Samurai Road Soy Sauce 1

                                           


                                 ‘I’ve never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t
                                  like eating fish. And I know that's very popular out there in
                                  Africa.’
                                                                                                 Britney Spears

The look in their eyes, when I told them I was going to Japan, fell somewhere between wonder and ‘I wonder.’ Which, after all, was where it had always been. Anthony Bourdain, the itinerant chef who had started his cooking career with a spoon and a Bic lighter, got it right. I think all of us understand that we don't understand anything about Japan.
Most remote islands of the imagination conjure up paradise. The principle product of the Nippon archipelago is puzzlement. Who are these people? How do they view themselves, and others? What makes them behave so well, and so badly? And why is Japan the weirdest place on Earth?
The shortest escalator anywhere is located in the basement of More’s Department store in Kawasaki. It has only five steps and is 32.8 inches high. Every spring, on the first Sunday in April, the loyal shoppers come off their stairs, to participate in Kanamara Matsuri. They carry the planet’s largest Day-Glo pink penis parade float, on its mikoshi divine portable palanquin, through crowded streets to the Kanayama-jinja, a local Shinto piston-venerating shrine, once popular with prostitutes praying for protection from sexually-transmitted diseases. The Festival of the Steel Phallus is a happy celebration by any measure, and the central theme is represented in carved vegetables, illustrations and decorations, and the lollipops and popsicles on the lips of a sea of uniformed giggling schoolgirls. The only parade in my hometown was held in honour of Santa Claus. I would have felt cheated, but for the folk legend behind his Japanese erection exaltation equivalent. A sharp-toothed demon had hidden inside the vagina of a young woman, and castrated two young men on their wedding nights. The young woman sought help from a blacksmith, who fashioned an iron phallus to break the demon's teeth, which led to the enshrinement of the item. Given a choice between a parade for a demonic tooth fairy or Saint Nick, Santa never gave me nightmares. (Besides, he had every reason to be jolly. He knew where all the nice and naughty girls lived).