Mein Xmas gift≠sundubu

Sem carinho, só há saudade.

Without skinship, there’s only saudade. There’s only useless landscape, i.e., 3-D. Yes, ennui, everything seems meaningless. Ahh, Xmas… Every time Xmas comes, I get deadly lonely. I need body heat. A warmth of girl. People say girl’s body is usually colder than boy’s, especially around Xmas season, if you don’t live down in Brazil, it’s gonna get cold, and that’s how boys justify themselves to cuddle with a girl in bed. “That’s why girls need our hug.

I’m the opposite, my body gets really cold. So, I need girl’s hug. There is a Japanese saying that if your hands are cold, your heart is warm. Cold body has warm soul. But I didn’t realize it was just an urban legend. Yes, body and soul. These were separate or one? One of the Seven Samana (Gautama Buddha is one of the seven samana) from the ancient India, Ajita Kesakambali, said body and soul were identical. Mens sana in corpore sano. So, if your body is cold, your heart is cold,  because for a long time, skinship has been lacking. Utterly depressing… Actually Xmas is the most depressing time, says Tachibana from Amagami SS.

Xmas is the time when I become acutely aware of cruel reality, the fact that no girl is around me to share this precious holiday. Though I heard a good news about DADT repeal before Xmas, the fact that I gonna spend Xmas all by myself won’t change… I thought electing a minority into office would help a minority kid like me. After the Virginia Tech Massacre brought by a Korean student, being Asian male myself, I thought I would never get a chance to go out with American girls, yes freedom girls! So, the 2008 election made me euphoric, with full of hope. However, this is the third Xmas since the historical election. What a hell is going on? Every time I think “This Xmas, I’m going to make it,” it ends up in vain. Then, I’ve finally come to realize that he wasn’t really a messiah…

Who the f@ck said Xmas is for lovers? It’s supposed to be Christ’s b-day. At least I keep telling that to myself so I won’t get flooded over with Xmas commercialism. Yet, I can’t help but notice people around me are flirting and find myself left alone in the dark, especially during this holiday (winter solstice, full moon, eclipse), and that’s when my heartache peaks. And this gloomy weather, staying home to watch the rain like Cardcaptor Sakura ED, I couldn’t be eating cup-ramen by myself the whole time, I thought I would go crazy, so I went to a sundubu shop out of desperation, singing in the rain. Since no girl to give me a warm embrace, I had to eat something hot, got tired of hot soup of instant noodle, which warms you up instantly but cools you off instantly too. So, I had to get something more substantial. Korean food is really hot and spicy. One time I went to eat Jajangmyeon on Black Day, it surely did warm up my body, but not my soul. Just like back in Japan, dotera and kotastu didn’t help me at all, since I never had any girl flirting discreetly with her feet under kotatsu.

2-D kotatsu
3-D kotatsu, saudade...

A sundubu shop. It was very mop and pop, and affordable for precariat, or cyber-proletarian like me. I’m not a net cafe refugee (ネットカフェ難民) nor maid cafe refugee (メイドカフェ難民), since there is none in America. So, I ran into a sundubu shop. A sundubu shop refugee. There, a couple was sitting next to me, a very young one, and flirting… Supposedly Koreans since they spoke the language that I didn’t understand but sounded familiar from K-dramas. You know, they were making a lot of body gestures, and a girl was giggling a big time. They were tilting their heads toward each other, and moving back and forth. They were in perfect sync. And glancing at them, envying them, time flew by, and my tofu got lukewarm, and so did my body. At last, sundubu failed me…

Therefore, what I need is body heat, not food heat like sundubu. Just like Christians need Christ himself, not bread and wine. Yes, in fact skinship; cuddle together in bed. Yet, the lack of skinship is making my body as cold as corpse, and so is my soul.

Ahh, 2-D, the only place I can experience warmth during Xmas. Ah, high school romance, especially 17 years old, the best time for romance. 2-D is the only place that I can redo my life as 17 just like starting over. Yes, let’s fly away somewhere, and somewhere is 2-D. Fly me to the moon, and the moon is 2-D. And Amagami SS, ahh, high school Xmas romance. How I wish to hold a girl’s hand below the big Xmas tree… And at fireplace, eat cake together on a sofa, and then ultimate skinship at last… Yet, 3-D girls have failed me, so the only girls I can count on are in 2-D who will heat up my soul.

Sae-chan offering obento, with sun-salute hands.

Nakata Sae is my moetical girl of the year. My woman keeps me warm. My spirituality and moeticality.  She even offers me obento! How I wish I could receive obento from a girl in my high school years…If a girl like her existed in Japan, I’d never have to come to America! I want her to give me lap-pillow, hiza-makura, ultimate skinship. I will watch her on niconico, and do surya-namaskara to her, that’s how I will spend Xmas. She’s surely my charismatic girl, charisma, charis, charity, gift of divinity = grace. Divinity = romance, thus divine comedy is romantic comedy! In other words, rabukome anime. Moetical anime is amazing grace, full of grace, gratia plena. And that is the Xmas gift.

Merry Xmas to me! 


Author: Monsieur LaMoe

A refugee from Japan. Live in NAFTA. Get hooked on Moe. Moe is opium? Twitter: @MonsieurLamoe

5 thoughts on “Mein Xmas gift≠sundubu

  1. I remember your black day post. XD Do you just generally like Korean, or is that the food you turn to when upset?

    I don’t really get what people say about Christmas for lovers. Isn’t Valentine’s enough?! Family for me. 🙂

    1. @jenn

      Hi, how are you! Happy holiday! Glad to hear from ya! Haha, I like Korean food in general, but yes, when I’m feeling blue, really lonely, when that loneliness becomes unbearable, I turn to Korean food since there’s no net cafe nor maid cafe around here. So both. But, everyday seems to be black day for me. 🙂

      Good! That’s how it should be. Yet, in Japan, Xmas is advertised as part of the scheme of romantic capitalism.

  2. For the record, I view Christmas as a secular holiday, at least here in the US. Legally, it is; that’s a bill signed into law by president Ulysses S Grant in 1870. (Incidentally, that’s the bill that allows the White House to have, for instance, a Christmas tree. They can’t have any thing that’s in the Bible, like a manger scene, though; that would be non-secular, and so prohibited for the state.) As far as my traditions are concerned, Christmas has been mostly about getting together with family and, yes, exchanging presents. Historically, Christmas and my Birthday are the two times a year I get stuff, so I do always look forward to that.

    But I see the meaning of Christmas mostly about being with family and loved ones and going out of your way to do nice things that you might not make the effort for most of the year. Christ doesn’t really enter the picture unless you bring him in.

    In America, at least. I see no reason for every American not to celebrate Christmas.

    1. @Multiball

      Thank you for sharing a historical trivia. Very informative. Gen. Grant, a hero of Civil War, made Xmas a legal holiday then. That’s really cool. That’s so nice about your family tradition. Yes, presents, gifts. Awesome.

      The first year in America, I used to go to church and see the Jesus-baby play done by local kids. Parents were frantically applauding their kids. That was really cool. But single people, especially immigrants who left family behind their countries, would find quite lonely around Xmas. So, I went out of my way to do a nice thing that I might not make the effort for most of the year, which was going to a sundubu shop. Yet, it failed to warm up my heart. So, I sake Sae-chan, she is my hot-stone to warm up my soul. With her warm o-bento, I would be saved. Yes, Santa Claus costume, that would be awesome, Santa Sae. Moetically saintish!

      Anyway, happy new year!

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