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Professor
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney is a William F. Vilas Research
Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
An expert in the social, cultural, and symbolic anthropology
of Japan, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of 12 books in
English and Japanese, including “Illness and Culture
in Contemporary Japan: An Anthropological View”
(1984), “The Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic Transformations
in Japanese History and Ritual” (1987), “Rice
as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time” (1993),
and “Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms:
the Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History”
(2002). Professor Ohnuki-Tierney has been awarded the
Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and
Japan Foundation fellowships, and is a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1.
Background
2.
Significance of Rice and other Foods in Japan
3.
Concept of Nature and what is Natural in Japanese Foods
4.
Food Safety in Japan
5.
McDonald’s and Changing Table Manners in Japan
6. Globalism and
the Japan/United States Food Market
7. Concluding
Thoughts
Food
Safety in Japan
L: Another food issue that’s been in the news
is the food safety issue in Japan. And with the problems
of hygiene and Mad Cow Disease [BSE] outbreak in Japan,
Canada, and the U. S., in your opinion do you believe
the average Japanese consumer is concerned about food
safety?
OT: They get terribly concerned about imported
food. But they are much less guarded when it comes to
the domestic agricultural products that do have chemicals
in them—but somehow the consumers don’t
get much information about these products—so they
are not as cautious about it. But when it comes to imported
products, in many societies, they are far more guarded.
For example, beef, after all, only started
to be eaten in the Meiji period. The emperor in fact
encouraged the Japanese to eat meat. There was a great
deal of discussion on beef eating and associating it
with Western Enlightenment. That started in Meiji—but
the consumption has not been that great. Meat still
is a kind of foreign element—and so when Mad Cow
Disease and all of that comes out, people jump. Some
of the native foods could be just as dangerous but the
Japanese are not as cautious about that.
L: Mad Cow Disease was discovered in Japanese meat
as well—
OT: Yes, that’s right.
L: Is the packaging and labeling of the origin of food
products important in the consumer market?
OT: Yes—they do look especially when
it comes to imported food products especially foreign
introduced food such as cheese, milk, and yogurt. They
[markets] all mark where they come from. The food industry
[in Japan] tried to promote the consumption by, for
example, talking about such things as the beautiful
nature of Alaska and Norway. Now, they are concerned
about farmed fish. And when they try to increase the
consumption of dairy foods such as milk and cheese,
they always depict pristine nature and the mountains
of Hokkaido.
L: As part of the food industry’s marketing strategies?
OT: Yes, that’s right. That’s not
always translated into the real purity of the food.
L: But it was an ideal image to promote the purity
of certain kinds of foods. And in relation to this purity
of food, there are the Japanese concepts of uchi (inside)
and soto (outside). How do these concepts relate to
the purity of food?
OT: That I think relates to basic hygienic—in
other words—the Americans don’t mind having
dogs go out and come back in the house—the middle-class
Japanese are very conscious about taking their shoes
off, washing their hands, and even gargling after they
come back from outside.
Uchi/soto has been a little too stereotyped
by outsiders and also tatemae/honne [outwardly expressed
feelings/true feelings] has been absolutely stereotyped
since Americans have that too.
L: It exists just as much in American life—
OT: Absolutely—you have this all the
time in politics, at the national level and the governmental
level. These concepts are attributed as though they
were unique to the Japanese.
L: I suppose another way is to see things such as rice
as pure as opposed to foreign things that may be impure
such as meat—
OT: It’s not that something is just impure—it’s
when something happens suddenly it can acquire an impurity
far more readily.
L: In what way?
OT: Well, for example, when the Mad Cow Disease
comes, then suddenly the Japanese think of beef as impure.
Although on the other hand, beef has been thought of
as a source of Enlightenment, a source of energy--like
urban centers everywhere, there are double sides, right?
L: Do people now think of beef in the historical sense,
when it was against the Buddhist teachings and it was
taboo to eat meat and butchers were "outcastes?"
OT: I don’t think so—that is the
intriguing part—at that time [during the Meiji
period] the butcher stores were always in marginalized
areas such as across the Sumida River. And attributed
to the former outcastes, but that notion of impurity
disappeared fairly radically.
L: What about bread?
OT: Bread is an intriguing food because it
came to Japan very early—and like my hometown
of Kobe—they have excellent bakeries. They distinguish
among types of bread-- German bread, and French bread—some
would drive for hours to get bread from a very famous
bakery. But bread is always a breakfast food—or
lunch food. It did not replace [rice] for dinner.
L: Yes, the Japanese miss rice for dinner. You mentioned
about cat burgers in one of your articles—that
there were rumors circulating about burgers made from
cat meat at McDonald’s—why do you think
these rumors circulated about these foreign foods?
OT: Whatever comes from outside is welcomed
on one hand, and there is the other side that lurks
behind it—the negative things such as Mad Cow
Disease or stories about cat burgers or epidemics that
are attributed to foreign things. Things that are foreign
are a source of Enlightenment, and at the same time,
the sinister side is lurking behind.
Interestingly, McDonald’s started to
target the busiest places such as very busy [train]
stations or at the Ginza, whereas, Mos Burgers [Japanized
fast food] targeted the younger population and the university
areas.
Next:
McDonald’s
and Changing Table Manners in Japan
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