Search Results for: foreign consumers

NYT: Michelin rankings and the alleged inability for NJ to rate Japanese food

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

NYT: “But many Tokyoites grumbled that the guide gave high ratings to unremarkable restaurants, prompting wide speculation that the large number of stars was just a marketing ploy. “Anybody who knows restaurants in Tokyo knows that these stars are ridiculous,” said Toru Kenjo, president of Gentosha publishing house, whose men’s fashion magazine, Goethe, published a lengthy critique of the Tokyo guide last month. “Michelin has debased its brand. It won’t sell as well here in the future.” One chef, Toshiya Kadowaki, said his nouveau Japonais dishes, including a French-inspired rice with truffles, did not need a Gallic seal of approval. “Japanese food was created here, and only Japanese know it,” Mr. Kadowaki said in an interview. “How can a bunch of foreigners show up and tell us what is good or bad?”

Gyaku on upcoming GOJ regulations of the Internet: Online content, keitai, and file sharing

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Happy New Year, everyone. Let’s kick off the new year with a post on our future as bloggers here: Internet info site Gyaku on Japan’s future regulation of the Internet. If enacted, we’re going to see widespread regulation of online content, cellphone use, and file sharing in Japan. Have to admit–places like 2-Channel (with whom I have an unrequited libel lawsuit victory against) have brought this down upon all of us.

Fun Facts #4: Indicative Postwar “Child’s Play”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

John Dower: Children’s games can provide a barometer of their times. With consumer of any sort still in the distant future, youngsters were thrown back on their imaginations, and their play became a lively measure of the obsessions of adult society. Not long before, boys in particular had played war with a chilling innocence of what they were being encouraged to become. They donned headbands and imagined themselves piloting the planes that would, in fact, never return. They played at being heroic sailors long after the imperial navy began to be decimated. Armed with wooden spears and bayonets, they threw themselves screaming at mock-ups of Roosevelt and Churchill and pretended they were saving the country from the foreign devils [48]. In defeat, there was no such clear indoctrination behind children’s games. Essentially, they played at doing what they saw grownups do. It was a sobering sight…

GAIJIN HANZAI editor Saka responds on Japan Today, with my rebuttal

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Here we have an interesting development: The editor of the GAIJIN HANZAI URA FILES responds to his critics. A fascinating and relatively rare glimpse into the mindset of a person with a “thing” about gaijin. I post his response below, then comment after each paragraph.