In Tokyo, I served jiaozi — and found a way to belong

(By Southern Weekly journalist Li Changsheng.)

The Japanese love eating dumplings, but the way they cook and eat them is different from us.

First, they don’t boil them — they almost always pan-fry them, so they should really be called guotie (pot stickers). Second, they don’t treat dumplings as a staple food; they’re considered a side dish, even a drinking snack, which is why you’ll always find dumplings or gyoza on the menu at izakayas (Japanese pubs). The fillings are almost always cabbage or napa cabbage — and uniformly bland — but thankfully, the skins are pan-fried and crisp.

When I first came to Japan more than 30 years ago, I was eager to adapt to local customs. Some habits, however, were just unbearable. For example, restaurants bring you a glass of iced water as soon as you sit down. I’d rather drink ten glasses of ice-cold beer than water with ice. That’s one custom I didn’t bother following — no harm done.

Later, I realised the key wasn’t really about following customs; it was about playing by the rules, even if I wasn’t always a model citizen. No matter how carefully I tried to blend in, I still carried all sorts of Chinese habits with me — for instance, inviting people over. The Japanese rarely invite guests into their homes, but when I invited friends over for drinks, I naturally followed the Chinese way.

At that time, “internationalisation” was a buzzword in the media, so perhaps my guests felt they were being a little ahead of the trend. Since I’m from northeast China, dumplings or jiaozi were, of course, the centrepiece when entertaining guests. The filling was chive and shrimp — Japan has no shortage of seafood, and chives are cheap enough. The guests were amazed that a Chinese man could cook, and even make jiaozi —my Japanese friends couldn’t even make sushi!

We drank Shaoxing wine with the dumplings — sipping, praising, and eating in turns: “Jiaozi with chive and shrimp! The Japanese ones just don’t measure up.” They were impressed. 

At izakayas, a plate of gyoza usually comes with only a few pieces, but at my home, there’s always more than enough. When my guests expressed curiosity that Chinese people treat jiaozi as a main dish, I explained that it’s much like how sushi functions for them. Jiaozi and sushi differ only in whether they’re wrapped or not, that’s all. 

Wrapping, I told them, reflects a Chinese aesthetic: a pursuit of wholeness and completeness. Leaving something unwrapped, meanwhile, reflects the Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetic, which celebrates the beauty of imperfection and incompleteness.

I went on to say that comparing Italian pizza to Chinese stuffed pancakes isn’t really about East and West, or about inward versus outward culinary cultures. This little bout of grand theorising somehow encouraged my guests to eat a few more dumplings — they were almost ready to sing with full bellies. 

We northeasterners make jiaozi generously, with plenty of meat and hearty fillings. My usually genteel Japanese friends shed all semblance of ceremony once they were in my home. They embraced Chinese culture with genuine enthusiasm: nothing tastes better than jiaozi, and nothing feels better than lying down afterwards. Perhaps, more precisely, this was northeastern — or at least northern — Chinese culture.

Even after retreating into my little shell of a home, my guests still brought a touch of Japanese custom with them — the habit of taking leftovers to go. I had disposable plastic boxes at home, one of those conveniences of Japanese life I still marvel at. Each guest took home a box of raw jiaozi to pan-fry for his wife. Who says Japanese men aren’t family-minded? This custom, in fact, has deep roots. In the late Qing dynasty, the Chinese envoy to Japan, Huang Zunxian, wrote in his Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects from Japan:

“The slanting sun glows red above the wine flags low;
As they depart, each tucks a food box in his sleeve.
All for their gentle wives, they save a slice of meat,
And drink themselves to drunken stupor, content.”

He added a note: “At refined gatherings of friends, all agree not to eat too much. They sip a little soup, and the rest they take home in bamboo baskets, to share with their wives and children.”

In The Records of the Three Kingdoms, historian Chen Shou noted that the Japanese “have a fondness for drink”. More than a thousand years later, when I first heard about Japan, it seemed the very first thing people mentioned was how, after work, they didn’t go straight home but gathered at izakayas to drink.

On this habit, Huang Zunxian wrote in great detail in his monumental Record of Japan (日本国志):

“I have heard that the people of the East spend more on wine than on rice and vegetables, and more on entertainment than on their homes. It is said that during the reigns of Emperor Kanmu and Emperor Saga, they delighted in excursions — flower viewing, fishing, falconry and horse games — and held several gatherings each month. This became the prevailing custom, from the rulers down to the subjects. After they overcame long years of turmoil, the Tokugawa shogunate sought to use the pleasures of drink to dissolve the spirit of warfare. Warriors and soldiers alike took to appreciating flowers and tea, priding themselves on their refined tastes; every form of amusement flourished. For over two hundred years, they lived in peaceful leisure — indeed, one could call it happiness.”

But the Japan I came to know had already left behind those passionate, exuberant days. In most modern households, it’s the wives who hold the financial reins, and what matters now are plain meals and comfortable homes.

The Record of Japan also describes Japanese drinking customs: “They consider drinking beyond one’s limit a form of blessing; even collapsing drunk is no shame.” Perhaps this reflects an older Chinese spirit — as Confucius once said, “Only in drinking is there no fixed measure.” Yet in China today, people often seem to take pleasure in getting others drunk instead.

As for bringing home leftovers to give to their wives, I must admit I find this Japanese custom delightful. As a guest, I no longer feel bound by the Chinese etiquette of excessive politeness, the endless rounds of declining and insisting.

Even more interesting is the account left by the commander of the so-called Black Ships — those soot-painted American gunboats that pried open Japan’s gates. After completing his mission, Commodore Matthew C. Perry wrote Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, in which he vividly described Japanese men’s deep affection for their wives and families. He wrote that on the ship’s quarterdeck, more than seventy Japanese guests were invited aboard for a banquet under fluttering flags. They ate with astonishing appetite — so heartily, in fact, that even the most gluttonous American sailors stood dumbfounded. 

The Japanese, Perry observed, always carried an abundance of paper — soft yet tough. As soon as the meal ended, they all spread out these sheets, scraped together whatever food remained, and wrapped it up. No one could tell what the combined flavours might be; “even the practised palate of the Commodore’s Parisian cook could not fully analyse it,” Perry wrote. Then, following their custom, the guests tucked those unappetising paper bundles into their kimono fronts or sleeves. When it came time to leave, one rather tipsy fellow threw his arms around Perry’s neck, crushing his brand-new epaulettes, and, with tears in his eyes, muttered something to the effect of: “Nippon and America share the same heart.”

Perry, shrugging good-naturedly, wrote with understanding: “This was not the result of gluttony, or a deficiency of breeding — it was simply the custom of the country.” He had earlier entertained Sho Kokun, a superintendent of the Ryukyu Kingdom, and the guests had remained solemn and dignified throughout — none of the boisterous chaos of the Japanese feast. The “Yamato people” (as Okinawans call those from mainland Japan) reading this might well sigh: “They are not of our kind.”

In my first few years living in Japan, I stayed alone in a single small room — a four-and-a-half tatami mat space, about eight square metres — which inspired the title of my column in Beijing’s Reading (《读书》) magazine: A Lonely Lamp in the Eastern Isles (东瀛孤灯). At first, I didn’t even have a telephone. Once, a Japanese acquaintance who needed to reach me urgently actually sent a telegram, which the postman hand-delivered to my door. 

Later, when I finally installed a phone, the friends who had tasted my jiaozi would keep calling to compliment me on how delicious Chinese jiaozi were, leaving me with no choice but to invite them for another meal again — this time with a new kind of filling.

This article was first published by Southern Weekly as “饺子与寿司”. Southern Weekly, founded in 1984, adheres to the principle of “Understanding China Through Reading Here” and the fundamental guideline of “Justice, Love, Conscience, Rationality”, delivers in-depth news coverage and enjoys China’s nationwide influence and credibility.

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