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What food tells us about culture
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Confucian beliefs have played an important role in the East Asian societies for centuries, thus Japan is not an exception. One of the main features of Confucianism is the set of five hierarchical orders, one of them being the master and his disciple interaction. It can be adapted to a specific relationship between a ramen noodle master and his apprentice. This kind of interactions has been shown in the Japanese film Tampopo and its modern American remake The Ramen Girl. In both films the student and teacher interaction can be seen as one of the main, if not the most important, narrative strands, around which all the action is centred. This essay will be dealing with this hierarchical order in the context of The Ramen Girl, where the relationship is rather Americanized and goes against the Japanese traditions. The main character is not only disrespectful of her teacher, but is overall very ignorant towards the Japanese culture. This movie will be compared to the already mentioned “noodle western” Tampopo, where the hierarchy is much more evident, despite being slightly modernized. Therefore, while using the medium of food and hierarchical order of Confucianism, both films successfully tell the viewers a lot about the way people interact in the portrayed nations.
The Ramen Girl is an American-Japanese film directed by Robert Allan Ackerman in 2008, it is said to be a loose remake of the infamous Japanese film Tampopo (1985). The main plot of the picture is centred on Abby, played by Brittany Murphy, an American girl who followed her boyfriend to Tokyo but got discarded shortly after the arrival. Heart-broken and lost, she accidentally came around a noodle shop, where her destiny changed. After being served a bowl of ramen noodles, A...
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... the collective work more compared to the individual merit. As Confucianism is still very important in this state, so is the respect to the elders, especially to the teacher, which is just like a parent, who cannot only guide his student through the particular training, but influence the whole life course.
Works Cited
Ackerman, Robert Allan, dir. The Ramen Girl. Media 8 Entertainment, 2008. DVD.
Ashkenazi, Michael. "Food, Play, Business, and the Image of Japan in Itami Juzo's Tampopo". In Anne Bower, ed., Reel Food: Essays on Food and Film.New York: Routledge, 2004. Print
Itami, Jūzō, dir. Tampopo. Itami Productions, 1985. DVD.
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. "The Ambivalent Self of the Contemporary Japanese." Cultural Anthropology 5.2 (1990): 197-216. Print.
"The The Ramen Girl." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 25 Dec. 2013.
"Tampopo." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 25 Dec. 2013.
Confucius was a philosopher, political intellect and an educator whose philosophies have significantly prejudiced not only the Chinese principles but the entire world evolution. He lived through the “Spring” and “Autumn” epoch of Chinese history, when east central China was separated over a dozen fighting states. The inordinate ailment and grief he saw swayed his political thoughts, which highlighted command, grading and the rule of a compassionate self-governing state.
Fallows, James. "After Centuries of Japanese Isoation, a Fateful Meeting of East and West." {Smithsonian} July 1994: 20-33.
Confucius’ impact on Chinese culture has withstood numerous generations and continues to be one of the most prominent philosophies found in Chinese culture. Firmly rooted in years of education, Confucius spent considerable time developing his set of values and principles. In his article entitled “Confucius and the Effortless Life of Virtue”, author Hagop Sarkissian adds to this by saying, “Confucius set his mind on a course of study or cultivation at the age of fifteen, and pursued such studies for a span of fifty-five years, and was thereby able to cultivate a state of being such that he could follow his immediate inclinations in all of life’s predicaments without transgressing social norms” (Sarkissian 1). Confucius’ extensive studies only added to the philosophy represented in the Analects. This includes the pas...
Brazell, Karen. Traditional Japanese Theater: An Anthology of Plays. New York: Columbia UP, 1998. Print.
Suzuki, Tomi. Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese Modernity. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996.
The importance of reflexivity is illustrated in Dissolution and Reconstitution of Self: Implications for Anthropological Epistemology, by anthropologist Dorinne Kondo. Her reflections lead her to realize that she has lost, or has almost lost, her identity as an American anthropologist and now sees herself as a young woman of Japanese culture. "What occurred in the field was a kind of fragmenting of identity into Japanese and American elements, so that the different strands, instead of interweaving to form a coherent whole, strained and tugged against one another" (78). As she became so immersed in the culture, Kondo began to understand and adopt cultural aspects that are unique to the Japanese, a thus adopted a new identity. At first, she practiced Japanese behavior to be socially accepted and gain the respect of her host family, but she was so successful that community members began to regard her as a fello...
Confucianism has a close concern on social reality and strong sense of mission on history that ‘the country management and governess as own responsibility’ (Cline, 2007, pp.231). It refers that a person should keep learning and practice what has learnt to become benevolent and righteous for himself, and help others, manage state affairs as well as protect the peace of country (Confucius, 1994). This is a positive life attitude for human being relates to what called “Dao”. In contrast, the ideology of Taoism ignored and removed the barrier of interpersonal relationship, insisting to build peaceful in world based on the value orientation. The theory taught people to show no interest in physical success and social issues because everything has its own natural attributes ( 'Taoism and the arts of China ', 2001). It means that they think doing nothing is better than doing something because the latter one may break the perfection and harmony of nature. Most excellent Confucianism learner became politician in the future, however, most of Taoism learner became solitary (Wang & Chanzit, 2004). It address that the most important thing comes from the interior mind. Taoism cares about the pursuit of spiritual thing like moral and characteristics rather than physical or superficial thing such as reputation and welfare, corresponding to the
Cousins,S.D. (1989). Culture and self-perception in Japan and the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 56 (1),124-131
Denison. B. (2002, January 1). A Basic Overview of Japanese Culture . . Retrieved May 3, 2014, from http://www.mizukan.org/articles/culture.htm
Adapted from a New York Times bestseller written by an American male novelist, manipulated by American male directors and producers, the film Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) reifies the Western fantasies towards Asian women, their beauty, their sexual appeals and their exotic and erotic mystery, with the narratives constructed through both the Orientalist and patriarchal filters. Asian women and Asian culture are commoditized in the film (Akita, 2009), created by and for the pleasures of its Western spectators. The Story Memoirs of a Geisha (Geisha hereafter) centers around the life story of Sayuri, a famous Japanese geisha, who spans from the 1930s to post World War II era. Sayuri, then named Chiyo, is born into a poor fisherman’s family.
Confucian culture has persistence, so it does not disappear with the annihilation of the old system. Confucian culture, formed under two thousand years of feudal autocratic rule, not only exists for a long time, but also still has important influence on Chinese contemporary political life and political culture with its strong vitality. The theme of moderation is to educate people consciously to self-improve, self supervise, and self educate, and train themselves have the ideal personality. Fundamentally, the Confucian thinks that the root of governing revolution lies in the will of people, therefore, it should govern from the will of people if it wants to achieve the social governance, which has its profound meaning (Chan, Cho, 2014). The emergence of a lot of social problems, in the final analysis, is due to the lack of governance...
Director Rob Marshall’s adaption of Memoirs of a Geisha tells us of a nine-year old Japanese girl named Chiyo. Sold by her impoverished father to a Hanamachi (Geisha District) Okiya in 1930’s Kyoto, Chiyo grows up to become the most celebrated Geisha. Rob Marshall may have intended for the film to illuminate the mysterious world of the Geisha , and to showcase Japanese culture, but controversial themes and obvious historical inaccuracies lead to a divide in its reception. I chose this movie because it was made by a western director, famous, at the time, for directing Chicago, with the intention of highlighting some of the nuances, not typically explored, of Japanese historical culture.
Western Washington University (2011). US / Japan culture comparison. Retrieved February 9, 2014, from www.wwu.edu/auap/english/gettinginvolved/CultureComparison.shtml
Gamble, Adam, and Takesato Watanabe. A Public Betrayed: An inside Look at Japanese Media Atrocities and Their Warnings to the West. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Pub., 2004. Print.
From the interactive oral presentation on the Japanese vs. Western Social norms, I have learned a tremendous amount on how Mishima incorporated traditional Japanese and western influences in the novel to portray the loss of traditional Japanese culture within the Japanese society.