Umeboshi

Umeboshi is a pickled plum. It's sour and salty at the same time, and really good with white rice. Just looking at this picture makes me drool, because I've been eating it for my whole life and my brain remembers its taste.

Thursday, I brought one for lunch with my rice balls.

"What's that?" Karen asked.
"A pickled plum."
"What? Are you lying to me?"
"No! Not this time. It's a pickled plum."
"It's fruit, right?"
"Plum? I don't know. I guess. Maybe."
"It doesn't look like fruit."
"Well, because it's pickled."
"But it looks like rice in seaweed."
"What? Oh. Yes, I'm eating rice in seaweed."
"What, you said it was a plum!"
"Oh. No, you're talking about my rice ball! That's the rice in seaweed! The plum is this one, on the side!"
"Oh!"

So she was looking at the rice ball I was eating while I was talking about umeboshi on the side. I found it amusing; what I thought was so obvious wasn't obvious at all for someone else. Because we are from different cultures. I was too familiar with rice balls and pickled plums and differences between them and, so naturally, Karen wasn't at all.

It was like what happened when I first visited America (it's almost ten years ago!). When my hostfather's brother asked me, "Do you want a Lifesaver?", all I thought of was those swimmers who are stationed on the beach or by the pool to save people who are drowning, not the tiny colorful candy rings on his palm.

I cherish those confusions and puzzlements because once you know, you cannot wonder how a plum could look like rice in seaweed, why someone is asking you if you want a swimmer that saves people's lives.