Day 3 - Tsukiji Fish Market, then Talk at Sophia University

We were all set for a dawn visit to the Tsukiji Fish Market, which does over a million yen in trade of fish each day. The auctions begin early, and I had high hopes of getting there in time to see hundreds of thousands of fish, lined up and ready to be sold. But at 5 am, all dressed to go, Sofia had a little meltdown, so we let her go back to sleep and waited until 8 or so to leave. We were set for a sushi breakfast. A few train and subway stops later, we arrived at the fish market. Most of the action had ended but there were fork lifts zipping around and lines at various sushi joints. We picked the one with the longest line and waited an hour to get to another tiny counter where we let the sushi chefs serve us the catches of the day in the form of nigiri - raw fish slabs on a tiny bed of rice. Everything was quite tasty and worth the wait, particularly the fattiest cuts of tuna, which are prized. Others we sampled included yellowtail, eel, and sea urchin, but I mostly did not know what we were eating. I also liked the way they spread a layer of horseradish between the rice and fish. Sofia liked the miso soup and the green tea but isn't a big fan yet of sushi.

That afternoon, I was particularly excited to meet up with anthropologist David Slater at Sophia University, where I was to give a talk to a group of about 50 Japanese students who attend this Jesuit, English-language university. On Monday afternoon we headed over to Shinjuku, then took the Chuo line to Yatsuya, where we met him in a Godiva store in a shopping center above the metro. He walked us to his office and got Sofia set up with some coloring books while we prepared for my talk.

I addressed the students about women, identity, and public space in Morocco, and for the most part they seemed interested. They talked to me a bit about similar issues they face in Japan - harassment (groping on trains is apparently a big problem), respect, careers, and societal expectations for marriage. It was really great to see what a typical class at this university looked like, and many of the students, though born in Japan, are native English speakers and have some sort of hybrid Japanese identity (one parent of a different nationality, for example). One student talked after class about an ethnography she's doing with a bar hostess, and I learned the interesting fact that bar hostess is a position to which a large majority of elementary school-aged girls aspire to, according to polls taken in Tokyo. The bar hostesses are also unioninzing, in an era in which Japanese unions are generally dying out and losing much of their power.

I learned more intriguing facts about Japanese culture, as well as what it's like to be a foreigner working and living in Japan, over dinner. David took us to Roppongi Hills, which was beautiful - a newly created arts district with a funky little neighborhood leading up to it. Beautiful architecture, and the best groomed dogs I have ever seen in my life. We had an amazing dinner at a Chinese restaurant - Peking duck and multiple tasty side dishes, including a sweet eggplant dish that reminded me of something I had in China. It all reminded me of food I tried in China, and there's very little resemblance to the strip mall Chinese food we end up getting at home in the US. David has lived in Japan off and on for twenty years, and has been at his current job for fourteen, so he knows the language and culture quite well. He was so hospitable, and so interesting to talk to, and I was only sorry that Sofia had yet another jetlag meltdown and we had to cut the night short. He put us in a taxi back to our hotel and she was asleep even before the taxi pulled away.