Choosing the right (s)words 🧘♀️
🪶 Language and tradition change our perceptions of things from bad to good.
Hi,
Which catches your attention first: discomfort or comfort? What if the perception of either of these is more subjective than we realize? For example, the Finns transform heat and cold into pleasure by using the sauna. Russians use the banya for the same. Actually, most Northern peoples have some version of the steam bath/cold plunge combination. Today's research is about the sauna, but has implications for the ways we live in general.
Here’s the paper describing how:
Therapeutic heat, uncomfortable or even dangerous, can improve quality of life.
Therapeutic cold, uncomfortable or even dangerous, can also improve quality of life.
Culture and tradition, beginning at a very early age, are key to transmuting these discomforts into pleasures.
Read it here: Effects of heat and cold on health, with special reference to Finnish sauna bathing (2017).
I know that in the same way language and tradition can make uncomfortable experiences, like too much heat and too much cold, into pleasant ones also happens with traditional foods. My paternal grandfather’s family emigrated from the Hokkaido region of Japan many generations ago. We came to the States in time for for my great great uncles to serve in the 442nd regiment; and for my great great auntie to serve as a self-initiated midwife in the internment camp of Tule Lake.
At the time my ancestors left Hokkaido, there was an active assimilation policy toward the Ainu people that lived there. Under this policy, many traditional Ainu foods became known by their Japanese names instead. In this way, they were acceptable to consume and serve in public.
I notice a lot of masking of older traditions—Japanese and otherwise—within American culture. For example, in my family, we youngsters say "soy sauce" and "chopsticks" instead of shoyu and hashi like the elders do. This way, our non-Japanese peers and family members understand us. I'm sure other immigrant families have similar experiences of adapting language to place. We are lucky in this time and place to get to do this by choice, compared with the government-mandated coercion my ancestors faced (along with so many others in history and around the world).
Here’s a paper I found recently describing the revival of Ainu traditional foods taking place since Japan revised their assimilation policy in 1997: Transmitting Ainu traditional food knowledge from mothers to their daughters (2017).
These word tricks of food and traditions relate to natural living because the language changes our experiences.
For example:
Foreign “shoyu” is weird; domestic “soy sauce” is yummy
Primitive culture is bad; traditional culture is good
And:
Too hot is oppressive; therapeutically hot is healing
Too cold is freezing; therapeutically cold is revitalizing
And so on. Speaking of tradition, as we are passing through the winter holidays, what’s up with all the spices? Think about pumpkin-spice lattes, nutmeg-spiced eggnog, cinnamon-mulled wine, ginger-snap cookies... to me, warming spices define Winter's flavor. Are you still enjoying them now that the holiday season is waning? Did you know regular use of these spices, just like Finnish sauna bathing, are capable of reducing all-cause mortality? So when someone turns their nose up at “spicy”, “too hot”, or “too cold,” they may be missing out on much more than just the immediate experience!
The most popular medicinal spices in the US include:
Ginger
Garlic
Cinnamon
Chili pepper
Turmeric
Cilantro
Cloves
Black pepper
Curry leaves
and Fenugreek
Here's a review I found recently that discusses each of their known benefits in turn: Health Benefits of Culinary Herbs and Spices (2019).
According to the data, eating spices more than 2x per week is what makes them effective. Of course there are many more spices than the 10 listed here with health impacts, and I will share more research another time. I think these three papers (Finnish sauna, Ainu food culture, and American use of spices as medicine) together gesture at how deeply our perceptions of good/bad are connected to our culture.
So, cheers to the ability to transform experiences by embracing culture and tradition!
Feel free to share a unique way your family incorporates hot, cold, and/or spice into this season in the comments. This is a fun way to connect!
For example, my maternal grandmother's family, emigrants from Finland, always eats black licorice over these winter holidays (Panda of course!). Yummy, yummy, anise!
Best,
Nikko
This was very interesting to read, thanks Nikko. My friends and family at Cedar Gulch are big fans of the sauna and cold shower tradition, we do it at least weekly throughout the winter. It is so excellent for relaxation and detoxification.
This was a thoughtful article. Your three examples: heat, language and spices supported the overall argument about perception and its inextricable tie to culture effortlessly. I enjoy essay style writing and this was done in a very digestible way; I admire its clarity.
Spices are something I have always aimed to incorporate into my diet. Although I grew up in a white-dominated area without a lot of my Mexican family around, my mom encouraged us to broaden our palette and not turn our nose up at strong spices. Just because something evokes a strong reaction within, it is not necessarily a negative experience. Intensity frightens people sometimes. I'm thankful I was raised to embrace intensity.