What's that in my soup?
I WAS in Japanrecently when the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fell, but I faced a diplomatic crisis of my own that required at least as much subtlety and tact.
We were staying in a traditional Japanese ryokan in Amanohashidate, a famous resort on Miazu Bay, hoping to burn off jet lag with ofuro (Japanese baths), futons, and feather duvets. That first evening we were treated to a kaiseki dinner in our room - course after course of enticing morsels, each artfully arranged on exquisite Japanese lacquerware, or ceramic, and served with precise, elegant choreography by the lovely Megumi.
Each time Megumi presented a new offering, she would describe it in impenetrable Japanese and then, if she knew the English word, pronounce that with pride. We gamely tried everything. Sea urchin! Pickled lotus root! Octopus! Molded cubes of kelp! Most of the obscure, fishy, gelatinous stuff was strangely delicious, and we laughed at the bragging rights we would be bringing home. But then Megumi slid open the shoji screen door and rustled in with the soup course. Kujira, she said, bowing deeply as she set the covered bowl before me. Wehru.
Whale! My chopsticks froze.
I am not a card-carrying member of Greenpeace, but saving the whales is axiomatic, and I was appalled to see the small ribbon of flesh floating in the special-for-honored-guests miso soup. Megumi kneeled close by, smiling expectantly. What to do?
As I saw it, my options were three. I could:
1) refuse the soup and express my outrage at the practice of whale hunting, thus sending an important message but creating severe embarrassment for my hosts, which is greatly to be avoided in Japan.
2) silently decline the dish and in a tiny way reduce demand for whale meat, but still risk a misunderstanding with the solicitous Megumi and a return to my first option.
3) take one polite nibble and then write a big check to the International Fund for Animal Welfare when I got home.
It may seem easy to choose from 12,000 miles away, but up close it was complicated by Japan's highly refined culture - a precise, elaborate order, supported by an arsenal of rules and customs it is all too easy for the ugly American to violate. I had already shattered my share of taboos. I remembered to take my shoes off inside the ryokan, but forgot to face them in the proper direction, toes pointing out. (Or maybe I was supposed to let the hovering staff do that?) I wore my slippers indoors but allowed a toe to touch the edge of the fragile tatami mat inside the room. I walked barefoot on the mat but then I forgot to put on the special "bathroom slippers" in the toiretto. (This last mistake, at least, went unobserved by the ubiquitous staff - I think.)
Keeping track of all the social requirements is exhausting, aggravated by jet lag and the language barrier. But the gracious, generous Japanese people and the charms of their formal, civil, and safe society make you want to learn the rules. So you pay attention to the way you close your yukata robe - left over right so as not to recall the way the dead are wrapped - and you take care not to leave your chopsticks sticking out of the rice.
Most of our Japanese friends over 30 remember when whale meat was served in school lunchrooms. It was actually American occupation forces who first promoted the widespread practice of eating whale when the Japanese were starving after World War II. But whaling has been banned under international conventions since 1986, except for small subsistence catches by aboriginal tribes and "research" whaling by Iceland and Japan.
A review of the Japanese program at the 2007 meeting of the International Whaling Commission estimated that nearly 800 minke whale and much smaller numbers of sperm and fin whales were taken last year. But the IWC's own rules require that none of the whales killed in the research be wasted, which creates a loophole that justifies Japanese consumption and suggests that the question being "researched" is: How would this taste with ketchup?
For its part, Japan bristles at the West's opprobrium, saying many of its coastal communities are themselves at risk of extinction because of restrictions on their traditional economy.
That's the disorienting power of culture clash - as soon as you start to think American influence is everywhere, you slam up against something really foreign, like what other people think is appropriate for dinner. Be a courteous guest or create an incident? I guess I think that traveling well requires us to suspend our expectations and to give over to the world's myriad ways of living a life. So break out the checkbook. My hosts served me whale and (gulp) I ate it.
Renée Loth is editorial page editor of the Globe. 