Mar 14

Kirsten’s World: “Shake Up the Picture The Lizard Mixture”

Humor, Uncategorized, Writers Comments Off on Kirsten’s World: “Shake Up the Picture The Lizard Mixture”

By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)

Many things in Japan were my crack cocaine. Tarako, choco an-pan, hijiki, and heated toilet seats all soon became things I could not smile without. I would do lines of kinako dust in the morning just to ease my peanut butter withdrawal. Hon maguro became my sushi requirement. In my rusty little hamlet by the sea there was no shortage of shiokara (salted squid guts) to go with the copious amounts of booze that somehow found me. The stuff was pretty tasty as long as you ate it with a heaping dose of denial.

But of all things Japanese that would make me their bitch, I owe my sanity to one ambrosial substance: 玄米茶。

That’s brown rice tea for those not in the know.

Friends, a steaming cup of genmai-cha on a colorless cold morning feels like a mini three day weekend. It tastes like autumn in a cup, like being hugged by your ample armed mother. Please have some.

For the record, genmai-cha and I go way back. In fact, we have a long and involved history. He was my Asian trophy boyfriend in college, with me everywhere I went. Every day at work, the uninformed would catch a whiff of him perched innocently on my desk, jealous glares taking in his rich body, pleasant coloring and nutty aroma. Oh, they coveted my baby shamelessly.

“Get yer own.” I’d say through lustful gulps.
“Where’d ya meet him?” They’d whine.
“That’s for me to know…”

Green tea at that time had just become obnoxiously faddish in America, its cruising grounds already marked. I wouldn’t have been shocked to find the stuff being sold in shady nickel bags on very specific street corners. It flirted with Starbucks, titillating the organic, WholeFoods, hackeysack crowd and the health conscious body building posse. Where there were dreadlocks, patchouli, and healing, green tea was never far away. Or, to be more specific, sencha.

I don’t do sencha, folks. Sencha bores me. He has barely any substance, doesn’t last long in conversations, and makes me nervous and jittery if I don’t eat first. He’s also one bitter son of a bitch. Everyone does sencha, he’s the uninspired, grassy-tasting, polyester of green tea but he’s my sloppy second. Who needs him?

The American palate tarted up their leaf something needless. They added sugar, fruit flavoring, demoralized it in their Frappacino’s until it resembled frogs in a blender. The hardcore culture-addicts learned to worship their beverage via 茶の湯, indulging in the very difficult to remember art of brewing maccha as a Venetian refines his espresso. (why is there no ceremony for coffee, ftw? Italians don’t have time to make that one up? To say nothing of New Yorkers!)

My boyfriend wasn’t fancy. He had no scene and no pretense. He was a shy geek, best friend to Japanese grandmothers and their crossword puzzles. Hot or cold, he tasted warm and soothing and he was all mine. I took him just as he was, from an undignified teabag in a mug. He helped me sleep, helped me wake up, helped me deal with my stupid NY life just a little better. We were inseparable for years.

Naturally, there were periods when we drifted apart. Sometimes his mildness did not satisfy my eclectic temperament and shifting needs. I would become distracted by the devil’s brew at Starbucks, slurping down overpriced calorific lattes whilst my humble soulmate cried all alone in his sad easy-to-open foil prison at the bottom of my handbag. I’d have long messy affairs with chai, noisy Latin scandals with yerba mate and even went through a short-lived Gevalia phase. For his part, every now and again I’d catch him selling himself cheaply for just anyone at such dens of debauchery as Sunrise and JASMart. He’d get up there on the shelves and shake his ass on a seasonal basis, hoping to score a new friend. One time I caught him trying to be cute in the summer but he got totally outsold by that slut, mugi-cha. NYAH NYAH! Like all enduring relationships, we were destined to cheat on eachother. But, genmai-cha was always there waiting for my inevitable (walk of shame) return.

In Japan, I was surprised to note that the most dominant drinks in most teachers’ lounges were 紅茶 (TETLEY) and instant coffee. Hello Japan? Green tea too passe for ya? I never imagined genmai-cha would be an exotic even in the land of its birth. Nonetheless, I supplied every one of my seven schools with a box of 7-11 Holdings brand genmai-cha and drank it religiously. When discussing my outlandish preference cum obsession, people would tell me that their grandparents would drink gallons of the stuff. Yet another sign that my tastes were aging faster than I was. I would learn, also, that my boyfriend did not come from wealth. Genmai-cha was originally developed as ghetto tea, brown rice seen as a way to bulk up lesser quality leaf to sell to poor people.

“Wow, Kirsten-sensei, you really love genmai-cha.” One teacher commented on my 9th cup that day.

“A-actually,” I said through chattering teeth. “I-it’s k-k-keeping my f-fingers warm.”

The hallway of a Niigata school in February is the coldest thing you will ever experience, friends. Should you ever find yourself on the frigid edge of a Niigata poolside, you’d best become acquainted with my on-again-off-again lover.