Posts Tagged: food

Japan — 21 Comments
2
May 08

Baked Beans to Save Japan’s Food Crisis?

This post is an oldie, but I’m submitting it to Rocking in Hakata’s February 2009 Japan Blog Matsuri about Foreign Food. Enjoy!

With food prices soaring, and butter disappearing altogether, there is no doubt that Japan is suffering an unprecedented food crisis.

Learning from the British

At university, balancing the budget to accommodate both food and beer is a skill most Brits have mastered, but it wouldn’t be possible without that staple of the British food industry, baked beans.

Cheap baked beansSupermarket chain, Tesco, is where I used to buy baked beans for as little as 8p (16 yen) a can. I believe you can still find tins of the little beans in tomato sauce for 10p (20 yen). Even a can of the brand name, Heinz Baked Beans, will only set you back 41p (84 yen).

Therefore, I think it’s fair to say that no matter how bad the food crisis gets, the British will prevail due to their willingness to dine on something that would most likely make the Japanese barf.

Poll shows Japanese hate British food

Baked beans on toast9,872 former Japanese exchange students recently took part in a nationwide poll by the Japanese Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Of the respondents who had lived in the UK, a whopping 93.8% rated British food as “bland”, and as “edible as poisoned Chinese gyouza”. The source of this poll has yet to be verified, but I won’t let that get in the way of a good story.

Could baked beans be the answer to Japan’s food crisis?

If Heinz were to sponsor a few Japanese celebrities to try their flagship product on TV, we are guaranteed an orgasmic reaction as the guests scream oishii! and umai! in delight at the orange bean treat. This could lead the way to mass production of the food, and huge eatership numbers among Japan’s soon-to-be-poor population.

If you’ve got the money, why wait?

Heinz baked beansYou don’t have to wait for Japan to accept baked beans as the natural alternative to every other food, you can order a tin of the original, 84 yen Heinz Baked Beans via The Meat Guy for as little as 650 yen with FREE postage and packing! :roll:

Failing that, until Heinz brings to Japan its British operation of 1.5 million cans of baked beans a day, you’ll just have to survive on natto…

Thanks to Haikugirl’s search for baked beans for inspiring this post.

Japan — 19 Comments
17
Apr 08

The Same Old Questions

No matter how long you are in Japan, you will always be asked the same questions:

  • Where are you from?
  • Do you like Japanese food?
  • Can you use chopsticks?

The more adventurous Japanese will ask you questions about your home country:

  • Is summer as hot as in Japan?
  • Do you have cherry blossoms?
  • Do you speak English in England?

All these questions were recently asked of me by the dental assistant, just before I had my teeth drilled.

I can’t take it anymore!

I understand that because I’m a foreigner, people are interested in where I’m from and what I think of Japan. I am always courteous and answer politely, with a few well-practiced jokes included, but what I really want to say is…

Oh god! Here we go again! Leave me alone already! I don’t care where I’m from, so why do you? Of course I like Japanese food, what do you think I’ve been eating for the last decade? Can I use chopsticks? Yes, and I can spell my own name, too! Hot in summer? Al Gore says it is. Cherry blossoms? Now you’re getting desperate for conversation! English in England? Well, duh!

Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but it just never ends. I could be here when I’m 70 and still be asked the same things. At this stage of my life, I am really put off by these kinds of questions, despite the good intentions of the person asking.

What I’d like people to talk to me about

Normal things. Ask me if I watched that new drama, Hokaben, on Wednesday night. Talk to me about sport, politics, my favorite shopping mall… ask me about my family here and what it’s like being a dad. Ask me about my plans for Golden Week. Let’s chat about the new paper recycling rules, or what they are building by the golf course. Anything but chopsticks, natto, or a country I remember very little about.

Any of you feeling the same way?

Japan — 10 Comments
9
Jan 08

Yahoo Comparison Exposes Quirky Japanese Culture

On January 1st 2008, Yahoo! Japan officially unveiled their redesigned web portal. Despite Yahoo’s popularity among the Japanese (over 60% share of the search engine market), we’ve had to wait this long for them to come up with a flashy web 2.0 style homepage.

Pushing slow adopters to increase their screen resolution

With so many people in this country using Yahoo! I was quite surprised they dropped the old 800-pixel-wide layout and opted for 1024 pixels. This could be one of the most overlooked steps in forcing people to increase their screen resolution. Not everyone in Japan is a tech-savvy otaku, and even my own mum was using 800×600 until recently. Anyway, it’s a positive step and gives us more room for advertising! ;-)

Examining cultural differences with the Yahoo navigation menu

Here is a picture showing the US (.com) version of Yahoo’s navigation menu on the left, and the Japanese version on the right, complete with my dodgy translations.

Yahoo navigation menu comparison

I find comparing the two quite fascinating and it shows a lot about Japanese culture. For example:

  • Yahoo Auctions are right up there below Shopping in the Japanese menu. I realize the US version is in alphabetical order, but the Japanese menu is probably in order of popularity, showing Japan’s love for retail.
  • Travel in the Japanese menu refers to “rail routes”. When you follow the link, you choose your starting station and destination, click the button, and are instantly presented with a step-by-step guide to getting where you want to go. Very fancy, but essential for Japan’s millions of train commuters.
  • Cuisine, restaurants, food, gourmet, whatever you want to call it. Japan loves food, and that’s an understatement. Yahoo knows this all too well, and satisfies their passion for eating in and out with restaurant and cooking guides galore.
  • Beauty is a new section, and one that will be welcomed by the masses. Second to their craving for good food, Japanese people are obsessed with beauty. Yahoo lists all the latest trends in cosmetics, massage and dieting. This will be of particular interest to those suffering from metabolic syndrome, which almost everybody here believes they are!
  • Divination is much more than just horoscopes. We’re talking superstitions of supernatural proportions. It could be astrological predictions by Kazuko Hosoki, Ehara’s ghostly meetings with the deceased, lucky charms made of elephant dung, or the years of bad luck that can only be yakudoshi. Japanese people love this stuff!
  • Pets is another new category and seems to tap into the Japanese need to ooooh! and aaaah! at the cute little dogs in pet store windows. There’s not much more than pet photo albums on Yahoo, but that’s probably all they need to keep people using Yahoo forever and ever and ever.

That pretty much sums up modern Japanese culture, and shows just why Google is still lagging behind Yahoo in Japan. We don’t need accurate search results here! We just need horoscopes, cosmetics and puppies!

Japan — No Comments
3
Nov 06

The end of Westernized Japanese food?

Japan’s agriculture ministry said it plans to certify the quality of Japanese food abroad in an attempt to promote “authentic Japanese food”. Does this mean that all Japanese restaurants abroad will have to conform to the standards set by the government here? If so, I don’t think it’s going to work.

I heard that London is experiencing a sushi boom right now, but also that most of the chefs are not Japanese. Apparently, it’s difficult to find and keep Japanese sushi chefs. So would these non-Japanese chefs have to take the ‘Sushi Standards Proficiency Test’?

Naturally, food is adapted to suit local tastes, for example California rolls, or coke with your sushi instead of tea, so who is going to benefit if the local community doesn’t like ‘authentic’ Japanese food? Maybe only the Japanese tourists who despise foreign food (especially British) so much that they will eat at Japanese restaurants when traveling overseas.

I’m such a hypocrite!

Here I am suggesting that the demand for ‘authentic’ food is a preposterous idea, I so wish other countries would follow Japan’s lead! Imagine a Japan filled with authentic Italian, Mexican and French restaurants. No more curry doughnuts or fried eggs covered with spaghetti!

Oh, what I would give for a traditional English roast, or a bag of overly vinegared sausage and chips!