Student of Japanese Rice

When I was 14 years old, my family returned to Iran (after 10 yrs of residing in Japan). My sisters and I were qualified to immediately attend an American college, Iran Bethel College. After graduating in 3 years and working 3 years for transportation and trading companies, I thought it was time to leave Iran for further education in the USA. At the time, I had a connection at the Japan Airline Office and was able to obtain a discount ticket (Tehran to San Francisco) with stops in Hong Kong and Tokyo. I was planning to stay a few days in Japan, before flying to San Francisco.

Finally the day came. My parents’ youngest, the 20 year-old, was leaving home and traveling half-way across the globe. Most of my relatives were at the airport. We were saying our good-byes until the last call was announced. I boarded this humongous, only 4 years in operation, 747 Jumbo Aircraft. I noticed the entire aircraft was packed full, all young men of my age group, who started clapping when I entered. A few of them whistled too. It was daunting. I was the only female on the plane. How could that be? Immediately, a Japanese stewardess came to take my carry-on from me and show me to my seat. It was in the middle of the aircraft with all three chairs of the row vacant. I had the window seat.

As the aircraft was taking off, one young man rushed to the aisle seat in my row and put his seat belt on as fast as he could. He turned to me and said that it was his first time on an airplane and he was scared, and did not want his friends to see him shaking. Once the aircraft was stable in flight, he struck up a conversation. He said that the entire plane was reserved by their university for them and they were quite surprised to see me, a girl, aboard. They were all agriculture graduate students being sent to Japan through the universities’ agriculture exchange program, to stay in Japan for a year and learn Japanese rice growing/irrigation techniques. The same number of Japanese students was being sent to northern Iran, where they would learn Iranian techniques. Both countries are known for their superior rice quality, each with different strains of rice. I was quite astonished that a few hundred students were being sent at one time, for the program. I never had a thought about rice, other than as a staple of our meals.

Long-grain Basmati rice

Japanese rice

To put him more at ease, I told the young man a short rice story. I told him that my family lived in Japan. To cook rice for Persian dishes, my father had our relative’s periodically freight us burlap bags of Persian rice. Our relatives (in 1950s) thought it was because Japan had no rice!

The student laughed so much that his fear was forgotten. The young man thanked me for keeping his mind off the flight and returned to his seat.

Since it was their first time out of the country, they were all getting off in Hong Kong for a 3-day- tour, before continuing their journey to their final destination, Tokyo. After they all disembarked, in Hong Kong, several passengers boarded for first class. In economy class, I was the one-and-only passenger.

It was dark and I went to sleep. After a few hours, a stewardess covered me with a blanket. I opened my eyes and thanked her in Japanese. She was startled that I spoke her language. “Wah! Wah!” She asked me if I could speak Japanese. When she found out that I did, she called all the economy class stewardesses and we had our girls little gathering, in the middle of the (almost) empty aircraft. They said that it had never happened that all they had was one person in economy class. They asked me if I was hungry and wished to have Japanese food they serve in first class. Did they even need to ask? They brought me a tray with miso-soup, pickles, sunomono, marinated fish and a steaming bowl of Japanese rice!

Gochisou sama deshita! (It was a feast!)

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