What does a fish say?

"In America,” I explained last night to the cute Japanese bartenders. “We take the head off before eating the fish."

Lewis, the African-American bar-owner serving as my translator, repeated this novel idea in fluent Japanese.

The bartenders looked confused and said something to Lewis. He laughed and turned to me, "They want to know how you eat the eyes then."

"Yeah, in America we don't usually eat the eyes," I shook my head at the bartenders."No eat eye."

The bartenders were shocked.

"In Japan, that's considered the best part of the fish." Lewis explained with a smile. Incidentally, I ate my first fishhead that night, eyes and all, at the local street stand with my new found buddies. It wasn't that bad. Crunchy.

In the midst of our cultural-differences talk, my favorite conversation to have while traveling, the inevitable topic arose... what do your animals say? This is always a fun one at first. Turns out that Japanese dogs bark "Wang wang," cats "Neow," and pigs "Bu bu." I can give them the Wang and the Neow, but Bu? A pig so does not say "Bu."

Then the embarrassing moment arose when the conversation turned to chickens. Japanese roosters, apparently, wake up proudly each morning with a "kokokai." I know that French chickens have a dignified "Cocorico."

I suddenly felt like David Sedaris in his short story on this topic, "When told that an American rooster says 'cock-a-doodle-doo,' my hosts look at me with disbelief and pity."

Whatever, you eat fish eyes.