Thursday, November 20--The First Thanksgiving

If you think about it, there really is no reason for the Japanese people to even know about Thanksgiving, much less have an interest in celebrating it. It is, after all, a uniquely American holiday. However, the students at the JMSDF 2MSS are so eager to learn about American traditions and culture that each year the American instructors prepare a Thanksgiving feast for the school. Leading up to the big day, we spent several class sessions discussing the holiday, its origins, traditional foods, and contemporary customs. I was surprised to find out that my Japanese students already knew the first Thanksgiving lasted for three days (a fact that I didn’t know until I read it on one of the worksheets I used to give my third grade students), though they didn’t really understand who the Indians were. It boggled my mind that they had never eaten turkey (they don’t have turkeys in Japan), and you should have seen the looks of disgust on their faces when I tried to explain stuffing (cubes of soggy bread with celery, onions, and spices—even I had to admit the description was not very appetizing). We talked about why the holiday causes so much stress for some people (hours of cooking, forced contact with irritating family members) and is so anticipated by others (hours of pigging out, followed by hours of watching the pigskin move up and down the football field).

Today was the big feast, and I got to see firsthand what my face must look like when confronted with a table full of unfamiliar Japanese food and hosts urging me to try everything. The students eyed the tables piled with all kinds of Thanksgiving dishes with curiosity and trepidation as each instructor explained the dish he or she had prepared. There were, of course, the traditional favorites--turkey (two, actually—one pre-carved for convenience, and one whole for a carving demonstration), stuffing, mashed potatoes (we had to demonstrate how to make a well for the gravy), gravy (or gravy sauce as the Japanese call it), and sweet potatoes. We also provided rolls, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and corn (the Japanese LOVE corn, and we figured if we brought that, at least there’d be something they liked). After introducing all the foods, we urged the students to dig in. Apparently, we should have explained the concept of a buffet line, because with only one or two exceptions, each student took a plate, took a serving of a single food, then stood right there and ate it before moving on to the next dish. Only a couple people loaded their plates and moved to the side to eat. The favorite foods turned out to be the turkey, the mashed potatoes, and the cranberry sauce.

Dessert also proved interesting. It seems that the Japanese are not big dessert eaters, and when they do, their desserts are not as sweet as ours. They were okay with the pumpkin pie, but you would have thought we were trying to poison them with the pecan pie and the Oreo cheesecakes! Sugar overload, I guess. The students were quite intrigued by the whipped cream in a can—keep in mind that most of them are playful guys in their twenties or early thirties, and the fascination will be understandable. Instructors had to step in a couple of times to retrieve the weapons when a whipped cream war seemed imminent.

All in all, I’d say the big meal was a success. Unfortunately, the students had a full class schedule in the afternoon, so we had to warn them to fight the effects of the tryptophan in the turkey they had just consumed. A group of students asked me later what tryptophan was, why it made you sleepy, and where you could buy it. They were extremely disappointed when I told them you couldn’t buy it, so I can only assume that as a practical joke they were plotting to spike someone’s food and induce a long nap!