Of a Delicious BBQ

I went on a little trip with my coworkers on Sunday up to a place called Katsuura in Chiba prefecture for a BBQ. The trip overall was a lot of fun, and I was finally able to see some green again. No matter how much I like Tokyo for its convenience and variety of things to do, I'm still from a country with wide green fields and beautiful tree-topped mountains. Katsuura was really beautiful though, and I was finally able to spend some time near the ocean. The water was a beautiful blue, and the weather was perfect for a cook-out.

I was also able to meet some really wonderful people while I ate some fantastic food. Although I won't load pictures of people up for privacy reasons, I can share what we ate. The culinary adventure began with some Japanese lobster (伊勢エビ). They were live and freshly caught. Interestingly enough, the Japanese lobster does not have giant pinchers, so you're free to pick them up without worrying too much about getting hurt. We ate them raw first, and they were surprisingly sweet. I didn't know you could have lobster sashimi, but it was fantastic. After that, we cooked them and ate them properly.

After the lobster, we started eating some type of shellfish called sazae in Japanese. I honestly don't want to call these in English. Wikipedia suggests Turbo cornutus but I find it hard to believe we don't have more generic name for this animal. Basically, it's a type of sea snail though. We cooked it with salt and soy sauce, so it had a hard coating on the top of it. It was good, but not my favorite. We also ate ikayaki (grilled squid) and the most delicious of them all awabi, or abalone. I feel like I had eaten abalone once before, but it definitely didn't taste like this. Since it was freshly caught, the taste was phenomenal. I was told that the reason may be because there are two types of abalone: red and black. Honestly, I just think it was because abalone is extremely expensive, so I haven't really grown accustomed to it. 

The other things in the picture below are pumpkin (kabocha), eggplant (nasu), beef, and ham.

And last, but definitely not least, we ate something I had never tried before. We encased a large type of tai (or sea bream) though it may have been ishidai (striped beakfish) in a mixture of salt and egg whites and put it on the grill. The salt formed a protective shell around the fish, which we had to break later. This type of cooking is called shiogawa, or salt pan grilling. I was assured that I was not the only one who had seen this for the first time. It ended up tasting like it had been steamed, and all of the flavor was locked in since the juices started oozing out later. It really didn't taste salty at all.

Overall, it was a really wonderful event, and I'm glad I got the chance to meet some new people and to spend some time with my coworkers outside of work. I'm off to study and sleep.

Territory Dispute - China

As you all may well know by this point, Japan has been involved with some territorial disputes over the past century. Although these are nothing new to the region, the situation has escalated recently. It all boils down to Japan's imperial times when it wanted to claim land to expand its national resources. Japan is in the precarious position where the only resource it has is fish, and even that is iffy with the recent overfishing and the 3.11 disaster.

Two different situations are escalating at the moment. The first is the issue with China. Japan claims the chain of eight islands as part of its territory. Located in what the Japanese call the Japan Sea, the islands are called the Senkaku Islands. They were found to be uninhabited and subsequently added to Okinawa prefecture in Southern Japan. In the 1970's, Japan announced that the Senkaku Islands were a prime fishing location and that they might have significant oil/gas deposits. China calls the islands the Diaoyu Islands, and insists that they have been used for centuries for fishing.

In September 2010, a Chinese fisherman tried to land on the island. He crashed into two Japanese coast guard vessels and was soon arrested. China cancelled a planned trip by 1,000 Japanese students to China in anger. Japan eventually released the fisherman and his crew, but insisted they not try to land on the islands again.

On August 15, 2012, the situation has escalated further. 14 people from Hong Kong sailed to one of the Senkaku islands and tried to land on it. 7 people managed to get to land. The Japanese Coast Guard released their video of the event. It shows a Coast Guard vessel firing water cannons and Hong Kong activists throwing bricks.

Chinese media has been very critical of the event and has asserted that the Japanese law is "worthless" and not meant to be followed since the lands are claimed by China. There are talks of boycotting Japanese products in China, though whether this will be successful, no one knows. Chinese activists have reportedly burned cars in protest. Another man stole the Hinomaru flag off of the Japanese ambassador's car after two vehicles boxed him in. The Chinese government has denounced the way which the Coast Guard handled the issue. It is also trying to reign in its own citizens before they further complicate the issue.

In contrast, Japanese activists have traveled to the islands to raise the Hinomaru flag on the island to reassert Japanese sovereignty over the land. Activists are stationed on top of a large van in Shibuya, shouting nationalist slogans that the islands belong to Japan and that people should stand up for the territory.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has tried to do a survey of the Senkaku Islands, but this proposal was rejected. Instead, the government has offered to buy three of the islands for 2 billion yen from the Kurihara family, who owns the property.

Sources:
"China-Japan Islands Row" (BBC)
"Ishihara's Senkaku survey Request gets thumbs down" (Japan Times)
"Japan Coast Guard releases footage of Senkaku clash with Chinese activists" (Japan Times)
"Chinese media hail activists" (Yomiuri Shinbun)