The Ramen King and I

by Andy Raskin

  “Na-Mu-A-Mi-Da-Bu-Tsu...”

  The monk chanted the syllables in the growling drone of an outboard motor. He went on and on for minutes, allowing my mind to drift. Specifically, I recalled how Zen once told me that the cost of a funeral was directly proportional to the number of monks in attendance. I counted more than thirty monks at Kyocera Dome Osaka. When Zen’s father died, his mother initially tried to save money by hiring only one monk, but the monks at his family’s temple had a clever up-selling technique. They explained to Zen’s mother that each monk would carry a different percussion instrument, and that at a key point in the ceremony, they would play a melody that sounded like “cheen-tone-shan.” One monk’s instrument would make the “cheen” sound, another the “tone,” and a third the “shan.” If Zen’s mother hired just one monk, they told her, her husband would hear only “cheen,” which was not ideal for his happiness in the next world. She gave in and hired three monks. Later, the monks explained how Zen’s father would benefit from a longer kaimyo—afterlife name—and charged his mother for every kanji character they added to it.

  When my mind returned to the head monk chanting in front of me, I realized that he was no longer chanting Buddhist syllables. His chant had morphed into modern Japanese words spoken in the same monotonous drone. This is what they would have sounded like in English:

  “. . . In-Vent-Ed-In-Stant-Ra-Men-Found-Ed-Com-Pa-Ny-Gave-To-The-World-Not-Just-Ja-Pan . . .”

  Drums and flutes accented every syllable.

  “. . . Born-Nine-Teen-Ten-A-Long-With-HaL-Ley’s-Co-Met-Two-Thou-Sand-Five-In-Vent-Ed-Space-Ram...”

  The monk concluded with another “Na-Mu-A-Mi-Da-Bu-Tsu” and some other typically Buddhist chants. The announcer said, “Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone will now deliver the main address.”

  If you’re looking for a prestigious keynote speaker at your Japanese funeral, it would be hard to do better than Nakasone, who, despite being implicated in the notorious Recruit stock scandal, presided over Japan’s economic boom of the mid-1980s. A thin, spry-looking eighty-eight-year-old, Nakasone got up from his seat on the field and ascended the ramp to the main podium. A white ribbon, like a prize ribbon at a county fair, hung from his black suit jacket, and he was bathed in a heart-shaped spotlight. His speech had been printed on a white scroll, which he unfurled to read. He spoke in highly formal Japanese, so I didn’t understand everything.

  “He made a huge contribution to the everyday life of people around the world. . . .”

  “A man who invented a great food product . . .”

  “I respected and loved him. . . .”

  “He failed time after time . . . Chikin Ramen . . . Cup Noodles . . . I learned so much from him.”

  Following Nakasone were the chairmen of Itochu and Mitsubishi, Nissin’s big distributors.

  “He was like a father to me,” the Itochu chairman said. “I always called him Momofuku, so I think I’ll call him that now. I talked to Momofuku about anything and everything. I often spoke to him on the phone early in the morning. Someone told me that Momofuku kept my telephone number written on a piece of paper in his house so he could always reach me. I was happy to hear that.”

  The chairman of Mitsubishi was more poetic.

  “In heaven,” he said, “play a round of golf for me. Then, make yourself some ramen.”

  After the announcer read a condolence message sent by Shinzo Abe, the current prime minister, a condolence video recorded by Soichi Noguchi, the space shuttle astronaut, played on the stadium screens.

  “Mr. Ando was really great for us astronauts,” Noguchi said, holding up what looked like shrink-wrapped dried noodles. “I took this Space Ram with me on the Shuttle Discovery and ate it in space. I’ll never forget how delicious it tasted. When I went to the Instant Ramen Invention Museum, Mr. Ando showed me around himself, and together we enjoyed Chikin Ramen.”

  I should have been an astronaut, because then Ando would have shown me around the museum and made Chikin Ramen with me.

  “Mr. Ando,” Noguchi concluded, “now that you’re traveling among the distant stars, please look over us and protect us.”

  The last person to speak was the man designated in the program as Chief Mourner: Nissin CEO Koki Ando. In person, Ando’s second-eldest son looked more like his father than in photos I had seen. Like everyone else I had met at Nissin, he referred to his father as “the chairman.”

  “The chairman was really into outer space,” Koki said after reaching the podium. “And his life was connected to Halley’s Comet, so we decided to make outer space the theme of today’s ceremony.” Koki paused for a moment. He looked as if he were about to cry. “The chairman once told me something that I have never forgotten. He said, ‘Son, nothing in this world is real, except for love.’ ” Now Koki was crying. “And he told me, ‘If I’m strict with you, it’s because I love you so much.’ ” He paused again, but he was still crying when he continued. “Why couldn’t I ever say ‘thank you’ to the chairman while he was still alive? I guess I’ll never know the answer to that. But at least I can say it now. Chairman, wherever you are, go ahead and eat Chikin Ramen. Play golf. And please accept the deepest, deepest thanks—from me, and from all of the people you have touched on this Earth.”

  I almost cried, too.

  The last part of the service was the thurification, which turned out to be a ritual burning of incense, known in Japanese as shoko. The announcer invited Nakasone to thurify first. The former prime minister rose from his seat again, stopping at a long table that stretched nearly the width of the stage. Twenty or so ceramic pots had been set out on the table, and Nakasone, standing in front of one of the pots, clasped his hands together in the gassho pose. A video close-up on the monitors showed him reaching with his right hand into the pot and pulling out a pinch of black incense between his thumb and forefinger. He brought the incense to his forehead, held it there for a moment, then tossed it into another pot, where a piece of red-hot coal incinerated it. As the incense burned, Nakasone brought his hands together again and bowed deeply in front of Ando’s image on the central video screen.

  Next the announcer called Ando’s wife, Masako. She emerged from the crowd in a wheelchair, pushed by a helper toward the incense table. After reading Hirotoshi’s tale of Ando’s former wives and Masako’s struggles, I wondered if she was happy with the way her life had turned out. Still seated in the wheelchair, she reached into one of the pots, pinched some incense, and brought it to her forehead. She looked up at Ando’s picture, and for a while she just sat there. Then she tossed the incense into the coal jar in front of her, bowing her head. The man pushing her wheelchair returned her to the audience.

  The announcer invited various business leaders, relatives, and politicians (including popular ex-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi), one by one, to thurify next, and a long line formed in front of the table. Forty-five minutes later, the announcer was still calling up VIPs. People around me began looking at their watches. I figured it was time to leave, so I threw my backpack over my shoulders and picked up the white shopping bag.

  I should have been a more important person, because then I would have gotten to thurify.

  “Now,” the announcer said, “everyone seated on the field is invited to perform the thurification.”

  So many hundreds of people wanted to thurify that eight lines formed in front of the table. Nissin employees at the head of each line directed thurifiers to open jars. I waited in line for nearly an hour, carefully studying those ahead of me as they performed the ritual. Everyone seemed to have a personal thurification style. Some touched their hand to their forehead three times. Some did it just once. Some didn’t touch their foreheads at all. Some bowed deeply, others less so. The monks chanted mantras throughout, while more images flashed on the stadium screens: Ando enjoying a strawberry short-cake for his ninety-sixth birthday; Ando with his grandson; the Earth again, big and blue.

  When it was finally my turn, I walked toward
the table. I stood in front of the jar with my feet together as I had seen others stand. I reached my hand in as I had watched others reach. The incense between my thumb and index finger was coarse, like rock salt. Up close, it was mottled, gray and black. I lifted it to my forehead three times—why not go all out?—and tossed it into the jar with the hot coal. I smelled the incense turn to ash and clasped my hands together, bowing to the portrait of Ando on the video screen. I closed my eyes.

  O Momofuku. Thank you for helping me get into your funeral, even though I was dressed inappropriately and I did not have an invitation. Thank you for bringing me closer to my parents, my friends, and myself. Thank you for writing about how you thought and thought and thought until you thought so much you began to piss blood. Thank you for giving me the strength to understand, if just a little bit, the truth of my life. Thank you for showing me how to escape from difficulty. O Momofuku. Please continue to show me how to live so that I may better do your will.

  When I opened my eyes, Ando’s face seemed to be staring at me, though I’m sure that every thurifier thought the same thing.

  Turning around to pick up my white shopping bag, I noticed that Masako Ando was sitting only a few yards away in her wheelchair. Our eyes met, and she nodded in my direction. I wasn’t sure if she sensed a deep connection between me and her husband or if she was just surprised to see a foreigner. Perhaps she was simply aghast at my improper attire.

  I nodded back, and made my way, across the field, toward the exit behind first base.

  After the funeral, I rode the Kanjo Line back to New Osaka Station, where I retrieved my suitcase from the coin locker and boarded another Hikari bullet train, bound not for Tokyo but for Hakata Station, in Fukuoka Prefecture. The reason was that I wanted to taste a thick, milky bowl of the tonkotsu ramen that I remembered from when I worked in Fukuoka as a management consultant (and which appears in many episodes of Ramen Discovery Legend). Six hours later, I was slurping such a bowl in Nakasu, a thin strip of land between the Hakata and Naka rivers that’s famous for its waterfront food stalls. One of the Japanese cooks had been an exchange student in Oakland, California. “Oaktown!” he called it, and for a while we talked about the Raiders. On my way back to the station, I spotted a stall where, ten years earlier, the owner had served me a delicacy known as gyu sagari, which I remembered looking like sausage on a stick. The owner had described it as “the down thing of a steer,” and for several years I had believed I ingested the grilled penis of a bull. I found out later that it was probably only the diaphragm.

  I slept at a hotel near Hakata Station, and in the morning rode the bullet train back to Osaka, where I made a final visit to the Instant Ramen Invention Museum. Thus Spake Momofuku was already on sale in the gift shop under a marketing poster that said MR. NOODLE: A MAN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD! The museum had undergone a major renovation since my previous visit. The biggest addition was My Cup Noodle Factory, a cafeteria shaped like a Cup Noodles container in which visitors can assemble their own servings from a variety of dried toppings. On the main floor, a curved wall had been constructed around Ando’s shack, marginalizing (in my opinion) the shack’s prominence. I stepped inside hoping to hear Ando’s voice one last time, but I waited and waited and it never came on. I inquired in the gift shop, where a woman told me that the tape of Ando’s voice had been removed during the renovation. She wasn’t sure why.

  I rode the bullet train back to Tokyo, switched to the Yamanote Line at Shinagawa Station, and returned to the Hotel Excellent, where I reserved a room for the final night of my stay. Then I walked back to Ebisu Station, rode the Hibiya Line subway to Kayabacho, changed to the Tozai Line, and got off at Nishi-Kasai, where I met Harue in a pasta restaurant.

  She was as beautiful as I remembered. She ordered spaghetti and I ordered a pizza, and she showed me pictures of her lovely daughter, who was now five years old. She told me that I was looking more and more like my father. We didn’t call each other Pumpkin or Dark Cherry. Mostly we talked about people we knew in common, and what they were doing now. It took me a while to find a way to say it, but I apologized. I didn’t discuss specifics, though I think she knew. I saw that she still carried some sadness. “Maybe everything happens for a reason,” I said, and I was thinking about her daughter, who would not have been born if I had been able to love Harue the way I wished that I could have. Harue didn’t respond, maybe because she thought I was trying to let myself off the hook. Well, maybe I was.

  We said good-bye after lunch, and as soon as I turned around to leave, I felt a hole in my stomach. I felt it as I boarded the Tozai Line, and it was still there when I switched to the Hibiya Line. I felt it while passing a pachinko parlor broadcasting the prerecorded sounds of cascading coins as a marketing ploy, and I felt it while reading a billboard advertisement for a new cell phone model. I prayed to Ando to make it go away, but I still felt it. Perhaps I always will.

  I should be happy for Matt because he married his girlfriend, the one who the voice in his head said was out of his league. Of course, I am happy for him, but I’m also sad because he moved to Oakland and I don’t see him so much anymore. We talk on the phone every so often, but it’s not like it used to be.

  I should be sad because Gary died of lung cancer, and I am sad, but sometimes I’m at rehearsal on Monday nights and I feel like he’s there. I went to the memorial service, which was held at his son’s house, in the backyard. Per Gary’s instructions, four of his oldest friends performed Beethoven’s Drei Equale for Four Trombones under a tent, and everyone reminisced about Gary’s kindness and his trombone playing and his restaurant tips. Archie flew in to attend, and at first he didn’t remember the 78H, but then he did, and he ran his hand over his thick white hair and opened his eyes wide and said it was a magic horn, a horn that let you sing through it. He couldn’t recall why he had parted with it. The reason, he figured, was probably money. I offered to return it to him, but he said that, no, he was happy for me to have it.

  I should explain why I didn’t call Zen while I was in Japan for Ando’s funeral. It’s because he was out of the country on business. He had tipped me off, though, to his favorite sushi bar in the Tsukiji fish market, and on the morning of my flight home, I woke up at six o’clock and rode the Hibiya Line to Tsukiji. I walked up and down the market’s narrow, bustling alleys for a good half hour until I found it. I ordered ten types of nigiri—plus a take-out portion of homemade shiokara (the fermented squid). Before the chef presented the bill, I got nervous because all I had in my pocket was a 10,000-yen note (around ninety dollars). The bill came to 9,800 yen, leaving me with barely enough change for the subway ride back to the Hotel Excellent. When I e-mailed Zen about it, he assured me that my experience was proof of the sushi chef ’s talent. “He knew exactly how much he could extract from you just by looking at your face!” Zen e-mailed back.

  I should say whether Fujimoto achieves dassara in Ramen Discovery Legend, but the story is still unfolding. Frankly, it’s getting bogged down. Fujimoto won nearly a hundred thousand dollars in Ramen Mania Quiz, a ramen-based reality TV show, and even though that’s enough money to quit his job and open a ramen shop, the author is making him have more adventures to determine what kind of ramen he’ll serve in the shop. There’s a fundamental difference, I guess, between Ramen Discovery Legend and Shota’s Sushi, which is that the main character in the latter is driven by love for his father, leading to a natural resolution when he returns home to fight the evil sushi chain. I can’t remember an appearance by Fujimoto’s father—or any of his family members, for that matter—in Ramen Discovery Legend. Fujimoto is more of a loner. In Book 21, the most recently published collection of episodes, Fujimoto’s employer has invested in a ramen theme park called Ramen Time Tunnel, and Fujimoto is busy settling fights between the cantankerous shop owners.

  I should be married at the end of this story, but I’m still single. I have a girlfriend, though. Her name is Emily, and we’ve been together for six months. She has
beautiful green eyes, and when she smiles, a dimple forms at the top of her right cheek. We met at a Yom Kippur breakfast, after a guy named Ben, who I know from Ultimate Frisbee, invited me to come along. I made gefilte fish from one of Grandma Sylvia’s recipes, but it didn’t come out too well, so as an experiment, I spread the ground fish into a casserole, added fresh crab, and baked it. At the party, I placed the casserole on a buffet table next to a noodle kugel. I saw Emily try it, and I overheard her telling a friend, “This tastes weird.” She wore jeans and a blue top with what I later learned was an Empire waist. I told Emily that the casserole was an experimental dish, and she assured me that it needed more testing. She also said, “Anyway, it’s hard to compete with a kugel.” Ben saw us talking and asked me later, “Are you interested in her?” I was embarrassed, so I said no. The next day I e-mailed Ben admitting that I really was interested, and that I had been feeling embarrassed. Ben e-mailed back that he totally understood, and he attached Emily’s phone number.

  For our first date we shared a whole snapper at a Mediterranean restaurant. Over dinner, Emily told me that she used to be an artist, but that now she was a management consultant. She was about to enroll in an executive MBA program, and she was nervous about whether she could handle both the course load and her full-time job. Just after our desserts arrived, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

  I pulled it out just to check the caller ID, and when I saw the number, I recognized it immediately. I could hardly believe it.

  “This is going to sound rude,” I told Emily, “but would you mind if I went outside and took this call?”

  Emily said she didn’t mind. But in her green eyes I saw that she did mind, and I wondered if there was a voice in her head that told her to say she didn’t. Just in case, I let the call go to voice mail, and I related the story of how I had been banned from a sushi bar.