Cultural Conspiracy
Cultural Change in Tokyo - Food Edition
First Impressions of "Grub," in Tokyo
I have decided to choose "Food" as my topic for investigating
cultural changes in Tokyo. know by looking at my surroundings that food
in Tokyo has already started to go through some changes and I was interested
in finding out more about these changes on this topic, food. I believe
that there are three main categories to group these changes into. They
are (1) "Traditional" food in Japan (2) "Modern" food
in Japan (3) "Western" food in Japan. These groups: traditional,
modern and Western culture are said to be the three most important aspects
of changes in Tokyo today. I wanted to study the way food has changed in
Tokyo because food has been, and always will be the most important things
in our lives. It is very obvious that there are many Japanese foods that
are being replaced by modern and western types of food, and that is what
I would like to discuss. The first category, "traditional" Japanese
food is considered to be the food when it originated in the Edo Period
or before. These "traditional", cultural foods include "sushi"
and "tempura". They are still loved by the Japanese citizens
and will stay that way as well as being a dish that represents Japan. Tokyo
still has the old style "sushi" counters, where you sit down
at a counter and order the "sushi" that you want to eat. This
is probably the main reason why "sushi" is still a traditional
meal of Japan/Tokyo and is loved by the Japanese. However, this idea of
being "traditional" is starting to rot away in Tokyo because
people want to start to get away from the idea of being "traditional."
That is why the Japanese are trying to find new types of food to eat as
I shall explain in the following paragraphs. The second category, "modern"
Japanese food is food that has been in Tokyo since the Edo Period and was
adapted to fit the Japanese culture. Today, we can visit "modern"
food restaurants. By this I mean the family restaurants that have the menus
of both the West and of Japan. The idea of these restaurants comes from
the West, but the food itself is Japanese style. For example, restaurants
such as Skylark, Suehiro and Royal Host always include Japanese food such
as "shabu-shabu", "tempura-donburi (more often referred
to as tendon)", and always the typical "curry rice" and
"ramen" and "udon". The reason to why I think Tokyo
is getting so "modern" is because people know they have the skill
to build things so they want to start to get away from the typical "Japanese
style culture image," and start to develop the "modern"
image of Tokyo. Even the traditional Japanese food sushi, is becoming more
"modern" due to the invention of the "kaiten- sushi,"
where the sushi goes around on a conveyor belt and people just pick the
sushi off of it!! "This world is getting too technological!"
some people might say, and that is indeed very true. I believe that these
types of changes have occurred because the Japanese want to be like the
Western people. They think that it is better, more convenient and efficient
than the "old style" Japanese ways, and therefore Japan's "traditional
culture," is starting to fade away into the past. Finally the last
category, "Western culture" would be defined as the Japanese
imitating or copying the "Western people." They want to have
food like the Western people and nowadays, you see more people popping
in and out of McDonalds and KFC than you do see people go into "sushi-bars."
This change is actually very visible in Tokyo today, for if you go down
town, you shall see the majority of the people of a wide age range (children
to adults), go in to buy a hamburger rather than "dine" at the
sushi bars. Nowadays, people care more about how cheap the food is, how
fast they can get it - an easy solution would be the fast-food restaurants
and how easy it is for them to get it. Food eaten by people living in Tokyo
today would be categorized as becoming a more "Westernized" Japanese
culture. The restaurants are starting to become more "Westernized"
because people (young people especially) have started to consider the European-American
types of foods as being "better." The reason why they think this
is because the Japanese desire the American and European foods. They are
starting to not eat the "traditional" foods of Japan, but eat
the foreign foods. In fact, I know for a fact that most Japanese people
do not get to travel abroad too many times, and that is probably the reason
to why they desire the "Western" food so much. Whenever you switch
on the TV to food programs, you will often see advertisements for either
French, Italian, German or American meals and not too many for the traditional
Japanese meals. They still show the traditional Japanese meals because
it still remains an aspect of Japanese culture but after another 100 years,
I think that these advertisements will not be shown at all and that they
will concentrate on only Western food, therefore Japan would be a completely
"Westernized" country. I think this because now that people have
started to think more about foreign food, there is no reason for that idea
to disappear all of a sudden. If the idea was going to disappear, then
I think that it would be much longer than 100 years. However the way I
want Japan to be, is it to stay "traditional," and continue to
be a unique country. I wouldn't want to live in a copy of another culture,
because there would be no point in living in such a beautiful country that
is filled with culture called Japan!
Grub . . . Grub . . . Assessed Work
When I was first assigned this project, and picked the topic, "food,"
I thought that Japan was clearly turning into a Westernized culture. If
I had not done any research, my mind would have kept on telling me that
Japan is an already Westernized culture. However, after actually doing
some real research, I found out that I had viewed Japan in a wrong way.
Japan in fact, isn't Westernized (yet!), but is on its way to become a
more European and American based food culture. Of course, as you can see
today many people eat at McDonald's or KFC, but you also see many people
going into sushi restaurants. I'm not talking about the "old style,"
sushi-bars, but the more modernized kaiten-sushi. People enjoy eating sushi
as much as they like eating hamburgers and French fries. The type of information
that helped me change my view of Tokyo's (Japan's) cultural change are
the statistical and historical evidences found in the Almanacs and other
encyclopedias. The statistical data helped me realize many things, and
how normal households spend their money (on food), because it was very
specific and precise. My first impression was not too far off because Japan
is still Westernizing, but it hasn't completely been Westernized. Japan
(Tokyo) today is more of a modernized place and is on its way to become
a completely Westernized city. However, we are the ones who can stop this
"one way road," and turn it into a "two way road."
While doing research on my topic, "food," I found it hard to
find the exact question that I had written. The fun part about that though,
was being able to change the questions around so that it made sense and
would fit into the category. I found it easier to find answers to definition
questions if I was really specific about things. A good technique or strategy
that I used while I was doing my research was to copy notes that have some
sort of connection to my topic even if it wasn't necessary to have them.
The more notes you take, the more chance you will have on writing a good
research paper. I found that getting statistics and data off of the internet
was one of the easiest parts of the research project. It was nice to have
a web page made specially for Hyper Tokyo because that made it so much
simpler. If I were to do this research again, I would definitely spend
more time using the Almanac because they probably have the most valuable
information (I wish they would increase the number of Almanacs in the library).
I would not use the magazines again, because even though they had topics
on food, they were not too relevant (helpful) for me to use. Still, I did
enjoy doing my research!
"Cultural Conspiracy" Main Page
Prepared by Hiroyuki Tanaka, from Mr.
Hoover's 8th Grade social studies class on April 15th 1998.