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Published: January 31st 2009
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Tokyo is a wonderful and diverse city created by quite possibly the most homogeneous people. Tokyo has Disneyland, the Effiel tower, food from around the world, American commercialism, and a beautiful european-style brewery complex called the Yebisu Garden Place. Tokyo took all the great things and put them in one city. It's a fun place, but the culture you get out of it is not very Japanese...or is this what Japanese culture is becoming. Sitting with a friend at the Yebisu beer garden over lots of beer, we talked about what is Tokyo culture becoming, or if there would be any left in 30 years. There is no modern, western country as closed to foreigners as Japan is. The immigration, citizenship and naturalization policies are ridiculous. Less than 2% of hte population of Japan is not Japanese, but Tokyo loves to take foreign things and recreate them. I say Tokyo for a reason...outside of Tokyo there is significantly less Western influence, but being the capital city it set the tone for the modern outlook of Japan. Tokyo takes western things, makes them a bit brigher, flashier, sometimes more childish, then builds or posts this cleaned up version as something Tokyoites believe
is distinctively Japanese, but it really isn't. It is a copy or a desire to be western. One of the strangest things I see is that many commercials and ads in Japan feature western-looking people, some form of English, and western words and letters. If not printed, definitely spoken through katakana. For those not familiar with katakana, its the alphabet used to spell foreign words (mostly english). Usually the words sound the same, just broken down into sylabyles found in the Japanese language. Problem is, more of these words keep being created. From a language perspective, I think in 30 years the Japanese language will have more English words than Japanese. These aren't your normal foreign imported words like "Pizza" "Television." More and more commonly used Japanese words are being "created" by importing their English version, even if there is a perfectly usable Japanese word already. For example, Japanese has a word for journalist, written in Kanji. But then my friend who is speaking Japanese uses the japanized "jou-yu-na-li-su-to" and I have no clue what they just said. Did they not think I would know the correct word and substituted English? No, the english word is replacing the Japanese word...but
the Japanese think that it is just a new Japanese term. This is happening all around Japan. So over a few beers, we came to the conclusion that in 30 years all nouns will change to english set inside the japanese grammar structure.
For a hardcore Japanologist, this may be disturbing. For me, just amusing and slightly frustrating...especially since I had a wacky professor bent on proving that Japan through its culture alone will come to dominate Asia, although Japan is the one being culturally dominated. This constant borrowing means I get to have a good time in some of the places you dont expect to see in Japan.
First was Disneyland. Tokyoites love Disneyland like Americans never did. Disney is probably an hour drive from the house, in Chiba prefecture and has all the necessary Disney things...shops, Castle, Splash mountain, toon town, tower of terror...mostly things taken from Magic Kingdom. It's smaller, quite smaller, than Disneyworld but what it did grab is identical. There is a tremendous amount of hotels, all decked out Disney. You got your characters. One difference is the massive Ikispiari complex. Movie theater, restaurants, shopping on 8 floors. Host sister is working there
Piano player
Disney has an exchange agreement...half of the workers here were American from the USA empire after graduation. The place brought back some good memories like walking through Main street USA to the front of Cinderallas castle where Walt and Mickey were immortalized in a bronze statute. Turkey isn't in Japan, but I did grab a massive smoked chicken leg.
This past Thursday, I met up with a friend at Yebisu Garden Place and the Beer Museum. Yebisu is the premium brand of Sapporo, one of the 3 big brewers in Japan. One of their old plants was in Tokyo and gave the name Ebisu to the area and the train station. Now, its like part shopping center, part European beer village. Of course, the most expensive stores and restaurants line the Garden Place and its impeccably bright and clean. On the opposite side of the most glamorous department store line is the museum. Small, but nice. With the aid of a kanji dictionary, we were able to read most about the history of the beer company and beer process. Found out how to say yeast in Japanese...important knowledge. As expected, beer tasting at the end was the best. It was a paid tasting, but each glass...and I mean glass was 300 yen. There was
also a 4 beer small tasting set at 500 yen. I tried a stout, the original, wheat beer, and amber. Amber was delicious, almost as good as the stout which is my go-to beer. Amber had a tremendous amount of flavor. Kinds of fruit going on that I never noticed before. A lot had to do with the glasses and the pour. Bartenders poured perfectly...wish I knew how to do that because it makes a huge difference drinking beer in a proper glass with a proper pour. The wheat beer was not my thing. It was probably a good beer, but the taste of the wheat malt did not do it for me, although I think it would go great with a fresh goat cheese or very sharp cheddar. Just felt like a complement in my mouth, even though it wasn't a taste I liked. I think I'll be back there again.
Dad, I think I'm a beer drinker now...at least good beer. Not budweiser, but I like beer with flavor. So when I get home, maybe we can find some of the better Japanese stuff and I'll have one with you.
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Auntie M
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Beer
Hi Emanuel: Reading this during the SuperBowl and Uncle Mark wants you to know he loves a good Molson Canadian! Just back from New Hampshire from a great restaurant that had no less than 20 beers, some microbrews and regionals on tap. The North Country seems to have a strange affinity for homebrews and quality - when you get home I strongly recommend a trip to Maine, Vermont or New Hampshire. Keep smiling.