I'm Japanese but I don't like sushi very much. Is it so strange?

Nico : Actually, I didn't think so many people would be surprised that I don't like sushi very much.

There was this one thing at school when I studied `instructions' in English. In the class, my teacher told us to prepare the instruction of cooking your country's food. Then she said, "For example, Nico will do sushi." I knew sushi is really popular as Japanese dish but sushi is only one Japanese dish and I don't like it very much. I have never eaten sushi since I came to live in Australia because I didn't want to. Then I told her "I won't. Because I don't like it". My teacher asked me, "Then what did you eat in Japan?"

taken from http://www.president.co.jp/uploads/pics/1003.jpg

The main reason that I don't like sushi comes from cucumber. I hate cucumber worse than anything. Even though it sits next to another things and touches them just a bit, I can't eat both of them. If you mix it in a salad, I can't eat the whole salad. Well, sushi which is called `maki-zushi' in Japan, often uses cucumber for the ingredients. 


The second reason is `kanpyo' which is also one of the ingredients. Kanpyo is dried gourd shavings. I hate the texture too. In the first place, I think there are lots of Japanese people who have no idea why kanpyo is in the ingredients. 

I hate chirashi-zushi for the same reason.

chirashi-zushi  taken from http://image.excite.co.jp/jp/erecipe/recipe/9/7/9721583090b5c5fdf486f09ab0854b02/e7618a2c34da5c96109fe85b13c06a51.jpeg

taken from Wikipedia.com

At first, I don't like rice vinegar very much either but I like nigiri-zushi. Raw fish and vinegar rice match each other and nigiri-zushi is usually just fish, rice and wasabi. I don't need to worry about cucumber and kanpyo.

`karaage' taken from http://d3921.cpcdn.com/recipes/2016790/280/2c6753ca839b14f089d20aafa3ccc1ce.jpg?u=246320&p=1352005795

Well, I'd like to get back the topic of school. The final day of term one, we had a party in our class room. My teacher told us to bring a dish which is your country's. Though I wanted to bring karaage to school at first, I thought it would be hard to cook early in the morning. Besides, it wouldn't be so yummy after reheating.  
   
Finally, I decided to bring Japanese rice cracker. At the party, one of our English tutors said to me, "I'd like you to bring sushi next time!" I'll ask MJ to make it next time.  

By the way, I'm using `zushi ' instead of `sushi ' in this blog. It means sushi but it is just a euphonic change.

Don't worry. Here is Australia.

Nico : Since I came to live in Australia, it is 5 months now. Time flies like an arrow. After Christmas, I couldn't write any blogs because I was busy to study English. From February 4th, I started to study English at AMEP on Wellington street. AMEP is Adult Migrant English Program which is opened in Polytechnic West. Now I am in Certificate 2 but I'm trying to be promoted to Certificate 3 next term. 

One of the reasons which MJ and I decided to live in Australia is its social system. Gay people can't marry but there is a partnership which can be applied to gay people. I don't know if it makes people in Australia notice the existence of gay people or not but life in Australia is much easier than life in Japan for us from this point. In Japan, it is really hard to find people who have gay in his or her family member, people who know someone is gay as one of their friends. This is an unbelievably big difference to live as a gay in between Japan and Australia. 

Well, now I study English in Perth. At first, I thought I could be myself as a gay at school but it was a bit harder than I expected. The teachers and other staffs are OK but I have to be careful with students who come from various countries. Some of them have feelings being uncomfortable with gay people. It is understandable but I got a bit stressed by thinking whether I would be as a gay or not. I felt I was caught by the same feelings again. It made me struggle a little bit. Finally, I decided not to tell about myself very much to other students because my good friends at school found some classmates posted comments in the wall of the group which against lesbian.

Now I feel I am very lucky because I got some good friends at school. They are my first friends in Australia except MJ's. I was really relieved when one of them told me about my struggling, ` Here is Australia. Don't worry.'