Comments on: Even the departing editor of the Economist isn’t above chopstick praise

By: Mutantfrog Travelogue » Blog Archive » Interviewing Masahiko Fujiwara - FT from March 2007

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:14:23 +0000

[...] FT series in which reporters have a casual conversation with opinion-makers over a gourmet lunch (here’s what I wrote about another entry), begins with Fujiwara laying out his thesis more or less [...]

By: Gaijin Biker

Gaijin Biker — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:46:54 +0000

Let’s see if it makes sense if we switch cultures:

“Mr. Tanaka held his spoon perfectly, and didn’t commit the common Japanese faux pas of picking up his soup bowl and slurping from it.”

Nope, didn’t think so.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:42:03 +0000

Regardless of whether you’re being overly sensitive or not (and I don’t think you are), banalities regarding chopstick proficiency are hardly befitting of a professional journalist, not to mention her use of “gaijin.” And if she’s under the assumption that all Japanese use chopsticks correctly and don’t pour soy sauce or other condiments on rice, she really needs to get out more. You might say that Terazono makes the classic ‘hojin’ faux pas of making sweeping statements about her own culture.

Great blog by the way.

By: Ken Y-N

Ken Y-N — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:30:21 +0000

Thinking about that quote you highlighted, the bit that offends me is the “common gaijin faux pas” phrase. It has already been established that he is a Japan expert and presumably long-time resident; it would be like if it was the other way round at a Western restaurant pointing out that the Japanese person didn’t drink the finger bowls thinking it to be sake, or something.

Also, the “common gaijin faux pas” is really “error by person fresh off the boat at his first meal in Japan”. It’s like the standing your chopsticks up in rice – does anyone really do it with sufficient frequency to merit a prominent mention in almost every etiquette guide?

Holding the chawan, though, is something that I didn’t do for a good few years until wifey beat good manners into me!

By: Adamu

Adamu — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:19:17 +0000

Oh, I am under no delusions as far as insensitivity toward foreigners is concerned. I’ve engendered enough impatient looks from foreign students in Washington to figure out that I’m not exactly Mr. Urbane American myself. But I’ve been told that as Americans go I’m actually somewhat better than most in terms of being “international.”

But things like this have become an issue among Westerners in Japan, probably because people like me get all bent out of shape about it. Of course, if this is the worst of your problems then things really can’t be all that bad, can they?

About the soy sauce on rice thing: it is the custom not to do it in Japan. The rule of thumb is not to put soy sauce directly on the rice but to pour it on your katsu or sashimi and eat the rice with that.

I agree: I don’t like soy sauce with rice but it’s got nothing to do with manners. Japanese food is a little like wine – it tastes better if it’s in the right container and consumed properly.

This might be because I’ve been stateside for so long, but it seems kind of silly to worry too much about Japanese manners as a foreigner. I mean I’ll do what I can to avoid making my eating habits a topic of conversation (there are usually more interesting things to talk about), but not every meal needs to be the freaking tea ceremony. I can’t kneel, don’t like shiso, and occasionally like to drink soda with a meal – deal with it.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:31:39 +0000

I don't think you're being oversensitive, though I do think you're falling pray to some extent to the Japanese-created aura of being particularly insensitive to foreigners. Don't get me wrong: Japanese culture is pretty unwelcoming to someone who is not willing to fully assimilate (even to Japanese), but I'm not sure anymore how much that makes Japan an outlier in the world. The soy sauce thing is interesting: some of us have no problem putting soy sauce on our rice, but prefer not to; it's not about being polite (which is what's implied by the faux pas comment) but about taste....