The Japanese are famous for being polite. As a foreigner, you’ll get some leeway in terms of cultural norms, but the more respectful you can be of their culture, the better. The younger generations also place less importance on this and will sometimes be very familiar right away, but until you know, it’s always better to be too polite than accidentally rude. The Japanese language itself has an entire system of forms to deal with levels of politeness — in-group vs. out-group, age and seniority, humble, honorific, and on and on — but as someone who doesn’t speak much or any Japanese, it’s fine to just keep the non-linguistic stuff in mind.

Here’s an overview of a few major aspects of politeness in Japan.

Bowing

I remember the drama back in 2009 over Obama bowing to Emperor Akihito on his visit to Japan. Critics said that it was a sign of deference and subservience — but anyone familiar with Japanese customs knew that he was just giving a standard, traditional sign of respect. It’s not every day you need to bow as low as Obama did, but it’s not every day you meet the Emperor.

The proper way to bow is to keep your hands at your side and bend at the waist — or, if it’s a more casual situation, just the head. As a foreigner in Japan, the times you will probably be bowing are when you meet a Japanese person for the first time or are thanking them. You might also be bowing if you have to apologize or excuse yourself for something, or if you exchange business cards (see below).

Shoes

Shoes come off in people’s homes, temples, some restaurants and shops, and anywhere else there are tatami mats or a raised floor. It will usually be fairly obvious where to put them, and house slippers may or may not be provided. In Japanese homes, there are often multiple pairs of slippers for different parts of the house — so you may need to swap the regular ones for the toilet slippers when using the bathroom. Be sure to wear nice, hole-free socks! (And on a related note, wear warm socks if you’re visiting temples in the colder months or up in the mountains; those floors can be cold, and portions of the temple may be open to the elements. You’ll thank me if it happens.)

Nodding

Thanks to three years of Japanese class and three months in Japan, I now nod constantly when people are talking. I have this reflex because in Japan, if you don’t nod during conversation — injecting Aa, sou desu ka after every new piece of information — the person you’re talking to may think you’re bored, angry, or just confused. Sou desu ka (which is pronounced “SOHH dess kah” and means “Oh, is that right?” or “Ah, I see”) is one of the single most useful phrases to know in Japanese. If you listen for it, you’ll hear it over the place. Also related is Sou desu ne (“SOHH dess neh”), which is used when the information is something that you already know — the exact meaning is hard to translate, but it boils down to “That’s so, isn’t it” or “Yes, that’s right.” (Internetspeak actually has the closest equivalent: inorite?!)

Business cards

Business cards, or meishi, are huge in Japan. Everyone has one, whether you’re a company man, a ramen chef, or a broke student. If someone gives you their business card, take it with both hands, give a small bow as you receive it, and be conspicuous about reading over the whole thing as a sign of respect. If you don’t have a business card holder, which you can pick up for ¥100 at an office store or train station kiosk, use your breast pocket or your wallet — as long as your wallet is NOT in your pants. Never, ever put a business card in your pants pocket, especially the back pocket. This is very disrespectful, since you’re effectively sitting on the person you’ve just met.

If you have a business card of your own to hand out, it’s the same thing in reverse: present it by the corners with both hands, oriented so that the recipient can read it, and give a little bow as you do.

Photo by Bethany Weeks

Police

Police officers are generally very friendly in Japan and are used to giving directions to foreigners and natives alike — that’s part of the reason there are little police boxes, or koban, all over Tokyo. But if you ever get stopped by an officer, take pains to be extremely polite and cooperative. It is legal for them to stop anyone and ask for identification, so be sure to have your passport and/or alien registration card on you at absolutely all times, and be particularly prepared to be questioned if you’re riding a bike. Bicycle ownership is a tip-off that you’re staying long-term, and pedaling gaijin will very often be stopped for visa checks and proof of ownership of their bike. If you speak Japanese, be very clear about how little you speak, or the officers may assume you know more than you do and say things you don’t understand (or believe that you’re being intentionally uncooperative).

A Final Note: Indirectness

One thing you might or might not notice is that when it comes to saying no or delivering unpleasant news, people in Japan can beat around the bush like nobody’s business, putting even my home state’s policy of “Minnesota nice” to shame. People will very often be extremely nice to you even if they don’t like you or you’ve done something to offend them, although there are clues that indicate if you’re looking at fake or real niceness. Try not to be too cynical, though, since a lot is genuine — if you ask someone for directions, for example, they will very often walk you all the way to your destination.

People will also try every expression possible before giving you an outright “No.” When I was living in Tokyo, I went to the visa office to ask whether a part-time job I had been offered would qualify me for a work visa. The government official told me, “Well, in most cases, you need to be working more hours per week in order to qualify for a visa, so it might be difficult.” Difficult? I asked him. Or impossible? He looked very uncomfortable before admitting that I absolutely would not be able to get the visa.

When in doubt, use common sense and don’t do anything that could be taken the wrong way. It will generally be assumed that as a gaijin you don’t know any better and that you’re not being rude on purpose — but why not go in with some grasp on how to do things?

“Japan” has come to mean “weird” for a lot of people, especially when it comes to fashion. It’s true that you’ll see a lot of things there that you’d never see in other places, but it’s not the case that extreme fashions are the norm — in fact, Japan values homogeneity, so standing out in the ways that youth in Tokyo do is even more of a statement there. Still, you can get away with some things that you just couldn’t in, say, New York.

So remember that like any other major metropolis, Tokyo has droves of impeccably-dressed citizens as well as plenty of average joes. That said, here are some of the less conventional styles you might encounter there.

Lolita

Photo by kiyoshi.be

The Lolita clothing trends, inspired by Nabokov’s classic novel, center around ruffled, frilly, Victorian-English-inspired outfits. “Loli” girls are also fond of babydoll curls, tiny top hats, bonnets, parasols, and platform shoes. Classic Lolita is truer to history and more toned down than other versions it spawned; “sweet Lolita” is the girlier incarnation, usually presenting itself in white and pink and innocent, doll-like dresses (see photo). Gothic Lolita is, surprise surprise, the mildly goth version. These are the most common versions, but you could also come across punk, “gore,” sailor, and a whole host of other takes on this style. It’s been around for decades and is still going strong, lately going mainstream enough to appear in department stores — I’ve even noticed it making its way to the States, a trend probably helped by the growing popularity of steampunk and Victoriana.

Lolita is directly related to Japan’s obsession with cuteness, something which is — and probably will be — an entry in and of itself.

Gyaru

Photo by 3chopsticks

Gyaru (“gal”) refers to a wide range of exaggerated girly styles, usually involving a whole lot of fake — hair, nails, contacts, make-up, etc.

Gyaru is often used interchangeably with ganguro, probably the most common subset and one of the more unsettling Japanese fashions. It literally means “black face,” its hallmarks being extremely tanned skin, blond hair, and exaggerated make-up. Ganguro girls also usually go heavy on the bangle bracelets and big earrings. Related styles are yamanba and manba, which both use even darker tans, white eye make-up, and more extreme neon clothing — but subscribers to these trends are adamant about being two separate styles. Although in many cases ganguro is actually emulating black culture, in ways that border or cross the line into racism, it also takes inspiration from the classic “California girl” look. Nowadays, tourists might be forgiven for thinking that some of these girls are just fans of Jersey Shore.

Gyaru and its subcultures hit their peak popularity in the early 2000′s, but you will still see plenty of over-tanned Japanese girls walking around.

Visual Kei

Photo by Lawliet Tsuki

In Japan, glam rock never really died. Visual kei is both a genre of music and a fashion style, with the visual aesthetic falling somewhere between David Bowie and Marilyn Manson. It’s actually been around since the ’80s, so it’s a little newer than glam rock, but that still makes it over two decades old. A few examples of visual kei bands are X Japan (one of the originals), Glay, Dir En Gray, and Malice Mizer. The musical style can range from metal to rock to punk to borderline emo, but the main thing that puts a band in this category is their look.

Bishōnen

This style also hearkens back to glam rock, being that bishōnen — pretty boys — are glamorous, androgynous, and … well, pretty. The concept of bishōnen is a lot older than that, though, and has roots in kabuki and even medieval court culture. Their hair is immaculately coiffed, usually requiring a heavy amount of gel, and is often dyed. They’re not afraid of makeup or tight clothing. Bishōnen technically refers to teenage boys, but since it’s a lot better known than counterpart terms like biseinen (of-age pretty boys), it’s become something of a blanket term.

If you ever see a 20-something guy with bishōnen-style hair but dressed in a suit, there’s a good chance he’s a budding yakuza member. They’re often given the job of standing watch at the entrances of “massage parlors” while their bosses relax inside, so you’ll often see them loitering around Kabukichō in Shinjuku.

Cosplay

Photo by Anna Fischer

Cosplay, for the uninitiated, is a portmanteau of “costume play” and refers to dressing up as an anime, manga, or video game character (or, by some definitions, any character at all). It’s more than a Halloween costume but not usually a daily style — attendees of anime conventions will spend months making elaborate costumes to wear to the events, and many devoted fans create them specifically for dedicated photo shoots. (Spending 30 seconds in the cosplay section on deviantART shows just how many.) You will, however, see cosplayers out and about, more often posing and showing off their outfits than just going about their lives. A surefire place to catch them is on Sundays in Harajuku, at the entrance to Yoyogi Park.

Rockabilly

Photo by Roberto Grassi (via flickr)

In addition to the cosplayers, Yoyogi is also home to a group of guys in leather jackets with greased Elvis hair dancing around to ’50s music. Why? Who knows. But rockabilly has made a comeback in Japan, if only as a fringe fad, and the Yoyogi Rockabilly Club is alive and well.

Links

• Japanese Streets: FASHION JAPAN
• Harajuku Style
• Ganguro: The Hip-Hop Impact on Japanese Culture

Photo by brody4

Here’s another quick and easy meal my boyfriend and I cooked up while we were living in Tokyo. We were out of rice and feeling too lazy to spend the time on a more involved pasta sauce, so he suggested we do an olive oil base instead.

Pasta Aioli

Prep time: About 10 minutes
Cooking time: About 10 minutes
Serves: 2-3 people

We picked from the ingredients we had on hand, but there are all sorts of things you could put in this — olives would’ve been a really good addition.

-200-300g spaghetti
-1 medium tomato, diced
-1 cucumber, halved lengthwise and cut into half circles
-4 scallions, finely chopped
-Small handful of mushrooms (we used buna-shimeji again)
-1 egg
-About 4 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced (we used more because we love garlic, and because ours wasn’t very potent)
-2 tbsp. milk
-Olive oil
-Black pepper, parsley (dried), basil (dried)

The sauce won’t take very long to cook, so you can start heating the water for the pasta while you’re making it and throw in the dry noodles whenever the water boils.

For the sauce: heat a little bit of olive oil in a skillet, add the garlic and cook until fragrant, then add the scallions and tomatoes. In a separate glass or bowl, combine the egg and a generous amount of olive oil and beat with fork or whisk until completely blended. Add to the skillet with the seasonings and cook on lowered heat for about five minutes. (The heat needs to be low enough that the egg stays blended and doesn’t “cook itself out” of the oil.) Add the mushrooms and and milk, cook for a few more minutes, and you’re done!

Photo by Ken Lee

Since this blog is continuing to get a decent amount of traffic and I haven’t found a replacement correspondent, I decided to start a series of non-food-related posts on getting by in Japan. I’ll be trying to cover a range of topics that might be handy to gaijin (foreigners) who might not know the ins and outs of Japanese culture and would rather not make complete fools of themselves. I’ll be starting with ofuro, Japanese communal baths, since even as someone well-schooled in a lot of cultural areas, I wasn’t all that familiar with the specifics of ofuro myself. Most of what follows applies to onsen etiquette as well. If you have any suggestions or requests for future topics, feel free to leave them in the comments!

The word ofuro literally just means “bath,” but it’s used a shorthand for “public baths,” which is what I’m talking about here.

The How-To

If you’re staying in a hotel, guest house, or temple, they will almost certainly have yukata (light kimono or robes) and slippers for you. Unless it’s an upscale or determinedly Western-style hotel, it’s perfectly acceptable to put on just these to head to the ofuro — in fact, it’s the thing to do.  If you’re given both a yukata and a heavier robe, which was the case when I stayed at a temple up in the mountains where the walk to the baths was a little chilly, tie your obi (sash) around the outside of both. The only other thing you might want to bring to the baths is a comb or brush, if you’ll want to straighten up your hair afterwards. Many places have hairdriers in the bath area for you to use.

When you reach the ofuro, the first room you enter will generally have baskets or cubbies for your robes; there will also probably be towels here if they weren’t provided in your room. (This is also usually where the sink and mirror will be for straightening up afterwards.) Strip down to your birthday suit, leave your towel with your yukata, and head on in to the next room, which will either be just the showers or both the showers and the actual tub(s). And when I say “showers,” what I generally mean is a low faucet or shower head with a bucket and, usually, some shampoo and conditioner.  There are a million different types of shower faucets and some can be a little confusing to use, but if you have trouble, just ask someone. You can say, “Sumimasen ga, dou tsukaimasu ka?” which means, “Excuse me, but how do I use this?” Clean up thoroughly before you hop into the bath.

Be warned that ofuro are generally much hotter than even Western hot tubs — so you’ll probably want to test the water first. Many people will run a washcloth or small towel under cool water to put around their necks or on top of their heads while they soak. When you’re done, you can rinse off in the showers again if you want to cool down, but it’s not necessary. Head out to where your towel and robe are, dry off, and head back!

Cultural Considerations

Ofuro and onsen (public hot spring baths) are common and popular in Japan, so don’t worry about getting naked in front of strangers — they’re used to it. People are often very friendly; both my boyfriend and I have had the experience of being chatted up by someone else in the bath. I’ve heard rumors of some cases where gaijin were stared at a bit as a curiosity, but never encountered it myself or even heard about any incidents from any of my American friends who have traveled in Japan. One thing to be aware of, though, is that you may not be allowed in a public bath if you have tattoos. Hygiene issues aside, tattoos in Japan are still restricted largely to members of the yakuza, so they’re looked on rather unfavorably on the whole. You may get more leeway as a gaijin, but if you have conspicuous tattoos you should still be prepared for being eyeballed and possibly turned away. Bath houses — that is, purpose-built ofuro not in hotels and temples — will generally, but not always, make their tattoo policies clear.

The method of getting clean before getting into the bath is the same in Japanese homes, just as it was in the U.S. when hot water was more of a precious commodity, and just as it still is in many parts of Europe. The idea is that you can do your soaking in clean water, plus other members of the household can it after you so as not to waste it. Tubs in a Japanese apartments and homes are generally much shorter but much deeper than Western tubs, meaning you don’t lie down but can be submerged up to your neck.

It’s a great way to unwind after a long day, especially if you’re a tourist who’s been walking around a lot, so don’t shy away!

I recently happened across this page on Facebook — a Tokyo woman named Izumi Shoji has blogs in both English and Japanese and they seem to have some wonderful (and beautifully-photographed) recipes. In addition, it looks as though she’s published books as well as appeared on at least one cooking program.

Take a look!

• Facebook fan page
• English blog
• Japanese blog

The Minneapolis-St. Paul area has  a surprisingly large Japanese population — especially if you count not only the true transplants but all of the students who are studying internationally as part of the University of Minnesota’s partnership with Hiroshima Daigaku. As such, there are quite a few Japanese restaurants here; I’ll mention a few.

Although the most commonly-recommended Japanese restaurant in the Twin Cities is probably Fuji-ya — and I’ll get there next — my favorite would have to be Obento-ya, a tiny little place tucked away in a less-than-glamorous area near Van Cleve Park. Even though it’s right near a head shop as well as some prime examples of urban decay, Obento-ya itself has an attractive, modern premises and a patio out back that will make you forget the neighborhood. (And let’s not get carried away here; I lived in this area during college and it may not be downtown, but you don’t need to bring your mace.) Getting down to business: expect to be greeted by the Japanese half of the staff with a chorus of “Irasshaimase!” and given complimentary tea while you decide on your meal. The prices have gone up a few bucks since they first opened, but it’s still pretty reasonable and very tasty. It’s worth noting that their miso is dashi-based — and that their tofu robata comes with bonito flakes on top.

Obento-ya
1510 Como Ave. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55414

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Fuji-ya is probably the area’s best-known Japanese restaurant, with one location in Minneapolis and another in downtown St. Paul. They have a couple of vegetarian maki rolls, but for entrées your choices are essentially the tempura or the vegetarian bento — both of which I’ve had and can recommend. (The latter is pictured above and according to the photographer, it can be made vegan on request.) If you don’t mind dashi, they also have tempura or sautéed vegetable udon and soba. For dessert, I can never resist the tempura-fried cheesecake. Fuji-ya also has zashiki rooms available for larger groups.

Fuji-ya Minneapolis
600 West Lake St.
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Fuji-ya St. Paul
465 Wabasha St. North
St. Paul, MN 55102

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Located on St. Anthony Main, Kikugawa wins points for location; their solarium-like porch is great in summer and winter, with a view of the river and the occasional horse-drawn carriage. They have a fairly large menu, with the usual for vegetarian options. (Their tempura is a little heavy, but tasty.) They have also added shabu shabu, which I intend to try the next time I’m there. Like Fuji-ya, Kikugawa also has zashiki rooms available.

Kikugawa at Riverplace
43 Main St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55414

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Tanpopo (the name means “dandelion”) has a somewhat limited menu, but it’s worth a mention. Their offerings consist of dashi-broth noodles and various vegetarian/vegan teishoku, the latter including agedashi-dofu and cold tofu options. The location, right off the downtown farmers’ market, is pleasant, if a little trendy. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve only been there once and it was a couple of years ago, but it consistently gets good recommendations.

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• Obento-ya: http://www.obento-ya.com
• Fuji-ya: http://www.fujiyasushi.com
• Kikugawa: http://www.kikugawa-restaurant.com
• Tanpopo: http://tanpoporestaurant.com

Not having found any local correspondents to replace me for new reports from Japan, this blog has sat dormant for a while now. I can’t give any new firsthand reviews of Tokyo restaurants, but I can report on Japanese restaurants here in the States. First stop: Denver.

By far, the best Japanese restaurant I’ve found for vegetarians here is Sushi Den, which is arguably Denver’s best Japanese restaurant period. The Kizaki brothers, Yasu and Toshi, serve up delicious food with fish selected by brother #3, Koichi — who is back in Japan and ships the goods in daily after his 4am trip to the fish market. For non-pescatarians, like me, Sushi Den has the best vegetarian sushi platter I’ve ever had. The maki are varied and delicious and the set even includes “sashimi” made from grilled eggplant and mushroom.  I’ve also heard their shiitake salad is amazing, and there are plenty of other veggie options: tempura, sautéed eggplant, “tofu steak,” and more. The place is always popular, so make reservations or expect a wait; though if you do have to wait, you can always pass the time by wandering up charming Pearl Street.

Sushi Den
1487 South Pearl Street
Denver, CO 80210

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Dōmo, on the other hand, is the place to go for country-style Japanese cooking. Named by Zagat’s both in top Japanese restaurants in the country and in best décor — the location incorporates a traditional garden (see the photo at top), not to mention an aikido school — it’s the other name you’re bound to hear right away when you ask about Japanese food here. Being more traditional than trendy Sushi Den, there’s less for vegetarians on their dinner menu, though lunchtime gives you a few more options. The lunch menu includes a little “Dishes Without Meats” [sic] section as well as build-your-own nabe.

Dōmo Restaurant
1365 Osage Street
Denver, CO 80204

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Finally, a special mention to Kiki’s, which is easily the most authentic casual Japanese restaurant I’ve found in the area. (Just looking at their website, which is peppered with Engrish and kana, you can tell the place is legit.) Most of the waitstaff are Japanese — the help-wanted sign posted when I was there it didn’t have a word of English on it — and the food tasted just like I remembered, including hands-down the best tempura I’ve ever had outside of Japan. Once again, not a vegetarian paradise, but we’re back in the States … if you want choices, you don’t have to eat Japanese.

Kiki’s Japanese Restaurant
2440 South Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80222

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• Sushi Den: http://www.sushiden.net
• Dōmo: http://www.domorestaurant.com
• Kiki’s: http://www.kikisjapaneserestaurant.com

If you’re wondering why the pace has slowed down around here, well, it’s because my time in Japan has come to an end. After three months and no job — no job that wouldn’t require me to stay for years, anyway — my tourist visa expired and I had to hop a plane back to the U.S. Not that sticking around for a few years wouldn’t be fun, but that would require making my relationship a long-distance relationship again, and we’ve both had quite enough of that.

So, how to sum up my vegetarian experience? … Well, it was definitely tough, as I knew it would be. It was especially hard because I was living with a non-vegetarian and because getting groceries in our neighborhood was hard. But I survived, and so can you. Here are a few important things to keep in mind if you’re a vegetarian traveling and/or living in Japan.

• If you don’t know what’s in it, assume it contains fish.
  I knew this well beforehand, but if you haven’t already heard, this is the rule. Potato chips, crackers, even ice cream can all contain fish products, not to mention the usuals like soup broth and sauces that are to be suspected no matter what country you’re in. (I found minestrone at the conbini. No fish, but it was made with beef broth.) So read labels — if you don’t know Japanese, check out this page for the translations of a few ingredients to watch out for — and don’t think that just because the menu or the waiter says a dish is “vegetarian” that it really is.
• Traveling/eating with other vegetarians makes things much easier.
  This is true everywhere, but in Japan, “vegetarian” often means “not Japanese food” — making a vegetarian diet much more restrictive on restaurant choices than in the U.S. While in the States you can usually find something to eat at any given eatery, even if it means resigning yourself to a side salad, in Tokyo you’re not even guaranteed that. Which brings me to my next point …
• Plan ahead.
  Wandering around hoping to find a place where you can eat could take you an hour, which feels like a particularly long time if you’re hungry (and even longer for an omnivorous significant other who could eat at any of those places you can’t). So research restaurants in advance. See the Restaurants section for a list of all the places I’ve written about in this blog or the Links page for other sites with information and recommendations.
• Money matters.
  Most veggie-friendly places are more expensive than the neighborhood noodle shop. This is generally either because it’s non-Japanese food or because it’s a specialty restaurant, one that specifically caters to vegetarians or macrobiotic dieters. The more money you can spare for meals, the more options you have.
• Eating in can be a challenge.
  When I lived in Paris (a city that likes to put ham in everything), I cooked for myself a lot. In Tokyo, space is at a premium and for a lot of folks, the “kitchen” consists of two hotplates and a mini-fridge. This means you have to make frequent trips to the market or grocery store, and home-cooked meals have to be simple. If you were a master of dorm-room cuisine in college, those skills may come in very handy in Japan.

My last bit of advice would be to try not to push yourself too much too early, especially if you’re staying for a while. I decided pretty early into my three months that being all right with dashi broth was a compromise I had to make, but I ended up eating one too many bowls of udon in a short time span, trying to be accommodating, and quickly found my limits. I could taste the fish in the broth, all the more so because the soups that didn’t have pieces of meat or fish in them didn’t contain much else (like kitsune udon: just noodles, fried tofu, and scallions). And because there wasn’t much to these dishes, not only was I eating something I didn’t want to eat in the first place, but I wasn’t even getting to be full for the effort.

For the record, it is possible to get by in Japan dashi-free, it’s just one more level of difficulty. Going into it, I never thought I would give in — I’ve been a strict vegetarian almost all my life — but allowing that small amount of fish extract in my food opened up a lot more options. I didn’t like it, but there were several times when it saved an enormous amount of trouble (like being able to stop for tempura-don at the restaurant halfway down the mountain from Jingo-ji temple on the outskirts of Kyoto) and it also helped ease the overall strain of trying to find somewhere to eat when we hadn’t planned ahead. But if you’re adamantly against it, don’t eat it, simple as that.

In any case, I have to say that it’s nice going back to not having to worry about food. Even though I was able to get by in Tokyo, I was always thinking about my next meal, and it got very stressful at times. If I ever end up living in Japan long-term, I’ll be sure to shell out for an apartment with something closer to a real kitchen! (And if I’m living in Japan, that probably means I’m working in Japan, in which case I could afford it — not to mention the pricier, more accommodating restaurants.) In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my wide selection of dining options, my Chipotle, and my real American pizza.

As for the blog, I’m going to try to keep on posting occasionally. If you have any suggestions for topics, or if you’d like to write a guest post or two — something that could turn into a regular gig for the right person — I’d love to hear from you! You can leave your contact information in the comments and I’ll get in touch with you, or you can try to catch me on Skype at mlle-madeleine.

Itadakimasu!

See also:
3 Common “Vegetarian” Menu Items (That Really Aren’t)

A year or so ago, my boyfriend told me how he avoids eating too much soy because it contains some sort of pseudo-estrogen that can be harmful to men. More off-putting, he said that raw soybeans can prevent your intestines from absorbing nutrients in food, and that in extreme cases, people have even died from it. I always wondered just how much of that was true — and what better excuse to figure it out than as research for a vegetarian blog?

Reading up on soybeans, it seems like everyone thinks they’re either poison or nature’s miracle food. As is usually the case, it seems that the truth lies somewhere in between. First, the good: soybeans do have plenty of health benefits. They’re a source of omega-3 fatty acids, which have been oh so trendy to talk about in diets lately — they’re good for preventing heart disease and lowering blood pressure. (There is also evidence that it helps with rheumatoid arthritis and even cancer.) They also contain “protein, isoflavones, and fiber, all thought to provide health benefits.” More than that, the protein in soybeans is much more complete than most other plant sources, and includes all essential amino acids.” (Source)

So what’s all this about them killing you? Let’s get to the bottom of a few major claims:

“Raw soybeans contain  enzyme inhibitors that prevent you from absorbing protein, so if you eat them in large amounts you can slowly starve to death.”
It’s true that uncooked soybeans contain an anti-enzyme that inhibits the ability of the small intestine to digest protein by counteracting trypsin. If you use soy as a main protein source, this isn’t what you want to hear. (Source) But you’d have to eat an awful lot of soy to starve yourself to death, and cooking destroys the trypsin blocker. Besides, who really eats raw soybeans? They taste awful and are hard to digest, just like a lot of uncooked legumes — which, surprise surprise, also contain toxins. Probably our bodies’ way of telling us, “Bad human. Cook first.”

“Even cooked, soybeans contain harmful phytates.”
There is definitely truth in this one. Raw soybeans contain phytic acid, “which binds and prevents mineral absorption (especially zinc, calcium, and magnesium),” putting people who depend heavily on soy at risk for mineral deficiencies. (Source) Cooking the beans gets rid of a lot of the phytates, but not all, which is why cultures with soy-heavy cuisine so often use fermentation. Most of the Japanese soy staples are fermented forms: tofu, soy sauce, nattō, miso. But you’ll notice that Japan is also known for edamame (which is just boiled and salted, not fermented) and they don’t seem to be dropping dead — in fact, they have the second-highest rate of centenarians in the world. It seems the key, again, is moderation. As long as you’re not living off of nothing but edamame, you should be fine.

“Soy contains ‘fake estrogen,’ so men should limit how much they eat.”
Soybeans contain a couple of compounds that mimic estrogen, which can have an impact on male fertility if eaten in large amounts. There’s still debate as to how big of an impact this is — some say it’s huge, whereas some sources claim that not only are the negative effects negligible, but that soybeans can reduce the chance of prostate cancer. (Source)

So … the verdict? As long as you don’t make a habit of munching  on raw soybeans, and as long as you don’t depend entirely on soy for your protein, you’re probably fine.

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Saturday was Roppongi Art Night and so we went to check out a few of the attractions, like the giant CO₂-sensitive inflatable robot and the exhibit devoted entirely to Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. While we were there, we decided to have dinner in the shopping complex, and stumbled across a veggie-friendly restaurant we’d somehow missed on our other visits: Yasaiya Mei. This was a splurge by our standards, though much more so because we ordered a few drinks with our meal. The basic vegetarian shabu-shabu pot is ¥2,800 a person, and prices go up from there.

Neither of us had tried shabu-shabu yet, so we were both interested to check it out. Normally it has meat in it, but this restaurant used more of an à la carte style where the basic dish was vegetable-only and you could add meat or fish if you wanted. (This could be a common set-up for all I know, but I have no basis of comparison.) More importantly, you can choose vegetarian wheat broth instead of the usual dashi (or, in Yasaiya Mei’s case, beef), and it was tasty even by the omnivore’s standards. Later, when we ordered rice, the server offered to douse it in the leftover broth — also tasty.

When we ordered, the server whisked away the table runner to reveal the cooktop underneath. She set the broth on it to heat, then brought us a glass bowl brimming with vegetables: lettuce, carrots, at least three kinds of mushrooms, onions, scallions, tall bean sprouts, and probably other things that I’m forgetting. There were also two discs floating in the broth which we were told were rice cakes, and that they’re best when left to cook for a while. The server got us started by loading all of the mushrooms into the pot, then ladling us each some broth and a leaf of lettuce that she’d dipped in just for a few seconds. The rest was up to us; we gradually added things depending on how long we wanted them to cook and served them into our bowls a little at a time. It was a good meal, if a little light (hence the rice afterward). We also ordered sakura-flavored sorbet for dessert, especially appropriate given all the blooming trees at the foot of Mori Tower.

Yasaiya Mei is a stylish little restaurant with friendly staff and an English menu. It’s located on the 5th floor of the Roppongi Hills shopping complex near the office entrance to Mori Tower, shop space #44.

Websites are only available in Japanese:
Official site
Roppongi Hills restaurant guide listing