Finding Rice
I was at the store recently to buy groceries. I was making some Japanese style curry for my friends, so one thing on the list of things to find was rice. Luckily when everything is in English the process of finding rice is extremely easy. You just find the sign that says rice and then pick one of the very clearly labeled boxes.
That process was a bit different for me in Japan.
Once I was in my apartment in Nagoya I needed to start stocking up. Luckily there was a Nafuko (super market brand) just a couple blocks away from me. So I set off to find, among other things, rice. I think I should remind everyone now that my ability to read Japanese is somewhere between ‘Look! Pretty squiggles!’ and ‘Hey look, none of those signs are in English!’ so shopping is a full contact mental sport for me.
It should also be noted that Nafuko is not a big store. The supplement/medicine/toiletries section of a decent sized Wal-Mart is not much smaller than this whole store. So finding things should be no problem, right? Wrong…
Some things are easy to find. Cleaning supplies look just the same as they probably do everywhere. Most toothpaste is even largely labeled in English. Sauces get a bit harder, all the bottles are the same size and shape as the ones in America; however, it gets harder when you realize almost all those soy and teriyaki sauces you love are the same color. But it is still hard to miss the large aisle of sauces. Rice was a bit harder for me…
Now in a place that not only eats a good bit of rice but has it as the basic part of nearly every recipe, it should be easy to find. You would imagine a large side of most stores would be one enormous wall of rice with big neon signs pointing to it. Instead I spent over an hour on my first trip looking for rice. I then simply gave up, finding rice actually beat me. It didn’t help that I was just as terrified of asking for help as the Japanese staff was that I might ask them.
I went back a couple of days later to renew my efforts. Rice would not beat me! After all, I had a college degree, was smart, and good looking; how could something this easy beat me?
Thus began round two in the epic battle of Chris Vs. The Rice
I spent another good 30 to 40 minutes in the store. This time though I was determined to check every package until I found what I was looking for. After all, now I had everything I needed for the next few days, so I could focus all my energy on finding the sacred ninja rice.
This time I did succeed. And it had less to do with it being ambiguously packaged and more to do with where it was. There was a rather large area dedicated to rice, much of it in 10 kg. and up bags, but it was placed directly next to the alcohol. Somehow my brain just didn’t put wine & spirits and rice together. After that I was finally able to use my handy rice maker and up my functionality at life by about 20%.
It was certainly a valuable lesson about living abroad, but next time I can’t find something I’m going to break down and ask everyone in sight for help. And next time you have trouble finding rice in Japan just remember this story and search high and wide near the nearest bottle of brandy!
[...] Darkside Dreamland wrote a fantastic post today on “Finding Rice”Here’s ONLY a quick extract bags, but it was placed directly next to the alcohol. Somehow my brain just didn t put wine spirits [...]