The aspect of culture I am studying is food. I am studying this aspect
of Japanese culture because everyone needs and eats it. It's a very necessary
part of life. Everyone in the world needs food. I am going to give three
examples of food in Japan, raditional," "modern," and "western."
A "traditional" food in Japan is rice. Rice has been going on
for many years here in Japan. I'm sure just about everyone in Japan eats
rice since it has been going on for so many years. It was used in the Edo
period for trading when Japan did not ye have their own type of money.
Rice is still an important type of food in Japan for many Japanese but
I think that "modern" and "western" food is growing
and that "traditional" food is still the same.
A "modern" food in Japan is cup noodle. It has not been going
on in Japan for very long but I think that it is very popular here. It
is very fast and convenient for school kids and workers and such people
like that. All you have to do is add hot wat and you've got yourself a
meal. I have only had cup noodle about two times and it is okay. A lot
of people don't want to bother with making long meals so I think that cup
noodle is taking a big portion of everyone's cupboards.
The hamburger is a "western" style food now in Japan. McDonald's
is beginning to be very big here. It's Japan's way of copying America.
They just shipped one of their McDonald's over here. I think that fast
food places such as McDonald's and Subway are taking over Japanese lives.
Many early risers (workers) go to McDonald's to get themselves their breakfasts.
It is beginning to be an important part of their lives and I think it's
taking a chunk of their lives.
In my opinion, "traditional" food is still most prevalent here.
There are many noodle shops and a lot of places have rice. I think that
"traditional" food is still going to be a big part in Japanese
lives but I also think that "modern" food and "western"
food is growing and will keep on growing. I think that rice is still going
to be here but McDonald's and cup noodle will grow on Japanese people.
The End: A Look Back
Before beginning my research I believed that Japanese culture was still
noticeable but fading away. I thought that it would always be there though.
I also thought that Western foods would enter the lives of Japanese and
they would take a great deal of liking to the taste. While doing my research
I noticed that my hypothesis was right. I was surprised though at the dramatic
increase of western foods in the average Japanese's diet and the decline
of rice. I didn't think that it was such an enormous leap, or in the other
way, a major fall.
It was fairly easy to find lots of information about food since it is such
a largely used topic and everyone needs it. To have the 1997 Japan Almanac
was a life saver because it contained so much valuable information. It
was hard to find information about modern food. If I were to do this over
I would try to find more information about modern food and I would also
take better notes on where the information came from. I think one of the
hardest parts was the bibliography because I did not note well enough where
I got all of the information. If I were to do this again I would use pretty
much the same books and manage my time wisely like I did while doing this
project. I wish I would have looked in the magazines though. It was frustrating
in the end when I had a lot of information on one subject but not on the
other. it was hard to write the final copy because I had to decide where
to stick in all the different loads of stuff. I just looked for key words
and such to divide them up.
