In theory, bureaucratic red tape is extant in much of society’s daily routines for the purpose of ensuring that certain actions are taken by only the right people. In Zimbabwe, it is generally viewed as wrong for a Westerner to adopt a child native to that country. For this reason, Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, were seen as the wrong people trying to take the supposed wrong course of action. Consequently, their pleas for the adoption of Chipo were met with “endless bureaucratic frustrations and resistance.” While frustration with American sociocultural expectations in Zimbabwe is illustrated in this example, Japan has a similar distaste with one of America’s more popular habits: dining on fast food. In Japan, it is not customary for individuals to dine at fast-food establishments on average several times a week. What for Americans has become customary—easy and affordable access to some form of fast food—is viewed as an unhealthy, most untraditional notion in Japanese society. Japanese culture has evolved in such a way that its members expect a leaner, healthier style of living, with strong roots found in one’s diet. Because Japanese dietary expectations of cleanliness, sanitation, and healthiness are not met by American culture with equally extreme a perspective, the Japanese people have grown increasingly repugnant of America’s obsession with the consumption of fast food.
What is commonplace in American society—the adoption of children by whoever is deemed legally capable of providing for the well-being of a child—is not traditionally looked upon by Zimbabwean society as quite as acceptable a practice. Similarly, when Americans consume pounds of mass produced, processed food in one sitting, such an act is looked down upon by members of the Japanese society. Almost everyone has binge eaten at some point in their life, however the frequency, content, and quality of the meals taken under such conditions plays a key role when the Japanese look at Americans’ eating habits. They view it as disgusting that one person can be allowed to consume so much food. However, this is not to say that McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken are not popular establishments in Japan as well. Japan, like most other countries in the world, is no exception to the endless expansion sought by imperialist fast food corporations once known only to exist in America. The key difference that Japan wields in the fast food business is in the size of the portions sold. Almost every fast food restaurant in Japan serves noticeably smaller portions and better quality food, than that of its American counterparts. An unhealthy diet has not become entirely taboo in America yet; however the tradition that Japanese cuisine has evolved with illustrates distaste with the notion of obesity. Japanese cuisine is lined with vegetables and seafood, two of the more healthy areas of the food pyramid. True, Japanese people crack raw eggs over many of their dishes, and consume seemingly endless amounts of carbohydrates in the way of rice and ramen noodles, but the methods by which they prepare their food are considerably more healthy and sanitary than that of many home kitchens and fast food restaurants found in the United States.
While living in Tokyo for the past two years, I have experienced on several occasions Japanese people refer to McDonald’s as “The American Embassy.” At first it was demeaning for me to hear such a stereotypical comment made about my own society, but the truth is that as stereotypical as this comment seemed at the time, the critic this phrase originated with is right to some degree. Just as the customs officials in Zimbabwe referred to Neely Tucker as “the rich American,” stereotypes will forever follow each society that has a distinctive culture it calls its own. Neely Tucker felt a similar soreness as I when he had his first encounter with the bureaucratic nonsense of the Zimbabwean government. Just as the adoption of a native baby in Zimbabwe by foreigners is socially unaccepted, the concept of eating fast food with some frequency is looked down upon in Japanese culture. Despite this, however, the concepts of adoption and frequent fast food eating are both widely accepted institutions of American society.
No comments:
Post a Comment