Tuna Hero
This story originally appeared in Let's
Japan.org the site devoted to
debunking eikaiwa.
One of my joys of living in Japan is the food. The variety in the Japanese
diet is nearly endless as they eat just about anything. The emphasis on
quality, freshness and appearance has been an awakening for my taste buds
long dulled by the instant, ready- to- go fast food back home. When I first
came to Japan, I spent many a weekend wandering around town checking out
a
bar here and there, getting lost and occasionally stumbling upon a great
eatery. I'm not talking about some Ginza sushi shop where it costs 20,000
yen to dine, but a place that has a certain atmosphere, a warmth that keeps
bringing you back.
A friend showed me one such place, a small kaitensushi-ya (a cheap rotating
conveyor sushi bar)called Tuna Hero. How he found the place, I'll never
know. Probably just dumb luck. It was cheap to eat and if your bill topped
1,500 yen, well, you knew you had just pigged out. Kon-chan, the master,
had
a conveyor belt in his small shop, but he never really used it. He'd just
slice up some fish and bring it over.
The walls of Tuna Hero are plastered with pictures of children. In my
poor
Japanese, I asked the master why there were all these kids on the walls.
He
said that they were birthday pictures- the kids come in to celebrate on
their birthday and he gives them some ice cream as a "present." Being a
smart-ass, I quipped that I wanted my picture on the wall, too. And with
that, the master produced a camera, lined me up against the wall and took
my
picture.
A few weeks later, the photo was on the wall under the clock with a message
saying, "Come and study English with us!" The fact that it is under the
clock is important- it's in a postion where everyone will notice it ergo,
it's a place of "honor" if I may use that word. There I was, immortalized
in
customer lore for eternity. I frequented Tuna Hero since it was close to
where I lived. It wasn't necessarily the food that brought me back, it was
the fact the master would chat me up even though I couldn't understand a
lick of what he was saying. When the shop wasn't busy, he'd duck out into
his garden and bring out some fresh edamame(green soy beans. A perfect match
with a cold beer!). On one occasion he gave me whale sashimi and on another,
it was aloe sushi.
The shop never really got crowded and I assume that he did a fair amount
of
business in sushi deliveries in his Tuna hero mobile- a little Suzuki
mini-car(probably had a lawn mower engine in it) with a Tuna Hero logo(
kind
of a Kintaro-looking kid triumphantly holding a tray of sushi) on the doors.
I'd see him in the street and he beep his horn and give me a wave. For a
guy thousands of miles from home and unable to speak read or write Japanese,
he friendliness helped me deal with culture shock and adjust to live in
Japan.
The moral of the story is this: find a restaurant, be it an izakaya,
sushi-ya or yakitori shop to call your own while you're in Japan. It's a
place to really get to know the average Japanese. It's a chance to get out
of your English bubble- the gaijin bars and friends. Get out and see
something for yourself. It will do wonders for your social standing. I once
took a date to Tuna Hero and my stock with her jumped 10,000% when she saw
that not only was my picture on the wall of the shop(thereby granting me
some fame), but that the master actually knew me. In her eyes, that was
something incredible.
Tuna Hero is still there and 5 years after the fact, the pictures are
still
on the wall. It's a little trip down memory lane. No...scratch that. Hitting
the haunts of my early days in Japan is more like a soldier sifting through
the burned-out wreckage of a battlefield. You look around, tip your hat
back
and think: "God damn. I f----ing made it in this country."
Shawn Thir
Shawn is the webmaster of Lets Japan.org
and has a favorite yakitori joint
whose location he will never divulge.