furtech | 2010, Tsukemono and Turning Japanese

First post of the new year...four days late. I don't know if 2010 will be better than 2009, but it sure started off busy. I haven't even finished my year summary, photo collage-- let alone the decades summary.

Here, have my *fail* attempt at a "family" picture:

familypic

First thought of the year:

A good friend recently created *drahma* on one of her journals by trying to locate fellow Orientals in the fandom. Ignoring the self-outing of nitwits amongst followers of her blog, I can see what her original intent was in asking.

When one belongs to a race or type that is not the majority group, it can be comforting to hang out with like-individuals once in a while. This isn't saying (in this case), "I hate white people" or "Tall people suck," or anything like that at all. There are just certain culturally common experiences and memories that are nice to chat about with people who know what you are talking about. This is why so many of us found fandom, after all.

Take me, for instance: I grew up about as white as you can get. I'm what fellow Orientals refer to as a banana or a Twinkie. Still, there are many things in my upbringing that are very Japanese: knowing what picnic sushi is; the idea that teachers are to be treated with respect; the smell of the tsukimono jar being opened.

The latter is a good example of why it's nice to have commonalities. Tsukimono is one of the common Japanese pickled vegetables (napa-- Japanese cabbage). Now, when my mother used to open up the stone jar that it was made in, the smell was so strong that it would make your eyes water. Still, I miss it. To most people, it just stinks. When you're with other Japanese, there's no wonderment as to how that event could be so wonderful-- how you would miss it when you go away to college or when she passes away. I've been around kim-chee openings that curled my toes. Even so, I can understand-- without comment-- how someone could miss that moment.

Most people with old-world grandparents have similar feelings about foods or celebrations or customs specific to their culture. I can also understand why some don't care to share with outsiders: it is sometimes difficult for people who did not grow up in that sub-culture to empathize.

While I spend little of my time actually "being" Asian (there, I said it), it's still a comfort to hang out with relatives and "be" Japanese/Asian/Jovian for a bit.