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July 24, 2005
diary of a sushi helper (1)
It was a very slow night. These bright summer evenings make people late for dinner, which means we work overtime no matter how slow it is -- there're always those people coming at 9:50 pm wanting a meal.
Mr. H (a regular customer who always orders a spicy tuna and Broadway rolls) was his usual self again, waiting for us when we got to work at 5pm. Either the notion doctors are always busy is wrong, or he spends every spare bit of time he's got with us.
Later, I served a very young couple of international origins (I think the guy was from Taiwan, and the girl looked very Northwestern with very dark hair, heavy, dark makeup. Doesn't it get rather hot under the sun, goth girls?).
The couple (around 18, or 20?) was very adult-like and doing everything proper. The amount of knowledge in things Japanese, particularly related to sushi, that Seattleites have astounds me to no end.
Things got rather interesting after the meal, however. The Taiwanese dude, after polishing his yakisoba, pointing at the Japanese menu hung over their head, said "doesn't that say a monster?" The girl looked totally embarrassed and clearly didn't want him to make this blunder. He was persistent, though, and as I couldn't see what he was pointing at, I went around the bar to see. The sign said "Kappamaki."
Of course. If you were really into Japanese etymology, you'd have already known that kappamaki comes from kappa. Kappa is a mythical creature that appears in Japanese folk-tales (it also appears in Monkey! TV series, which is a Japanese adaptation of the Chinese "Journey to the West" story). Apparently, the monster's favorite vegetable is cucumber.
When I told the kid this, he was jubilant, and put his ricebowl on his head to mimic the monster he named correctly (kappa, a water monster, has a saucer on his head to keep his head moist when over-ground). This annoyed his already reddening date a lot, and in her rage she knocked the bowl off his head. It still had some rice in it, unfortunately, and both kids were covered in rice as a result. Very amusing, and juvenile; I was actually relieved though to see that the kids can still act stupid.
Posted by Akira at July 24, 2005 2:30 PM
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