Jing-We, my contact in the community, had promised to take us to eat Zainichi Korean cuisine. I follow her down narrow alleys lit with bright neon signs that twist and turn so much that I am not sure I can find my way out of the maze. We finally reach our destination: a wooden building…
Category: History
Being Korean in Japan
Almost a decade ago, a motley group of Japanese ultranationalists gathered in front of a Korean elementary school in Kyoto. They came to protest the school’s use of the public park across the street. The school was an ideal target: it was affiliated with North Korea and did not have the means to fight back….
Food Authenticity In Japan
A fish burger to save a struggling region While doing fieldwork in Japan, I received a strange email message from a restaurant owner in a small fishing town that sits on the Southern coast of the island of Shikoku. The message explained that in an effort to revitalize the local economy, high school students had…
What is the Japanese taste of umami?
The first time I heard about umami, I had started working in a run-down sushi shop on top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. I learned how to steam Japanese rice and season it with the appropriate balance of sweetness and sourness. I cleaned and gutted small fish as I was not to be trusted…
Making foreign foods Japanese
During its two hundred years of isolation, Japan pursued a policy that attempted to prevent foreign political and cultural ideas to penetrate the country. The goal was foremost to thwart the growing influence of the Catholic church by effectively cutting Japan off from the rest of the world. The law stated that the Japanese leaving the…
Learn how to eat sushi the Japanese way
In recent years, sushi has gained tremendous popularity around the World. As a result of this global success, sushi has come to mean different things depending on where it is eaten. For example, sushi in Japan is different from sushi in California. At its most basic definition, sushi is seasoned rice with raw fish, yet, to better…
