{"id":10168,"date":"2010-01-14T01:03:43","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T05:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=10168"},"modified":"2010-01-14T01:06:48","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T05:06:48","slug":"wit-life-68-the-role-of-rice-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/14\/wit-life-68-the-role-of-rice-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #68: The Role of Rice in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITLi<\/strong><\/em><\/a>fe<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/a> is a periodic series written by professional Translator\/<\/em>Interpreter\/<\/em>Writer Stacy Smith<\/a><\/strong> (Kumamoto-ken, 20<\/strong><\/em>00-03)<\/strong>.\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been <\/em>watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends togeth<\/em>e<\/em>r <\/em>w<\/em>ith<\/em> h<\/em>er<\/em> <\/em>own<\/em> <\/span><\/span>obser<\/em>vat<\/em>ions.<\/em>\"\"<\/p>\n

I recently came across this article<\/a> from the end of last year in the Economist that discusses how deeply rice is embedded in Japanese society.\u00a0 Some aspects like the designation of\u00a0 Emperor Akihito as Japan\u2019s “rice-farmer-in-chief” are humorous, and the in-depth look at the history of this crop that is so central to Japanese culture is fascinating.\u00a0 The author’s description of a rice-producing area of Niigata suffering from a rural exodus is vividly drawn, and interviews with some of the residents are eye opening.\u00a0 While reading the article I kept flashing back to my experience of doing \u7530\u690d\u3048 (taue<\/em>, or\u00a0 rice planting) in the Kumamoto countryside and how much I enjoyed participating in this communal activity.\u00a0 I also recalled how Japanese friends always thought I was crazy for loving the dish I called “gyunyu gohan<\/em> (rice with milk),” which became my comfort food while living in Japan.\u00a0 My assertion that it was similar in nature to certain types of Thai desserts didn’t go far in convincing them.<\/p>\n

I’m currently interpreting for a Japanese delegation that is in the first week of their travels, and inevitably the call for rice has already come up.\u00a0 Last night’s dinner at a pan-Asian restaurant seemed to provide them with a sense of security, though they were concerned about where the rice came from.\u00a0 That reminded me of where the article highlights a young man in Tokyo who runs a rice specialty restaurant and offers the theory that \u201cJapanese bodies are made from rice, and that the Japanese people should only eat rice grown in Japan.\u201d\u00a0 In believing that the \u201cspirit of rice\u201d is part of the Japanese DNA, he has appropriately named his restaurant Kokoromai or “Heart of Rice.”\u00a0 Perhaps instilling this sort of appreciation for rice is necessary, as for the younger generation harvesting this crop has lost its luster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Translator\/Interpreter\/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. I recently came across this article from the end of last year in the Economist that discusses how deeply rice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,30,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdote-article","category-japan-trends","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-2E0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10168"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10177,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10168\/revisions\/10177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}