WIT Life #131: Asian Collaboration
Events, Food & Drink, Japan Trends, Translating/Interpreting, WIT Life, Writers 
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Yesterday I attended the first ever Japan & Korea Block Fair, which was held on Broadway between 93rd and 94th streets. It was sandwiched between other festivals offering your standard street fare of zeppoles and gyros, but the Asian section seemed to be getting the most foot traffic. One side featured Japanese food such as okonomiyaki and yakitori, and the other had Korean food like bulgolgi and kimchi.
My friend and I shared many different samples, but my favorite was the 男前豆腐 (otokomae dofu), tofu from Kyoto with the motto of “A real otokomae (handsome man) wouldn’t disappoint you!” It is so soft that it melts in your mouth when you eat it, and I was enraptured. Choices for toppings were soy sauce or maple syrup (?), and I went for the former as the latter seemed like a bastardization of what tofu should be. However, I guess what they were going for was something sweet, like the ubiquitous dim sum tofu dessert.
Speaking of otoko, my friend and I came for not only the delicious food but also for the イケメン (ikemen) or eye-catching men contest that was being held. There were about 15 men who made appeals as to why they should be crowned as best looking, and the group was predominantly Japanese with a few Koreans. Several contestants showcased talents such as singing, sword handling (one claimed to be a samurai) and backflipping. We didn’t stay to see who won, but it was clearly going to be close. It was nice to see a joint contest as well as overall event between Japan and Korea, as it promoted an image of Asian closeness that is not always seen on the larger level.
Notwithstanding frequent political tensions, economic collaboration between Japan and other Asian countries is proceeding full steam ahead, as highlighted by two articles from last week’s WSJ. One discusses NTT Docomo teaming up with Samsung to sell the latter’s Galaxy S smartphone and Galaxy Tab tablet device in Japan. Currently the iPhone is the most popular smartphone, but Docomo is confident that they will succeed in the market. The other focuses on Chinese investors’ purchase of more than 50% of Japanese golf club maker Honma earlier this year, with 2/3 of Honma’s board now being made up of Chinese executives. As the article states, despite the recent diplomatic tension between the two countries, corporate ties have never been stronger. In fact, Japanese media now use the term チャパン (Chapan) to refer to the phenomenon of China’s growing interest of buying into Japan.
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