In the latest issue of a leading Japanese organic food magazine, readers learn how to bring up children to select the freshest vegetables and discover the health virtues of avocados, cauliflowers and chrysanthemums — and there is a feature extolling ”organic” whale meat.
So goes the paradox of food culture in Japan, a country that destroys crops with even a trace of genetic modification but brazenly defies much of world opinion by hunting whales and dolphins.
”Japanese people struggle with the contradictions,” said Taka Yamaguchi, deputy editor of the bimonthly magazine, Warau Shokutaku, as he enjoyed brown rice and tofu at an organic restaurant in central Tokyo.
Yamaguchi, who grew up with whale for school lunch in coastal southern Japan in the 1960s but rarely eats it now, said whale was the lifeblood for Japan, then mostly vegetarian save for fish, when it neared famine after World War II.
”If you press, 100% of Japanese people could support banning whaling. They can’t say so because of the culture around food,” he said. ”But the Japanese catch on to things quickly.”
Ending Japan’s tradition of whale meat would need a domestic trendsetter to oppose it, Yamaguchi said. But the foreign campaign against whaling has been a blip on the radar in Japan.
An aggressive campaign led by Greenpeace in January to shame Japanese whalers on their annual hunt in the Antarctic Ocean has been major news in Australia and New Zealand but was covered little by Japanese media.
Just hours after Greenpeace dumped a dead whale in front of the Japanese embassy in Berlin, 33-year-old office worker Yasuyo Koike decided to go out for whale sashimi.
”Japanese people are aware of the foreign protesters. They say that whales are endangered, but it’s a lie,” she said.
She was one of dozens of customers in the cramped smoke-filled whale restaurant tucked away in Tokyo’s red-light district Kabukicho, where the ethics of whaling are hardly on people’s minds.
”No protesters ever come here. I saw some very small stories in the newspapers about Greenpeace, but no one here talks about it,” said Shunichi Arita, the manager of the Taruichi restaurant.
The nearly 40-year-old restaurant cooks up the giant mammal for a variety of wallets, with a slice of whale testicle selling for 600 yen (about $5), and 3 000 yen for a full steak of blood-red, tough-to chew whale meat.
And for dessert, with the menu beckoning the customer, ”Are you ready for the challenge?”, there is ice cream dabbed in whale oil.
”I don’t care for the whale ice cream myself,” said Arita (65), a blue kimono draped over his beige sweater. ”But women often like it because it’s unique.”
Arita said business has been especially brisk in recent weeks and holds no grudge against Greenpeace.
”Everyone has the right to an opinion,” Arita said in between working the busy cash register. ”But since whale eating is part of the culture here, I think Japanese people are less conscious about the protests.”
Commercial whaling was banned in 1986 with environmentalists and most Western nations — Norway being a notable exception — arguing that whale populations were dying out and that the hunt was cruel.
Japan skirts the ban by using a loophole that allows the killing of whales for research, with the meat then going to dinner plates.
Japan on its current expedition has doubled the size of its catch hunt and hopes to slaughter up to 935 minke whales and 10 endangered fin whales in the Antarctic Ocean.
Greenpeace has doggedly pursued the fleet for a month, with activists putting themselves in between the animals and harpoons, with one protester tossed briefly into the icy water after saving a whale for more than an hour.
No protests of the sort take place in Japan. Nearly no one in Japan makes a fuss when fishermen in the western town of Taiji each year stab to death 2 400 dolphins.
Rare footage of the killing, showing trapped dolphins futilely trying to escape men with spears as the water turns red with their blood, was filmed in 2004 by the French environmentalist group One Voice.
So is this the same country that abruptly banned all United States beef because one shipment included body parts considered risky for mad-cow disease? Or where salons charge hundreds of dollars to groom and massage pet dogs?
Yamaguchi, the magazine editor, said the Japanese draw a distinction that could allow even organic food advocates to eat whale.
”Living alongside animals is actually a relatively modern phenomenon in Japan,” he said. ”The Japanese use 100% of a whale. It’s seen as showing appreciation for nature. It’s not like raising a cow or pig to be slaughtered.”
That view of nature leads Japan to ban all genetically modified food and, Yamaguchi said, has led more people to go organic after scares over mad-cow disease and chemicals allegedly in Chinese cabbage.
Japan’s organic food market accounted for $350-million to $450-million in 2003, or 0,5% of food consumption, compared with up to $13-billion and 2,5% of consumption in the US, according to the Japan External Trade Organisation.
But the low figure could also reflect the costly and time-consuming process to certify a product as organic in Japan, where supermarkets rigorously identify the origin of produce.
Arita, who has spent his life serving whale meat, acknowledged he is not entirely against foreign pressure changing eating habits.
”We have some Chinese and Korean workers here and they tell me that dog meat is really, really delicious,” Arita said.
Holding his hands over his blushing face, Arita said: ”I really hate to say this, but if Greenpeace campaigned against eating dogs I’d be all for it. I really love dogs.” — AFP
