered up the flavour quite well with the salt and seaweed. No matter what it was inside I had a feeling I was about to get a sore stomach and severe diarrhea. What else is new!
I thanked them for the lunch (and was thinking where can I throw up?). They asked if I wanted to take any home. I said I was full and that I would be out at farewell parties so would have no chance to eat it.
As I left, I thought I overheard the bad boy say “Oh I gave him the wrong one, who ate the unko one?”. I hoped it was himself that ate it!

I'll try cleaning it after I die. My corporation will deal with my death.