The Culture Fix

My first exposure to Sumo wrestling came when I visited the port town of Osaka, Japan - courtesy of the US Navy - in the 80s. I had wondered into a restaurant that had what appeared to be a number of shrines to famous wrestlers, including some rather disturbing pictures of these behemoths with their tiny, porcelain doll girlfriends. The menu was painted on the walls and no one in the restaurant spoke English. My Japanese was limited to the lyrics from Styx's recently released "Mr. Roboto" so I attempted to blend in by saying "Domo Arigato." Often.

I was extremely hungry and finally ordered my meal by pointing to a section of the wall that had a lot of writing and mooing like a cow. It didn't take long for the waitress (I know we use "server" now but I want to give the reader a feel for the era) to bring me three tiny bowls filled with a green substance, a yellow substance, and a brown substance. Disappointed, I fumbled around with my chopsticks and finally managed a bite of the green item.

Wasabi.

Sensing my distress, the waitress ran over chattering and gesturing wildly as I sat there with tears and snot running down my face. She fetched a couple of cooks and the three of them began to lecture me, in Japanese of course, presumably telling me that I shouldn't eat straight wasabi. Then we all had a good laugh. I recall that even a few patrons joined in. Interestingly, I read the novel "Shogun" later that year and realized that as a result of this incident I was probably morally obligated to commit seppuku in my shame.

I finally got my meal, having apparently ordered fish leather in poop sauce. Under the watchful eyes of nearly everyone in the place I choked down my supper. I concluded that Japanese and American cows spoke a different language.

Fast forward twenty years. My wife and I eat sushi nearly every week, alternating between six of our favorite restaurants in SLC, Park City, Layton, and Ogden. Anyway, back to the Sumo hazing incident.

To hell with it. Here's the CNN article.