Violence, Poison, and Danger!

Yes, it was quite the weekend...

Saturday, in an old, traditional Japanese-style house deep in the heart of Nara prefecture, the most intrepid of us gathered to partake in one of Japan's most mysterious and dangerous rituals. We ate fugu.

This was no supermarket sushi. On a bloody chopping block behind my friend's house, we watched firsthand as three of these unwitting bearers of deadly poison were coolly dispatched in swift strokes of merciless accuracy by the hands of a professional. Yes, we were unusually fortunate - my friend's classmate (in nursing school(!)) is a licensed fugu assassin. From his carefully wrapped case he pulled a long knife, its hilt darkened with the blood of countless kills, its blade showing the wear of its years, but carefully honed to a fine edge. "Eight years ago", he said, he bought this beauty from a knifemaster in Osaka. "But back then, the blade was this much longer," gesturing about six inches from the tip.

Casually slicing out and casting aside a small sac of poison that held the power to kill all of us standing there many times over, he talked us through the intricacies of his art. Everything from the special cut to open the cavities in the head where the parasites live, so that they could be cleaned out before the skull was thrown in the stew, to the delicate layer of "skin between the flesh and the skin", which had to be ever so briefly touched to boiling water before eaten essentially raw.

As his knife worked through the ritualized sequence of cuts and motions, the fish before him twitched and squirmed. "The sashimi from this side always has a bit of a ragged shape", he explained, "but once you get past about here, the fish stops moving so much, and you can cut more cleanly." His fingers and knife swiftly worked their way through slice after slice so thin they were translucent.

Unfortunately, I have no photos from that night, but if I can get copies of Linda's, I'll put some up here. Suffice to say, that we not only survived the night but had a most delicious meal. I have to say, though, that it was ... strange eating the gonads of the male fugu. That just seemed wrong. Bizarrely smooth, creamy texture, though.

However, the most dangerous experience was yet to come.

Sunday morning, we took part in an even darker, more violent ritual buried in the shadows of ancient Japanese culture. A ritual producing a substance even deadlier than fugu, which is then eaten and ... yes, even given to children sometimes! (And they wonder why they have a problem with decreasing population here...)

It's true. In fact, if you look at the statistics, substantially more people die each year from eating mochi than from fugu. Due to its resilience and extraordinary stickiness, it gets lodged in the throats of its unfortunate victims and kills them! Not a substance to be trifled with.

Fortunately for us, the personnel at the Kizu-cho International Exchange Center were highly trained and highly organized. When undertaking a hazardous project of this complexity, it is absolutely critical to coordinate your teams with meticulous efficiency.

We were divided into action teams and briefed by our squadron leaders. Then we were assigned to our various posts.

Shen and I were assigned to the yellow team and sent to the aerial operations bay, announcements over the PA to the other teams echoing in the background ("Red squadron, go to the bathroom and wash your hands NOW! Move!! Move!!")

At our tables we were instructed in the ancient art of Japanese kitemaking, sort of a minimalist approach stressing historical accuracy. We were given only the materials and tools that the ancient Japanese would have had - four thin strips of hand-hewn bamboo, some rubber bands, a clear plastic garbage bag, some neon kite string, and a bright pink plastic ribbon for the tail.

They taught us all the ancient secrets, from the delicate grip required to splay the bamboo strips in exactly the right way to optimize aerodynamics to the mindbending topology of "wrapping" a rubber band in a robust way around an intersection of three struts with no ends protruding.

The finished product:

But the kitemaking was just a distraction. Soon our team was taken out the back door to engage in the real action.

Many people condemn the Japanese educational system, saying it puts too much pressure on children at too young an age. Well, some may believe junior high school is too early for ulcers, but one effect of the intensive youth education here is that children's minds are sharpened to a degree that can't be attained by the slow, inflexible adult mind. Precision operations such as the one we were about to engage in involve split-second reflexes and an intense level of focus that are simply beyond the reach of adults.

Our diminutive drill sergeants schooled us on the finer points of "mochi-tsuki", the delicate process of transforming specially-prepared rice into perfect-consistency mochi by mercilessly assailing it with vicious blows using an enormous hammer.

And thus we took turns "mauling the mochi", "poundin' the paste", "rammin' the rice", or whatever alliterative euphemism you prefer. The unfortunate woman on the right in these pictures had to swiftly splash a tiny bit of water on top of the big mochi glob and then knead it a bit with her hand just before each blow ("slappin' the slab" and "lubricating the loaf"?) which is why historically, that job used to be reserved for only the most heinous of criminals - seldom does a glob-kneader ever escape a mochi-tsuki session with both hands intact.

And finally, once the physical violence was through, it was time to revisit our inner peace and shape the mochi into perfect little deadly snack shapes. Again, only the youngest among us are still pure enough of mind and heart to see through the sins and distractions of our world and visualize the ideal form of the perfect mochi ball.

All of us tried our hand at it, each of us striving for the unreachable ideal - just the right amount of smoothness and roundness, a plump shape that felt good to hold in your hand. It had to have enough heft to feel substantial, but as the ancient Japanese saying goes, "bigger than a handful is a waste". Of course we all had to resist the temptation to play with it too much - overkneading the mochi made it stiff and hard to shape - a supple firmness is the ideal, so that as you stroke your fingers gently over its ample curve, you can just barely feel the rise of the anco underneath. Since only the purest of undistracted minds can visualize such an ideal form, I was of course the only one in my group who was able to do it.

And voila, our creation!


We ate our mochi and flew our kites. At last check, nobody in our group had succumbed to any serious mochi-related injuries. We were fortunate, this time. But such is the way of the Japanese spirit. The ever-present possibility of death only heightens the sweetness of life, and here they savor every drop.