Typical Japanese Dinner

Whenever someone of a different culture offers to cook dinner, I get excited.  I mean really excited.  During my time in Japan I ate dinner with two Japanese families in their homes.  They were both amazing, but one had an extra, little twist.

In my cheesiest voice I replied, “I’m looking forward to meeting your mom too!” Maybe it wasn’t in the best taste to say that to Kumi, but my inner censor was on vacation. Plans had been made to visit Kumi’s house later that night in Tokyo to have a good, Japanese meal cooked by a good, Japanese housewife. It was sure to be a fantastic time. At least that’s what I thought until I opened my big mouth. Now Kumi was just staring at me. I hoped for a split second that her English wasn’t good enough and she didn’t get my joke. The hope faded as a look of disgust crossed her face and she averted her gaze. At least Charlie was laughing – nervously as people do when trapped in that kind of situation. At least Kumi’s boyfriend, Aaron, wasn’t there to scold me with his disapproving glare. He’s a good friend who moved to Japan to attend an American university in Tokyo. Japanese culture is perfect for him; clean and conservative.

The four of us, Charlie, Aaron, Kumi, and I passed the time until diner by roaming the streets of Tokyo. After a brief stop at a grocery store for the requisite beer run, we eventually made our way to Kumi’s house. It was a nice, upper middle class house built with only a foot or two between each neighbor as is the Japanese tradition. It reminded me a lot of a large American townhouse.

A high-pitched barking noise could be heard coming from inside the house as soon as Kumi began unlocking the door. The front door opened to a small indoor patio area at the bottom of a flight of stairs. A small dog sat up a few stairs from where we stood yipping incessantly. Kumi introduced us to her dog as we America guys slipped off our shoes and began our futile attempt to fit comically undersized slippers onto our huge feet. At some point the dog built up enough courage to descend the stairs for a personal inspection. The inspection only further intensified his frenzy. It reached a crescendo when he peed on the carpet near our shoes. He was unfazed, but the embarrassment was too much for Kumi. She quickly scooped him up and led us all up the stairs to meet her parents.

Her mother was in the kitchen just putting the final touches on dinner. Kumi and her mother started chatting in hurried Japanese. Aaron speaks excellent Japanese, but he was having a hard time picking up what they were saying. Kumi then turned to let us know that her father wouldn’t be joining us for dinner because he had to work late. Charlie and I were the only people who couldn’t speak Japanese and Kumi’s mother was the only one who couldn’t speak English. This pushed Kumi into the role of translator. The girls started talking again, this time more briefly. Kumi then turned to us and said her mother was expecting Aaron’s friends to be younger. This was an interesting, but not totally unexpected comment. Aaron’s school friends were 5 – 10 years younger than us. We shrugged it off and took up the offer to watch sumo wrestling on TV while dinner finished.

As much as I do like sumo wrestling, I like dogs a lot more. I can’t help but play with friendly dogs. Eventually my attention was drawn from fat men slapping each other around to the crazy, tiny dog running laps around the room. The older woman would take breaks from cooking to ask us questions through her daughter. Charlie and I entertained all questions. They were all common questions like: “How do you know Aaron?”, “How long are you in Japan?”, “Where do you work?” etc. At one point she stopped cooking and watched me play with the dog. She said something to Kumi which I assumed was another question. Kumi looked at me and said, “My mother says she didn’t know Aaron’s friends would be so strong.” Not knowing what to do, I laughed a little and flexed my bicep. She looked back at me with a wide smile.

Dinner consisted of a baked fish – something similar to a halibut, I believe – and several salad-like dishes. It was all very well prepared and obviously took quite a while to make. The food was absolutely delicious. To wash it all down, a bottle of sake was brought out. When I say a bottle, I mean it looked like a normal bottle of sake except or its size. It must have been 4 feet tall and almost a foot in diameter at the bottom and it was filled with booze. It didn’t feel so much like a refreshing beverage as a challenge or possibly an experiment. Partway through dinner everyone was feeling very comfortable. We were all laughing and enjoying ourselves when Kumi’s mother spoke again. This time Kumi seemed a little more reluctant to translate. She looked up from her plate and very matter-of-factly said, “My mother says you have very beautiful eyes.” I switched my attention from Kumi to her mother who was now intently gazing into my eyes and said, “Thank you!” There are many times in life where I have looked back on a moment and thought of something much better to say. It seems like there would be something much wittier to say in that situation, but I’m still tongue-tied almost a year later. No more comments like that were spoken during the rest of our meal although I did begin to notice how often her attention was on me for the rest of the evening.

Food had been consumed and a significant portion of the sake was gone. We left the table and split up into different rooms. Charlie and I were standing in the living room around the coffee table watching TV while Aaron, Kumi, and her mother talked in the dining room. Someone remembered the beer we bought earlier and offered to get it out. Kumi’s mother went to the refrigerator, pulled out 3 beers and started handing them out. One went to Aaron, another went to Charlie, but instead of handing me a beer she spoke to Kumi. Kumi looked at me and said, “My mother wants to show you how a Japanese wife serves her husband.” I’m not the kind of guy who turns down an opportunity to be culturally enriched so I agreed to it. She then ran off to the kitchen and returned with a glass. She set the glass on the table, got on her knees, and carefully filled the glass with beer. Then she gingerly placed her hands around the glass and lifted it to me like a geisha. Once again, the only words I could muster were “Thank you!”

The rest of the evening was uneventful. We went for an after dinner walk with the dog before heading to the metro station. Nothing was said about the evening other than how good the food was and how much fun it was. I thought I may have simply been imagining things. Charlie was the first to bring it up. It must have been a few days later while Aaron and Kumi weren’t around. We were talking about how interesting the trip had been and Charlie mentioned Kumi’s mother hitting on me. It was honestly a relief to know that I wasn’t the only one who saw it that way. Looking back, I’m not sure how I could have doubted it. The signs don’t get a whole lot more obvious. Next time I’ll be prepared. It took 29 years for it to happen once so it should happen again sometime just before my 60^th birthday.