陰性
Embracing the 迷惑 - How to Japanese - December 2020
日本・日本語：Body Positive and Proactive
When I got pneumonia on the JET Program, I caught it at the most inconvenient time—a Friday evening.
After work, I made frozen pizza, opened a big bottle of Yebisu, and sat down to watch The Godfather, which was showing on Japanese TV. (This is representative of how I spent my frugal first year on JET.) I went to bed around midnight or so but woke up just a couple hours later with a fever and sweats. I wondered whether I’d accidentally food poisoned myself or was suffering from some sort of rapid-onset hangover. I took a couple Advil and tried to get what sleep I could.
The rest of the weekend I spent in a daze. The small clinic in my town was closed on the weekend, and I hadn’t been before so I didn’t really know the procedures. Nor was I familiar with the medical system in Aizu-Wakamatsu, which was about 45 minutes away by car. I did at some point manage to drive into the city to eat McDonald’s and browse the BookOFF, but I still felt miserable.
I took the day off on Monday and assumed that I’d be able to kick whatever I’d caught by the end of the day on Tuesday, which was a holiday, but by Tuesday morning, when I was huddled up by my kerosene heater for warmth, I knew something more serious was wrong. I was alternating between chills and sweats, had a terrible headache, and only Advil was keeping my a fever in a manageable range. I had to go get checked out. I messaged my supervisor and arranged to visit the clinic on Wednesday morning.
I probably would have put off going to the clinic no matter which day I got sick, but if it had been a Sunday or a Monday, I might not have had to wait that extra day or two.
Fortunately both of the town doctors were very friendly. One was a thin, bearded man in his early 40s who had a Bluto figurine on his desk. I assumed he’d taken the character as a sort of personal mascot. The other was a marathon runner in his 50s who regularly ran laps around Lake Inawashiro, the third largest lake in Japan.
Dr. Bluto saw me, and it took a minute to figure out what was wrong, but a chest X-ray eventually revealed pneumonia. I didn’t have much of a cough at all, and the doctor listened to my chest again curiously after seeing the film.
As part of the treatment, they gave me a fairly standard physical, which included an HIV test. When I returned a few days later after starting a round of antibiotics, the nurse said, “Your HIV test was 陰性 (insei).”
For a second I had a mild panic. What was 陰性? Was that good or bad?
She then escorted me in to see Dr. Bluto, and he opened my file as he went over things. He reemphasized 陰性 and pointed to a place in the file where they had handwritten “陰性 ( - ).”
That subtraction mark was a relief. I wasn’t really at much of a risk, to be perfectly frank, but it’s part of the Millenial burden to be hyperaware of the risk of sexual activity in a way that perhaps Boomers and Gen X were not at the start of the 1980s. (This does make me wonder how current American kids will feel about wearing masks in 2040.)
For a long time I kind of blamed my Japanese teachers for this, thinking that what I perceived as hesitation to discuss anything related to the human body must have been—to a degree—a reflection of Japanese culture. (I ended up learning many body parts from my yoga teacher in Tokyo.) But now it feels more like a small failure of the academic system more broadly, which prioritizes “professional” skills over everyday competence.
So this is me giving you these very important terms:
陰性 (insei) - Negative (test result)
陽性 (yōsei) - Positive (test result)
As far as the body goes, I don’t have any solid recommendations, but recently Japanese Talk Online recommended using science books for kids to learn Japanese:
The idea being that the language is simple and aimed for kids, perfect for intermediate level JSL students.
I imagine one of those might have something about anatomy, and if not, then perhaps one of these titles I found on Amazon Japan: からだのふしぎ, 人のからだのおはなし, and からだのひみつ.
Beyond preparing yourself with the right language, you also need the right attitude: There’s no reason to wait when you’re sick. Being reserved in the interest of not causing 迷惑 (meiwaku, trouble), of fitting in with a perceived notion of social harmony in Japan, often results in increased future 迷惑.
In Japan medical care is affordable and relatively accessible. People are, by and large, friendly and want to be helpful. Don’t ever feel like you’re being a burden if you need to ask for help. Be as proactive (and patient, but firm!) as required ensure you get the attention you need, and ask questions, even if they’re in English. You’ll communicate eventually.
お大事に(Odaiji ni, Take care)!
ビール：Four Corners of the Map
The first IPA I ever had was a bottle of Harpoon IPA during the hot and humid summer of 2001. I was taking an intensive summer Japanese course, my first Japanese class, and I’d made friends with a local corner store that didn’t card.
Up to that point, I’d sampled from the wide selection of American lager, and I’d even had Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and brewed a couple of (not awful) ales myself, but now I had access to a very small selection of local Boston beers. I’m guessing there were probably three or four craft beers at this small store: Sam Adams Boston Lager, Harpoon’s UFO (an unfiltered wheat beer), probably Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and then the Harpoon IPA.
IPA was something new: notable bitterness, subtle maltiness, and apparent but not overwhelming citrus and pine aromas. This was nothing compared to the fireworks from DDH IPA on the shelves these days, but sitting in my air-condition-less common room, having never been to England and not even really knowing what IPA meant, drinking IPA felt like I was scratching off the corner of a lotto ticket to reveal something.
So I drank Harpoon IPA, studied Japanese, ate spicy Thai food, sweat, and watched Red Sox games on the giant, square CRT TV from the 80s that I’d inherited from other students and which must have been passed down amongst the student body. Not a bad summer.
Harpoon IPA was the first set of coordinates for me in a process of mapping out beer flavors and aromas. Things started making sense. I had to explore from that point, but I’d effectively pinned one corner of the map to the wall to situate myself. I’ve used the “four corners” metaphor in my mind since around that time.
Craft beer has evolved rapidly in the last 20 years—IPA is very different these days—but I think you can still “pin the map to the wall” with just a few beers. Perhaps an English/early American IPA (or, these days, a clear West Coast-style IPA), a really good and really fresh German-style Pilsner, a Belgian Dubbel, and a really good and really fresh English Bitter. These beers provide a range of perceived bitterness and perceived sweetness, the presence or absence of yeast aroma, a range of malt varieties and degree of malt forwardness, and a spectrum of hop aroma.
There’s more to explore from these points, but they give you the coordinates, the sensory experiences, to contextualize what you’re experiencing with other beers.
Where do you go from there, and what other descriptors/sensory experiences are helpful?
You might try tracking down horse blanket next.
I managed to find horse blanket in Tokyo in 2008.
At the time, the Japanese craft beer market was experiencing a second wave. Stragglers from the late 90s were still around, like Kiuchi Brewing, Yo-Ho Brewing, and Swan Lake, bars like Popeye were packed, and American brands were entering the market regularly. Quietly, a respectable range of beer was appearing in Japan’s international stores. At supermarkets like Seijo Ishii, brands like Anchor and New Belgium were on display next to Yo-Ho’s Yona Yona Ale and European offerings like Westmalle, Chimay, and one Trappist beer called Orval.
Orval is dry hopped and dosed with Brettanomyces, a unique “wild” strain of yeast. While this strain is associated with Belgium these days, the name itself denotes a British origin: Brettanomyces literally means “British fungus.”
Orval otherwise is a relatively standard Belgian pale ale. It’s a deep golden/light amber ale with a densely beaded, white foam. Being Belgian, pale is darker than American pales and more comparable to British pales, although at 6.9% ABV, it’s uniquely Belgian in fortitude.
The monks at Orval dose the beer at bottling with “Brett,” and the yeast go to work after primary fermentation is complete. Brett eats away at sugars that are unfermentable to standard Saccharomyces strains. As they do, they put off carbon dioxide, making the beer spritzier and the foam finer. The harsh conditions (limited availability of sugars, very little dissolved oxygen) also result in unique flavor and aroma compounds, which are considered “off flavors” in many beers.
Most notable among these is the aforementioned “horse blanket.” Having not spent much time around horses myself, I can’t speak to how accurate this is a descriptor. “Medicinal,” “band aid/bandage,” and “metallic” are closer to what I experience, but “barnyard” also gets used frequently. I most closely associate it with the sanitized smell of a band aid when you peel back the cover.
However you describe it, the aroma is the “funk” from Milk the Funk, a Facebook forum dedicated to alternative yeast fermentation. In our need to scratch the never-ending novelty itch, homebrewers have explored the bounds of bitterness and in the last 10 years have shifted to other terrain like sour beer. “Brett” is one of many alternative yeasts and bacteria that combine to produce the dramatic range of flavors in beers like gueuze, which has a pith-like bitterness and a sourness that ranges from citric to acetic. Usually these flavors meld together, but Brett will occasionally jump out. In September, I opened a bottle of De Cam’s Wilde Bosbessen fruited lambic and was nearly assaulted by the medicinal note. It wasn’t unpleasant!
Orval is much more subtle. I was disappointed when I first had the beer because I didn’t notice anything. It seemed like a standard pale ale, with a slightly heavier caramel note and some Belgian yeast characteristics. Depending on when your bottle was packaged, you might notice the dry hop character, although it would be reserved: They aren’t using American hops here.
The bottle I’m drinking at the moment was packaged on April 3, 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, and I’m drinking it on November 21, 2020, over seven months later. It’s subtle, and reminds me of that first time I had it in Japan. I kept going back to the beer in the subsequent months, trying to discover what made it special, and eventually something clicked and that character came through.
Depending on your sense of smell, it may take more or less time/bottles than it did for me. You can detect it on the nose. You may also perceive it as a more intense bitterness or a faint astringency on the back of your palate. Let the beer sit in the glass and warm. If your bottle is a couple months old, that caramel flavor from the malt will come forward, as will the bitterness. Eventually, so will the horse blanket.
If you find fresh bottles on the shelf, purchase two. Drink one immediately, and put one aside for nine months to a year. Give the Brett time to work.
As a homebrewer, you can also experiment with Brett fairly easily. Dozens of strains are available from yeast producers across the U.S. You should find many selections at your LHBS, and you can get more obscure strains and blends online.
Brew a saison or a basic pilsner, and when you’re bottling the beer, use a pipette to add a few drops of Brett yeast slurry before capping. The flavor melds with hop bitterness in both these styles, almost sharpening it. You should make sure that the beer has dried out before dosing with Brett. You don’t want to give the Brett too many extra sugars to work with or else you’ll end up with bottle bombs.
If you’re not a homebrewer, I’d recommend looking for Boulevard’s Brett Saison. Or at offerings from breweries like Crooked Stave or Off Color, a local Chicago brewery that will denote “wild” beers on the label separately from “sour” beers.
Beyond beer, I’ve struggled to pin the map on the wall. I haven’t been able to figure out wine yet, although I haven’t really tried. Bourbon and rye are delicious but burn too hot, erasing a lot of the differences. Mezcal is extremely subtle and complex and still out of reach, but I’m trying to figure it out. Rum feels more accessible, and I can pinpoint a few bottles that have helped me understand what’s out there.
I’m curious to hear from other drinkers/readers. What are the four corners of the map for you? Are there beers, wines, or spirits that have given you greater context?
いろいろ
I stumbled upon a meme of Japanese culture while listening to NHK.
Rochelle Kopp posted a link to a trove of Mangajin magazines from the 90s. I’m still going through them, but they look like the JT’s Bilingual page in very primitive form. I reserve the right to mention these again in further detail!
Katrina Leonoudakis wrote a fantastic thread on her decision to switch “Nii-Nii” to “Big Brudder” in the translation of Higurashi. It sparked a lot of conversations about translation, specifically about how to handle Japanese terms like -san, -sensei, and senpai.
Caleb Cook has a great look at the phrase 今更 and potential translations.
I read this newsletter about “Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage” earlier in the pandemic and was reminded of it this past month thanks to a conversation on Twitter. The moral of the story: Order directly from restaurants as much as possible.
“Privilege does not make us exceptional, but it softens the blow of biological reality.” — from “How Getting Herpes Prepared Me for the COVID-19 Pandemic”
For Thanksgiving this year, I made a pie for the first time in…I don’t even know how long. I loved helping my mom in the kitchen growing up, especially with holiday baking, but I’ve been displaced for Thanksgiving since 2000 for every year except the three years when I was in grad school, and I can’t remember if I helped make one then. It felt great to make the Dutch apple pie recipe from the Tartine cookbook. The apple recipe isn’t online, but the recipe for the crust is, although the proportions are slightly off. And I think they are slightly off in the book as well. I found these to work: 1.75 cups flour (227.5g) 0.667 cups butter (150g), 0.4 cups water (~150ml?) with 0.25 tsp salt, which is basically the 3:2:1 ratio they mention. That’s a half batch for a single pie crust. The result is super flaky, almost like an extremely basic lamination if executed correctly.
This mushroom lasagna has been added to my list of kitchen challenges. I discovered it via the Griefbacon newsletter.
Helen Rosner had two excellent pieces in The New Yorker recently, although I see now that she was re-sharing one from last year: “The Perfect Thanksgiving Cocktail is the Boulevardier” (2019) and “The Joylessness of Cooking.” I’ll let the overall tone of these newsletters the last couple months serve as my comment on the latter. The former, however, is the absolute truth. Anything with Campari serves as a solid post-binge digestif. This year I made a Bitter Mai Tai. Campari and soda is a lighter alternative.
