My 15 minutes
Most of you being presently in a nation of 20 million Australians (and 1 citizen of Hell currently refusing to live in Canberra as it is supposed to), you may be surprised to hear that here in Tottori I am the only Australian. That`s right, as far as I know the only Australian. This means that I cannot speak with false modesty (since only Australians understand this absurd form of interaction), most of my curses and insults fall on deaf ears, and I cannot buy vegemite. It is truly an uncivilised place. Since most of you are living in Australia you may also not be aware that there is a tournament just under way in Europe, called the Football world cup, which will decide the fate of billions. Australia has somehow managed to get a special dispensation to avoid following the rules of this tournament (even though they were set down by God, or possibly at a conference attended by all the Gods); as a result, we are fielding a soccer team to this tournament. The USA have also managed to avoid the rules (possibly because they are in direct communication with God), and have also fielded a soccer team. No country which fields a soccer team can ever win this tournament, so it is probably only a kindness that has allowed inconsequential nations like the USA to have a chance to bask in the reflected glory of nations which are actually important, like Brasil and Argentina. But I digress! Our soccer team has its first match against Japan`s team, which plays an even more obscure game that they call sakka, and so also has no chance of winning this tournament. Japan is in uproar over the fact that their favourite foreign nation (Australia) is about to play them in its least favourite game (soccer). And what do the Japanese do when they are in uproar? They have a tv show where people talk to a crazy man; and then to settle the matter they have a cooking competition. The local Tottori tv station decided to do this and thus needed to find themselves an Australian to talk to, and to cook some Australian food. Rather than importing from Osaka someone who can actually speak Japanese, they used devious alchemical methods to find me, and on Tuesday last week I was drafted into a tv show to talk to a crazy man and then engage in a world cup cooking contest against representatives of the vastly important nations of Germany, Ecuador and Korea (all of whom could somehow speak fluent Japanese). They could have found an American too... there are many ... but it was essential that they find an Australian and I was the only one.
So there I was in a tv station, trying to remember that a clause somewhere in my scholarship says I have to engage in cultural exchange even though i can`t speak the crazy local dialect, and this guy was screaming at me in colloquial Japanese, talking so fast that his lips were falling off and he dropped 5 syllables from the word for thankyou (which has between 7 and 75 syllables depending no how you say it). I was asked whether my team was strong (I said no), and where we would finish (I said the finals, which is an example of irony, which no-one understood but which everyone thought was really funny), and then I asked not so nicely if I could be not asked anymore questions (since it is embarrassing to be asked 6 times in front of 10 people in a tv studio and still not know one word of what was said). The host was exactly like the hosts of Japanese tv stations for which Japan is famous - he was crazy, bugged his eyes out when he talked, and spoke really fast and in a really excited fashion. I was waiting for him to flourish a live scorpion and demand that I eat it while dancing naked on a bed of ants. once the interview was over we went to a kitchen on the other side of town and I cooked the only "traditional" food that is edible, fish and chips. I did beer batter fish and chips, which led to a very amusing moment where the crazy commentator started jumping up and down screaming something like "bbbbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuu!!! beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuu! Osotorariajin wa beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrru tsukaimasu!!" (In english: beer, beer, the australian man is using beer). When I put my beer battered fish into the pan his head actually exploded from the excitement. I tried to say that in Australia we drink beer, we cook with beer and we shower in beer, but I accidentally said wake up instead of using the special verb for showering, so that didn`t get into the final cut. But there is an amusing shot of me pouring beer into a measuring cup and sort of half toasting the camera, while the host explodes in a rain of brain gore. The funny thing about this host is that when he was off camera he was just like every other Japanese man: demure, polite, shy, soft-spoken. You could see him transforming with some kind of magical power just before the cameras turned on.
Anyway overall I was in a rather grim mood because I was sick, I was having a really bad language day, I couldn`t understand anything, and I sometimes feel very lonely here mostly on account of the fact that all the foreigners are complete arseholes. When you come to Japan you can expect to be lonely until you make Japanese friends, because I can assure you that the other foreigners in this country you would not piss on if they were on fire. Unless by pissing on them you could dampen the fire a bit and make their deaths take longer, but even then you might ask a local to do it so that you didn`t have to dirty yourself. So I was pretty grim, and probably not the best person to have on a tv show with cheery smiling people. My food was good though, for fish and chips - but asking an Australian to cook traditional food in a cooking contest is like inviting an armless man to a boxing match. Or in fact rather like inviting Australians to play in the World Cup. Where`s the fun? So in the end the Ecuadorian won with a suitably crazy combination of prawns, orange juice and popcorn which was a lot better than it sounds. In between all this craziness the two judges of the food were completely and totally serious.
So there you have it, my 15 minutes of fame have been expended on a rather amateur cooking contest in a regional tv show in Japan. Even though I was grim at the time the show turned out okay (I watched it yesterday), and I feel rather privileged to have engaged in one of the iconic rituals of modern Japan - the televised cooking contest. And I even have the video as proof I was there (if ever I run for parliament I shall have to destroy it). What a souvenir of my brief time here!!!!
So there I was in a tv station, trying to remember that a clause somewhere in my scholarship says I have to engage in cultural exchange even though i can`t speak the crazy local dialect, and this guy was screaming at me in colloquial Japanese, talking so fast that his lips were falling off and he dropped 5 syllables from the word for thankyou (which has between 7 and 75 syllables depending no how you say it). I was asked whether my team was strong (I said no), and where we would finish (I said the finals, which is an example of irony, which no-one understood but which everyone thought was really funny), and then I asked not so nicely if I could be not asked anymore questions (since it is embarrassing to be asked 6 times in front of 10 people in a tv studio and still not know one word of what was said). The host was exactly like the hosts of Japanese tv stations for which Japan is famous - he was crazy, bugged his eyes out when he talked, and spoke really fast and in a really excited fashion. I was waiting for him to flourish a live scorpion and demand that I eat it while dancing naked on a bed of ants. once the interview was over we went to a kitchen on the other side of town and I cooked the only "traditional" food that is edible, fish and chips. I did beer batter fish and chips, which led to a very amusing moment where the crazy commentator started jumping up and down screaming something like "bbbbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuu!!! beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuu! Osotorariajin wa beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrru tsukaimasu!!" (In english: beer, beer, the australian man is using beer). When I put my beer battered fish into the pan his head actually exploded from the excitement. I tried to say that in Australia we drink beer, we cook with beer and we shower in beer, but I accidentally said wake up instead of using the special verb for showering, so that didn`t get into the final cut. But there is an amusing shot of me pouring beer into a measuring cup and sort of half toasting the camera, while the host explodes in a rain of brain gore. The funny thing about this host is that when he was off camera he was just like every other Japanese man: demure, polite, shy, soft-spoken. You could see him transforming with some kind of magical power just before the cameras turned on.
Anyway overall I was in a rather grim mood because I was sick, I was having a really bad language day, I couldn`t understand anything, and I sometimes feel very lonely here mostly on account of the fact that all the foreigners are complete arseholes. When you come to Japan you can expect to be lonely until you make Japanese friends, because I can assure you that the other foreigners in this country you would not piss on if they were on fire. Unless by pissing on them you could dampen the fire a bit and make their deaths take longer, but even then you might ask a local to do it so that you didn`t have to dirty yourself. So I was pretty grim, and probably not the best person to have on a tv show with cheery smiling people. My food was good though, for fish and chips - but asking an Australian to cook traditional food in a cooking contest is like inviting an armless man to a boxing match. Or in fact rather like inviting Australians to play in the World Cup. Where`s the fun? So in the end the Ecuadorian won with a suitably crazy combination of prawns, orange juice and popcorn which was a lot better than it sounds. In between all this craziness the two judges of the food were completely and totally serious.
So there you have it, my 15 minutes of fame have been expended on a rather amateur cooking contest in a regional tv show in Japan. Even though I was grim at the time the show turned out okay (I watched it yesterday), and I feel rather privileged to have engaged in one of the iconic rituals of modern Japan - the televised cooking contest. And I even have the video as proof I was there (if ever I run for parliament I shall have to destroy it). What a souvenir of my brief time here!!!!
posted by Sir S at 3:33 PM
2 Comments:
Sad to hear you are ill dear boy. I too have been suffering from the deprivations of flu for the last week and a half - the only beneficial aspect is that I lose my voice at all the wrong times making people realise that I truly am sick.
I fully understand your lonliness old chum we seems to be sharing a similar situation regarding the women folk although I do have the advantage of being able to see friends still.
Chin up soldier. I shall be there as soon as I can to lift you out of your funk.
congratulations on the battered fish - I would have just made a burger and put beetroot on it.
wow! Sir, you have amazed me with your knowledge of the Motherlands` common fare! I had completely forgotten ye Olde Tinned Beetroote! Though I fancy in this strange land it would be impossible to find tinned beetroot, that space on the shelf being reserved perhaps for more conservative fare, such as tinned whale.
I have now been sick nigh on 5 weeks and am, if I may say, heartily sick of it. I`d wager those boys in the Crimea had a better time of their foreign campaigns than I am! Although I don`t have the burden of dodging bullets to add to my woes. But now things are on the improve, and I hope to be hale as a Scottish fishwife by the morrow!
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