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["Thomas A. Beckett" <thomas AT tbeckett.com>]

        Picking up where I left off:  

        After Hokkaido, the next stop on the IJSP tour was Koriyama City, in
Fukushima prefecture.  Prior to leaving for Japan I had paged through
several travel guides in several bookstores in search of information on
Koriyama and found nothing.  This is because Koriyama has nothing in
particular to recommend it.  It is essentially a nondescript although
not unpleasant city built around a transportation center, along the
lines of Greensboro or Hagerstown.  Koriyama is smack in the middle of
Fukushima prefecture (state) which apparently boasts great natural
beauty, delectible agricultural produce and numerous "onsen", which are
natural hot springs.  Didn't get to see any of that, however.

        What we did get to see, and the evident reason for our being in
Koriyama, was the brand new convention center, which was hosting that
day a business creation exposition, a little conference for the Invest
in Japan Study Program, and a business delegation from China.  The
convention center is notable in itself, all bright new concrete and
metal and looking very much like an alien mother ship having landed
there to scoop up the citizens of Koriyama for processing.  It was quite
beautiful, though, another stunning work of Japanese architecture.  

        Prior to our business conference we were treated to a delightful
luncheon and then an audience with the prefectural Governor.  He was
professional politician through and through -- some things are the same
the world around.  He took great pains to read us a short prepared
speech in English, and then Mr. Martin Cooper, the Australian member of
our delegation, offered some pleasant remarks and offered our collective
gratitude.  (I have to take some credit for this:  on the bus one of our
Japanese minders asked if one of us would like to speak for the group in
meeting with the Governor; with my usual quick-thinking, I said that the
duties should probably be assigned by seniority, a suggestion our hosts
liked a great deal, and thereupon went straight to Martin.)  The
governor then offered us each a modest gift (complete with shopping bag)
and his meishi (business card).  Now this is noteworthy:  the Governor's
meishi was without a doubt the finest business card I have ever seen. 
One side was laquered in rich, dark red with a delicate painting of a
clump of plum blossoms in pink, and his name in gold lettering.  Simply
stunning.  I still have it, of course, and I'll show it to you if you
ask.  

        Well, off to the conference.  Speeches about the Fukushima business
climate, etc., and our brief presentations on our respective companies. 
One of the remarkable features of these events was the simultaneous
bilingual interpretation.  Every seat had a small radio receiver and
headphones.  A pair of interpreters sat in a portable isolation booth in
the back of the room, and translated every sentence spoken, on the fly. 
One could select a channel on the receiver for translation into Japanese
or another channel for English.  I tried listening to both, so I could
hear how well the interpreters were able to keep up with my mates on the
program as the presented their companies.  A lot of the technical words
remained in English, so I could tell how they were keeping pace.  It was
really a prodigous effort.  

        Afterwards, each of us was able to meet in brief one-on-one sessions
with local entrepreneurs, which was quite interesting.  The Internet
seems to be fostering a lot of startups in Japan.  Starting a new
business is harder there, too.  It's not as well supported in their
culture and their economy.  But the folks I met were clearly talented,
capable people.  I'll count myself lucky if I'm able to maintain
professional relationships with a few of them.  

        The business creation expo which was also taking place in the
convention center featured an exhibition hall with booths representing
all kinds of local businesses, high tech and low.  One of the coolest
things was a 3-D printer, a phone-booth sized thing which produced small
freestanding figures by some sophisticated extrusion process driven by
CAD software.  Another company had a large cabinet which cooked large
numbers of coddled eggs at once.  ("Coddled" is the stage of cooking
whole eggs which is closest to raw; warmed and only slightly thickened. 
I learned this first hand when they served one up to me in a little cup
with a dash of soy sauce.)  

        Oh, and a woman approached me in the aisle and asked me to take a free
sample package of natto. I didn't understand what she was saying, but I
understood "natto", a food product with a reputation.  Natto is a dark,
viscous fermented soybean paste which tastes really nasty to almost
everyone, even most Japanese.  However, some Japanese folks love it; I
think it's a regional thing.  Natto-lovers are regarded by other
Japanese along the same lines as we Westerners regard folks who like
anchovies on their pizza, only more so.  It's a mark of distinction,
let's say.  It was important to this woman that I receive her natto, and
I was honored to accept it.  I still have the natto.  If you want a
taste, I'll be glad to share it with you.  

        It's another foodstuff for which Koriyama will forever remain dear to
me, however.  For it was there that I discovered the wonderful Hiroshima
fuu okonomi yakisoba (Hiroshima style as-you-like fried noodles). 
Something you can't get over here.  This was by sheer luck on my part: 
finding myself on my own for dinner in Koriyama, and wanting not to get
terribly lost there, I set out walking from the hotel, blocks down the
same street.  I passed udon/soba places, and a fugu (blowfish sashimi)
restaurant, and other spots that looked inviting but a little crowded. 
I was feeling a bit intimidated, actually.  So walking along I glanced
through one door and saw noodles frying, and I knew that I had found the
place.  I sucked up my courage and went inside.  

        It was similar to a lot of smallish Japanese restaurants in that it 
had
a narrow counter with stools -- like a sushi bar, in fact.  Except
instead of coolers and cutting boards, the counter was wrapped along two
sides of a large steel griddle, the sort they have in a Japanese steak
house here.  Which is fabulous, because you get to watch them cook your
food.  Now I didn't speak but a teeny bit of Japanese, and the cook
spoke just an itsy bit of English, but with that narrow linguistic
bridge between us, and with the initial help of another customer, we
were able to get along quite well.  One of the first things I learned
about this noodle dish was that it was "Japanese pizza".  This seemed
odd at first, but it makes sense.  I'll explain.  It's a fascinating
process to watch.  

        First he put a little oil on the griddle and poured out a spoonful of
batter which he smoothed out into a thin pancake.  Then he set out a
couple of strips of uncured bacon to cook next to the pancake.  After a
moment, a clump of sliced cabbage, bean sprouts and some other stuff
goes on top of the bacon.  Then he deftly flips the pancake on top of
the cabbage pile and lets it steam.  On another spot of the grill,
properly greased, he dropped some sort of ... well, I don't know for
sure what it was, but I think it was octopus.  After whatever-it-is
cooks for a while, he took out a pan of cooked noodles and put a clump
of noodles on top of that.  By this point, the cook and I have
established some common ground of understanding, facilitated by the fact
that he's a fan of NBA basketball.  So he doesn't know where Chapel Hill
is, but I've communicated that I live near the Hornets.  Later, I think
I was able to explain where Michael Jordan went to college.  

        So at this point we have a clump of cabbage cooking with pork
underneath it, and a clump of noodles with those lumps of something
underneath it, both about the same size.  For the last ingredient, he
broke an egg onto the griddle and smoothed that out flat just like the
pancake.  After a little more preparation -- tossing around the noodles
some, cutting up the bacon, and then putting the noodles on top of the
egg, the whole mess was assembled into one compact dish, with the
bacon-cabbage-pancake pile going on top of the noodle-stuff-egg pile,
and then flipping the whole thing again onto a plate so that the egg was
now on top and the pancake on the bottom.  As a finishing touch the egg
was brushed with some kind of spicy/savory dark sauce.  And the result,
my friends, was a real treat, a culinary delight. 

        The resemblance to pizza lies not so much in the substance of the 
food,
but rather in its place in the culture -- its a quick savory food which
you can choose with a number of different "toppings" which get mixed in
with the noodles, which goes well with beer and which you can eat in the
restaurant or phone in and have delivered.  I know this because I went
back to the same place the next night with my mates and had the same
thing again in different permutations.  Yum!  The second night the cook,
who is now my good friend, also served me up the biggest oyster I've
ever seen on the half shell with dipping sauce -- yes I ate it whole --
and the tastiest little flatfish fried up on the famous grill.  I've had
few meals more memorable than these.  

        Some other time, I'll have to tell you about yakitori.  

Tom