Boiled rice and miso are so beautifully complimentary that they form the center of the traditional everyday Japanese meal. Where rice is low in lysine, an essential amino acid, miso is high in it. Where miso is low in sulfur-containing amino acids, rice is high in them.
That's not all. You can add various extras for an even better nutritional balance. Just make rice balls - onigiri in Japanese - and use different fillings, or add additional ingredients to your miso soup. This will give you a meal in and of itself, without the need for side dishes. (Thanks, but no fries with that.) The combination of rice balls and miso soup makes an easy breakfast, a great lunch or a healthy midnight snack. Rice balls are versatile, to boot. Enjoy various flavors according to the fillings you choose: Japanese, Western - whatever grabs you. You'd be hard pressed to find another meal so simple, easy, healthy and economical.

The origin and history of rice balls
Rice balls are said to have arisen from tonjiki, a food served to attendants of aristocrats at banquets in the Heian era. Rice balls were later used as field rations for samurai during battles in the Warring States period, and they finally became popular among ordinary people in the Edo era. Rice balls were convenient for laborers to eat for lunch, and they were the perfect emergency food at times of fire, funeral or other catastrophe. Even today they are included in disaster rations and carried as handy bites for travels or mountain climbing.
Some say that rice balls were originally shaped like a human heart. Today you'll see many shapes, including drum (cylindrical), triangle, barrel and ball. These shapes vary by region: While triangular and drum-shaped rice balls are popular in Hokkaido, barrel-shaped ones are more common in the Kansai district.

How to make a basic rice ball
A bowl of warm boiled rice is usually used. It is easier to center the filling if you fill a bowl two-thirds with rice, make a depression at the center, and then place the filling before covering it with rice. Wet your hands, sprinkle salt on your palms, empty the lump out of the bowl into your hands, and press it into shape.

Recommended fillings
Standard fillings include grilled salted salmon, bonito shavings, pickled plums, and kelp boiled in sweetened soy sauce. Of course, you can use whatever you think goes well with rice. Enjoy exotic flavors: tuna mixed with mayonnaise, or bonito shavings mixed with cheese.

Recommendations
■Salmon
■Cod roe & butter
■Pickled plums
■Scrambled egg & wiener
■Kelp boiled in sweetened soy sauce
■Cheese & bonito shavings
■ Tuna & mayonnaise

Laver (That's nori to all you seaweed veterans.)
Laver is the typical wrapping for rice balls. This food is said to have originated in the Edo era. Laver is healthy, high in protein. It is rich in vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. Wrapping rice balls with laver improves the nutritional balance and flavor. It is also makes the onigiri easier to eat, by preventing the rice from sticking to your hand.

Miso nutrition
As its main ingredient is soybeans, miso is rich in high-quality vegetable proteins that are effective in building body tissues and maintaining bodily functions, as well as linoleic acid and vitamin E, which slow the effects of aging in blood vessels and cells. Furthermore, lecithin, contained in the fat of soybeans, has the effect of removing cholesterol, which can cause high blood pressure and other health problems. The lactic acid, yeast and live bacteria in miso are beneficial to the intestines and create additional nutrients.
Miso can be considered a multi-purpose superfood, with its main benefits including the prevention of some types of cancers and gastric ulcers, the control of cholesterol, the prevention of aging, the acceleration of digestion, the regulation of intestinal functions, skin improvement, and the acceleration of the metabolism of the brain. For this reason, the effects of miso seem to be attracting the attention of not only of Japanese, but also of Westerners who are interested in a good diet and health.

Types of miso
The great number of different miso types is a legacy of the custom where each family made its own. Homemade miso has been replaced to a large extent by factory-made products, manufactured by adding salt and malt to steamed soybeans. The product can be divided roughly into four types: kome miso, using rice malt; mugi miso, using barley malt; mame miso, using soybean malt; and mixed miso. The majority of commercially available miso is kome miso. Miso comes in many different flavors and colors, and it varies depending on the production area. There are also products with different textures, such as tsubu miso, with coarse soybean and malt grains; and koshi miso, which has been smoothened by straining.

Miso Types
■Akadashi (dark brown) miso - Very tasty. Made by straining a combination of mame and kome miso after long maturation.
■Shiro (white) miso - Kome miso with a sweet taste. Usually used to season steamed food, as it is too rich for miso soup.
■Mugi (barley) miso - Soft, reddish brown, with barley malt.
　Popular as inaka (country-style) miso in different parts of Japan.
■Shinshu miso - Light yellow, salty. Makes a light miso soup.
■Aka (red) miso - Shiny, reddish brown, with a rich taste and saltiness. Produced in Hokkaido, Tohoku and many other parts of Japan.

A simple miso soup recipe
The miso chef starts by making stock (dashi). For convenience, you can start with the packaged dashi available at supermarkets and convenience stores.
1. Bring the dashi to a boil over medium-high heat. Add bite-sized solid ingredients (start with those that cook slowly) and reduce the heat to medium-low.
2. While boiling the ingredients, put one tablespoonful of miso per each cup of dashi into a small bowl and dissolve it by adding a small amount of broth.
3. When the solid ingredients are cooked, add the miso from Step 2, and boil, turning up the heat slightly.
4. When the boiling soup starts to form light bubbles at the surface, turn the heat off immediately and serve. If you boil the soup for too long after adding miso, the flavor will be ruined. It is better to add leek or other garnishes, tofu, wakame seaweed or boiled greens right after adding miso to avoid overcooking.

Recommended ingredients
As a rule of thumb, use fifty to one-hundred grams of solid ingredients per bowl of miso soup. It is desirable to use at least two ingredients, for reasons of nutritional balance. If you use three or more ingredients, the combination of different flavors will make miso soup taste even better.

Recommended
Classic standards:
　Tofu & wakame seaweed
　Aburaage (fried bean curd) & snow peas
　Sliced onion & potato
　Nameko mushrooms & grated Japanese white radish
　Japanese white radish & aburaage
To ease a hangover:
　Short-neck clams or Fresh-water clams
or use any leftover vegetables: leek, cabbage, spinach, pumpkin, etc.

Instant miso soup - easy and convenient
Various instant miso soups are sold at supermarkets and convenience stores. They are convenient to eat with your packed lunch or rice balls when you go out. They also come in handy when you don't have time to cook miso soup at home. But try to make it yourself before rushing off to the convenience store. Home cooking tastes better with a little luck and practice.

Don't you love this time of the year? The partying, the presents, the goodwill to mankind, the overindulging in food, alcohol, and irresponsible behavior. Ah yes, how many times during the festive season do you wake up suffering the effects of the previous evening's revels. You start thinking about New Year's resolutions and vow to spend the rest of winter doing wholesome, interesting things that don't involve staying up all night or booze. But hang on a minute! What is there to do? Try to decipher the aim of some TV game show? Rent a video? Go window-shopping? Clean your apartment? Sit around feeling sorry for yourself due to your boring existence and recent unhealthy excesses?
If only I had \100 for all the times I've said or heard people say there's nothing to do in Sapporo. It's so easy to become complacent about where you live. Think about your hometown or country, and all the things you've never done there. The sooner you get into a routine and the longer you live in a city, the more familiar things in that city become. You forget the original excitement you felt about being in a new place and you tend to get into a rut doing the same old things. Trying anything new becomes way too much effort, or easily put off. This is especially so when you lack the language skills that can help you get from A to B.
There are actually many good and wholesome things to do in Sapporo; it's just a matter of making yourself get up and do them. And if language is a problem, remember: this is Japan, where people in the service industries go out of their way to help others, especially a foreigner in distress. Anyway, if you need some ideas on how to spend your free time, we have some suggestions for a Sapporo winter weekend.
The number-one thing to do in Sapporo this time of the year is to get into winter sports. The city hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics, and winter sports are hugely popular here. Plaza i (North 1, West 3, Sapporo MN Building 1F, across from the Sapporo Clock Tower) has a wealth of information about Sapporo and its environs. For \400, you can pick up the Hokkaido Ski Guide, which lists ski resorts, including costs, transportation, and information on professional races and venues. Many resorts are an easy day-trip from Sapporo. The snow is abundant and the fresh air and exercise make you feel great.
If you don't have the money or time to go skiing or snowboarding, you could try cross-country skiing in Nakajima Park. Nakajima Sports Center, on the east side of the park and a short walk from Horohirabashi Subway Station (Exit 1, then follow the signs), lends cross country skis free of charge for one day. (You can also use the training gym at the Sports Center for \360 a go. The weight and cardio machines are new and the gym is rarely busy.)
If you think you might be interested in winter sports, but hate being out in the cold, then head out to Okurayama Ski Jump. You can see it from downtown Sapporo if you stand outside 4-Chome Plaza and look west down the streetcar tracks. The straight run of the ski jump is carved into the hillside in the distance. Built for the Olympics, the site still hosts ski-jumping events. Check the Xene Calendar for information.
You can get a chairlift to the top of the jump (\500), while at the base you'll find the Winter Sports Museum, which houses memorabilia from the Olympics, and winter sporting equipment from across the ages. My favorite item was a set of very old geta ice-skates. Yep, that's right. Japanese flip-flops with skatin' blades attached! The museum staff are friendly, and will provide you with a free headset offering commentary in English or other languages. The museum also has simulators that allow you to experience various winter sports from the comfort and warmth of the indoors. You can try your luck defending an ice hockey goal from a shooting skater. Thankfully the machine doesn't send a real puck hurtling at your head; rather, it calculates the trajectory of an animated version, and you have to block it with your body. Also fun is the ski jump simulator. The attendant straps you into a machine complete with 3D helmet. Your distance is calculated, and afterwards your can watch an animated you jump off an animated Okurayama.
It's easy to get to Okurayama. Take the Tozai subway line to Maruyama Koen Subway Station. Follow the signs to the bus station and take the #14 bus to the Okurayama Kyogijo Iriguchi bus stop. When you get off, you'll see signs straight in front of you. Take the winding road up the hill for about 15 minutes until you see the ski jump. Admission is \600, and all the simulators are free. The wait for the ski jump simulator can be quite long, so it's best to head there as soon as you arrive. They take your name and assign you a time so you don't have to stand in line.
If you are feeling creative, why not take a craft class at Sapporo Art Park. Check out their English website http://www.artpark.or.jp/e_index.html. They offer various craft classes almost every weekend. For example, in January, they will have dish making, scarf knitting and pottery. For \2,500, I attended a pewter dish-making class. The finished product, which proudly adorns the top of this page, was a lot of fun in the making. The teacher spoke only Japanese but she demonstrated slowly and clearly what to do, so I had little difficulty following. Some of the participants came up with some very creative designs, while I was content to spend most of the time bashing my pewter with a hammer. You have to reserve a place in the craft classes, so if you can't speak Japanese, get someone to ring up for you.
The Art Park is a ten-minute bus ride from Makomanai Bus Station. Take the Nanboku Subway Line to Makomanai Subway Station and follow the signs to the bus station. From bay 4 take the bus to Geijitsu-no-mori. At the entrance of the Art Park you will see a big map in English and Japanese. Craft classes are held in the Crafts Hall. It's also worthwhile checking out the art gallery and visiting the Sculpture Garden. The Garden will be open from mid-January to mid-March, during which time the Art Park lends visitors kanjiki snowshoes free of charge.
Sports and activities aside, your weekend should also be a time to relax and recharge your batteries. We recommend a visit to the Sapporo City Central Library at South 22, West 13. Take the streetcar to the Chuo Toshokan Mae stop. The library is a big gray brick building. It's easy to get a library card if you live, work or study in Sapporo: just flash your alien registration card and fill in a form. On the second floor there is an array of English language books, including novels and reference books, English newspapers (New York Times, International Herald Tribune) and magazines (Sports Illustrated, Empire Magazine, Le Figaro). The library is light and comfortable, and in this chilly weather is the perfect place to spend an afternoon. For hours, consult the English Web page http://www.city.sapporo.jp/tosyokan/ht/english.html
It's always nice to receive e-mail from friends and family. Of course, if you want to receive messages, you have to send them. Why not set aside some of your weekend to write e-mails, catch up with your hometown news, or just surf the Net. Airs Internet costs only \100 and is easy to do, as the staff are friendly and have information in English. Internet access starts from \100 for 15 minutes, with discounts for longer periods of time. Each computer is in a private cubicle complete with comfy office chair and pen and paper for note taking. Basic meals (curry and rice, soups, spaghetti, pilaf) can be purchased, and best of all, you can help yourself to hot and cold drinks free of charge. It's open 24 hours, and for those who read Japanese, Airs has a large selection of manga comics.
he menu is in English and Japanese, and the food is excellent: a selection of hearty soups, huge salads, burritos and pizzas. The retro deor is cool, as is the music selection, and upstairs they have an assortment of coffee table books in English that you can pore over while you're waiting for your meal.
The ultimate in weekend relaxation, however, is to treat yourself to a massage. Ramona Iida is a qualified Canadian massage therapist who has a home studio in Kotoni. After a professional consultation, she will knead your achin' body back into condition. She's available in the early evenings and on Saturdays, by appointment. Women only. Call 011-615-7817.
These are just a few ideas to make your winter weekend enjoyable. You'll find many other interesting places and activities in and around Sapporo if you're willing to look for and try new things. The experience of living in a city is whatever you make of it, so when it comes to drawing up your 2003 New Year's resolutions, why not add "making the most of Sapporo" to your list?

Imagine opening the newspaper and reading this headline: Crimes by Japanese Abroad Skyrocket: Murder, Robbery, Theft Up 50%. If you are Japanese, your first reaction may be anger: We Japanese are no criminals! Second may be disbelief: Where did they get these numbers?
Don't worry. Even though the numbers are straight from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the years 1995 to 2000, you will never see this headline in Japan. This is because it would be irresponsible to report on the number of crimes by Japanese abroad without looking at changes in the number of Japanese people abroad. It would also be irresponsible to include murder, without noting that murders, taken separately, rose but then returned to their previous level. It would be irresponsible not to mention that figures had actually fallen by fifteen percent from 1999 to 2000, the most recent year. And it would be downright negligent to draw broad conclusions from the meager 276 crimes that make up the data.
Sadly, in reporting crimes by foreigners, the Japanese media commit all of the above kinds of mistakes. No wonder, then, that foreigners in Japan are perceived as dangerous - even though Japanese have a higher crime rate. No, that's not a misprint: The crime rate is higher for Japanese.
Far higher, according to Ryogo Mabuchi, an associate professor of sociology at Nara University. Mr. Mabuchi says the crime rate among Japanese is roughly double that among non-permanent foreign residents including U.S. military personnel. For the number of heinous crimes, the rates for Japanese and foreigners are roughly equal, although for the number of violent criminals, the rate for Japanese is about five times that for foreigners.
Mr. Mabuchi says his students are surprised to hear such figures, which fly in the face of common perceptions. He blames this perception gap on the media, although he also believes the National Police Agency could do a better job of framing their statistics.
"I don't think the police are prejudiced against foreigners," he says. "I think the police are reporting accurately on the frequency of crime occurrence. However, their crime statistics do not compare the ratio of non-Japanese criminals residing in Japan - that is, the number of arrested per 100,000 of such residents - with that of Japanese criminals. So these statistics don't accurately show the relative danger of foreigners and Japanese." He thinks the media should provide more balance rather than simply reporting the statistics announced by the police. "They should report in a way that avoids the appearance of anti-foreign bias."
Mr. Mabuchi's research has shown that crimes by foreigners are greatly over-represented in the press. He compared the number of people arrested for Penal Code violations (robbery, theft, extortion, murder and the like) with the number of people appearing in 2,579 articles on arrests published in the Asahi Shimbun for the first half of 1998. He found that fewer than 2 in 100 arrested Japanese made the crime pages, versus more than 7 in 100 arrested non-Japanese. In fact, an arrested foreigner was almost five times more likely than an arrested Japanese to be written up.
This is particularly alarming given the Asahi's reputation for being more racially sophisticated than most Japanese newspapers. But perhaps it is not surprising, when one examines journalistic ethics in Japan.

LOOSE CANON

In most countries, even those not known as paragons of human rights, the media have established sensible ethical guidelines on race. Here's a typical example from The Daily Press of Hampton Roads, Virginia (U.S.A.): "Identify a person or group by race only when such identification is relevant or is an essential element of the story; introduce race to a story only when it is an issue of relevance to the story." In Japan, such guidelines are conspicuously absent. The Canon of Journalism of The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association never once mentions race.
Some North American and European journalists believe that racial sensitivity in Western media has gone too far, mutating into an unhealthy hypersensitivity. William McGowan made this indictment in Coloring the News (Encounter Books, 2001). As one example of hypersensitivity, he cited the case of a serial rapist in New York whose police description included his race. The New York Times omitted printing the race of the minority perpetrator, even though he was still at large and the description could have led to his arrest. Mr. McGowan argued that racial details are sometimes very relevant: When a dangerous criminal has not been apprehended, public safety trumps any concern for bruised racial feelings, and a full description should be given.
The following stories from the Japanese media, however, fail to meet sensible standards.

○The Japan Times (4/25/02) published a short item on a patricide committed "to obtain insurance money to marry a non-Japanese woman." She was not named as a suspect, and the report failed to explain how her foreign status was relevant to the story.

○The Shukan Asahi published a feature on "foreign robbery gangs" that was an ill-disguised two-page ad for the Miwa Lock Co. The Shukan Asahi writer advised: "Check if the house key in your pocket is similar to the one shown above. If so, you had better have your lock changed." Ads for Miwa appeared in the very same issue.

○In covering a police report entitled "Toward recovery of our country's public safety," The Japan Times (9/28/02) ran the headline, "Arrest rate sinks below 20% amid crime surge," but concluded with this non-sequitur: "Touching on international terrorism, the [police report] refers to North Korea's admission Sept. 17 that it abducted Japanese citizens during the Cold War." The article failed to explain the connection to recovering Japan's safety, given that there have been no such confirmed abductions since 1983, and even that one took place in Europe and not Japan.

○The Japan Times (9/14/01) noted that 82.6% of robberies by foreigners were committed against Japanese. A National Police Agency official was quoted as saying, "The robberies have become organized and violent. They used to steal from compatriots, but the victims are mainly Japanese now." The piece might have balanced this by noting that, as the Japanese share of the population is far greater than 82.6%, foreign robbers were still targeting fewer Japanese than foreigners as a proportion of Japan's population.

In a more sustained example of irresponsibility, the Sankei Shimbun (5/8/01) ran a front-page editorial by Shintaro Ishihara, the right-wing demagogue and governor of Tokyo. Mr. Ishihara made the following points:

○A certain particularly grisly murder by Chinese was "indicative of the ethnic DNA" of Chinese.

○"It is highly unlikely that crime committed by foreigners will be decreasing." (In fact, such crime has dropped, according to the National Police Agency.)

○"Approximately 35,000 foreigners are arrested in Japan each year for criminal investigation, with roughly 15,000 of those being Chinese criminals." (These figures come from rounding up the number of counts of arrest involving foreigners from 34,398 to 35,000 and then confusing that number with the number of persons arrested.)

○"[t]he largest penitentiary in Tokyo for felons accommodates a maximum of 2,600 prisoners. It holds 500 foreigners serving time there, and 209 of those are Chinese (for the year 2000)." (The ratio of foreign prisoners (500 foreigners to 2,100 Japanese) is not at all representative of prison populations in general. In fact, the prison he cites is the favored destination for arrested foreigners in Tokyo.)

ISSHO Kikaku, the human rights group that pointed out these excesses of Mr. Ishihara, has called the governor guilty of "incitement to racism by a public official," an action the group says contravenes the U.N. International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a document signed by Japan. ISHHO Kikaku also has asked why Mr. Ishihara does not focus on Japanese organized crime, when Japan has "one of the largest per capita organized crime syndicates of any country in the world" and when the U.N. Center for International Crime Prevention names Japanese crime groups twice as often as Chinese ones.
One might be tempted to excuse the Sankei Shimbun for the sins of a non-staff contributor, until one reads The Canon of Journalism of The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association: "[Newspapers] must reject interference by any outside forces and resolve to remain vigilant against those who may wish to use the newspapers for their own purpose. On the other hand, they should willingly give space to opinions that differ from their own, provided such opinions are accurate, fair and responsible."
Human rights groups also chafe when Special Law violations (narcotics offenses, prostitution and the like) are compared between foreigners and Japanese. Because visa violations fall into this category, the comparison is biased against foreigners: Overstaying a visa may very well be a crime, but it is misleading to include it in comparisons with Japanese criminals, as this crime simply does not apply to Japanese. There is also the problem of identifying causes. Do foreigners commit certain crimes because of Mr. Ishihara's "ethnic DNA," or because they tend to be in the age and economic bracket that is more prone to crime no matter what the race or nationality?

BEWARE OF BAD FOREIGNERS

The police have made their own gaffes. Consider the pamphlet "Details of Crimes by Visiting Foreigners: How Not to Be a Victim," published by the Shizuoka Prefectural Police in February 2000. The pamphlet claimed that crimes by "illegal foreigners" (fuho gaikokujin) were expanding, becoming more violent and organized, and posing a threat to Japanese society. This pamphlet was produced for use in police boxes but was also obtainable by private citizens. While some of these claims could be substantiated, the pamphlet was sloppy and heavy-handed enough to raise many questions.

According to The Community, a Tokyo-based group concerned with the treatment of foreigners, the recommendation that shopkeepers should report on the activities of foreigners is particularly dangerous. The group says this would invite arrests for being the wrong nationality in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Shizuoka was not alone. This fall, the Nakano Police in Tokyo urged local banks to post signs warning customers to beware of "bad foreigners" (furyo gaikokujin), citing an increase in bag-snatchings and robberies at ATMs. When asked by a representative of The Community to provide figures to support these claims, the Nakano Police were unable to do so. The police eventually removed the signs after admitting that bag-snatchings had, in fact, been declining.
These same posters turned up in Nagano Prefecture, as reported in the Mainichi Shimbun (2/22/01). According to the Mainichi, the Nagano Prefectural Police denied that the posters were racist and claimed that foreign crime was increasing, but again they were unable to provide supporting figures. This was just one month after the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department withdrew posters asking residents to report anyone heard speaking Chinese.
While noting a national decrease in crimes by foreigners, the Hokkaido Prefectural Police this year reported sharp increases within Hokkaido. As an example of how foreign crimes in Hokkaido are becoming "more vicious, clever and organized," the report cited the case of a Thai woman entering Japan on another Thai woman's passport. Although the police identified her Japanese companion as "the agent escorting her from Thailand for illegal entry into Japan," they concluded: "This incident helped to establish a clear picture of a Thai secret organization for illegal entry." There was no further mention of the Japanese connection.
Such lapses notwithstanding, the Hokkaido police have included a useful English-language Web page for questions and requests. Like many departments throughout Japan, they hold seminars on traffic safety and crime-prevention measures for international students. And they have dispatched officers on exchange programs to North America and China.
With luck, such efforts and the awareness-raising research of academics like Mr. Mabuchi will pay off in reducing both crime and prejudice. As Mr. Mabuchi says, "I can only hope that even one person is swayed by the objective facts to reevaluate his prejudice against foreigners."