This weekend, I had the chance to eat one of the most American sized dishes since I touched down in Japan. It cost roughly 1300 Japanese yen (about 13 USD), but man was it a big bowl of gyuudon (牛丼, pronounced as gee-you-dohn). The bowl was roughly as wide as a frisbee and as tall as a large bowl. Now for folks who do not know what gyuudon is, the name itself means beef bowl so it is basically some beef on top of rice. Also, the beef is thinly sliced and cooked in a hearty broth that warms you up inside from the moment you take the first bite. In my opinion, it is one of Japan’s most simple foods while still being one of the greatest. But about the size of the bowl I got, it was King Size. Not just regular, slightly larger, large, or mega. This thing was four times the regular size and I already feel like regular is more than enough for one person. After eating half and my friend helping me out, I felt pretty happy inside, not only from being stuffed full of gyuudon, but from the meal size being like something ridiculous I could get back in America.
Earlier in the weekend, I walked with some friends to Ueno. We ate some kebabs from my Japanese friend’s favorite shop and he told me a little bit about his family. When he was growing up, his parents took him on mini-trips to other prefectures, and this place in Ueno was one of those trips. He told me about how he always looked forward to eating kebabs here and it reminded me about how I used to look forward to going to Wisconsin Dells. Even though the distance traveling to Ueno from his hometown would be considered a short trip in America, I was surprised that the trip was so memorable in his opinion. This brought to my attention how Japanese people learn to treasure the little moments in life, but then Americans would take these small trips for granted. Because the distance they travel seems a lot shorter, I forgot about the precious moments that Japanese people could share with loved ones when they go on trips to other prefectures. For him, traveling to another prefecture is like how I travel to another state, but it is all the same kind of quality time spent together.
In my Japanese Business class, there was a guest speaker who stepped in for the usual professor. She was quite the character. I found her lecture that day quite amusing, but in my opinion both the original professor and her give great lectures. There was a great deal I learned about Japanese marketing and how their masculine culture plays a part in their advertising. For example, she brought up the interesting point of how muscular men are not considered ideal visuals for men in advertisements. This stems from the cultural belief that muscular Japanese men are usually assumed to be gay, therefore the perfect Japanese men for advertisements are bishounen (essentially means pretty boy in Japanese, pronounced bee-show-nen). From my perspective, I was shocked since I had always seen muscular men in American advertisements. In a way, this made me unconsciously assume the ideal guy image to be a muscular man. However, Japanese culture opposes this view and their appreciation of the bishounen in advertisements show this difference. From what I learned, I believe how Japanese society views the ideal man stems from their deeply rooted cultural values. These values can be like how they value calm and cool men instead of the typical American macho man.
Well, I hope you had fun learning a little bit about Japanese food and ideal masculinity in Japanese advertisements. Maybe next time, I’ll get a picture of some good old ramen (it’s a new favorite food of mine). Until next time!
Studying In Japan 