Just saw on TV a programme featuring Japan. In one of the segments, they feature tourists catching fish for their own lunch at Tokyo Bay. The fish are trapped by a huge cage-like net and during low tide, they would go into the cage and net the fish. It was cool! They caught sea bream and tiger prawns and squid.
Then the fishermen would prepare the lunch and all of them gather together in the rickety small fishboats and had lunch en mass at some makeshift tables and benches. It was so simple and un-luxurious and so, un-Japanese.
In another segment, the host asked to see the wrinkled hands of a chef at a small seaside inn and he asked him how long he has been a fisherman and chef. The chef replied: 60 years, since he came back from the war when he was 20--they're used to hard work.
The host said: now those hands make such exquisite food.
I guess that scene was supposed to be respectful of the aged chef, but for a non-Japanese like me, that was quite disturbing and uncomfortable. The logical question that should come to the viewer's mind would be: did he ever kill anyone, or perform some atrocities with those pair of hands during the world war? After that, would you still be able to stomach the sashimi that he made, in spite of the fact that they look delicious even to someone like me, who's repulsed by raw food?
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