People’s Daily: How Food adds to Japanese Soft Power

Note: this is mainly based on a People’s Daily article of December last year. It may currently not be the season for this kind of articles in the Chinese press.

Main Link: 日本简明清晰的软实力, People’s Daily Online, Dec 5, 2011

The Japanese ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries prepared an application to UNESCO in 2011, to have the international body recognize Japanese cuisine or food (washoku in Japanese, heshi/和食) as part of the world’s intangible cultural heritage. By April this year, the only other cuisines listed as cultural heritage by UNESCO reportedly were French, Mexican, Turkish, Mediterranean and most recently, Korean imperial food. According to the Japan Times, UNESCO will issue its final judgment in November 2013.

Japanese Soba (thin noodles) – click on this picture for more information, and its author).

Cheng Lin (成琳), a regular or unregular contributor to People’s Daily, considered Japan’s approach a move to expand the country’s soft power (ruan shili/软实力):

A country’s food culture is a vital component of a country’s [overall] culture, from which you can find out about its characteristics and ways of thought. “washoku” is a miniature of how Japanese people do things, and of Japanese culture. “washoku” pays great attention to the freshness of ingredients, the senses of seasons, and original flavors, and embodies Japanese adherence to a natural attitude. Japanese cuisine is also mindful about simplicity in the use of eating utensils and the environment where they eat, displaying simple and elegant, aesthetic consciousness. The greatest characteristic of “washoku” is about a combination of adaptibility and innovation, which speaks of compatibility [or of inclusiveness] and of creativity.

一个国家的饮食文化是该国文化不可或缺的组成部分，能由此看出该国的国民性格和思维方式。“和食”即日本料理，正是日本文化的一个缩影。“和食”讲求食材的新鲜感、季节感和原风味，体现了日本国民崇尚自然的态度。另外，日本料理在食物器具和饮食环境上也讲求简洁高雅，呈现出追求质朴淡雅的审美意识。“和食”最大的特点是“兼容并蓄、推陈出新”，这正是日本文化包容性、创造性的一个体现。

Cheng Lin emphasizes how Western and – historically – many foods which weren’t originally Japanese were incorporated into Japanese cuisine, enriching and perfecting (进一步丰富完善) it.

While the three types of Japanese drama – apparently the Noh play, the Joruri or puppet play, and the Kabuki play (能乐, 净琉璃文乐木偶戏, and 歌舞伎) – were too abstract for foreigners, and even younger Japanese people to appreciate them, washoku came with cultural characteristics that were succinct and clear, something that had already turned into part of Japan’s soft power.

According to statistics, the numbers of Japanese restaurants have continuously grown, all over the world. During the past ten years, their number in America increased by 250 percent, and by 300 percent in Britain, during the past five years. The owners of these restaurants may not necessarily be Japanese people, but those who go there show their endorsement of Japanese food.

有统计表明，日式餐馆数量在全球各大城市不断增加。美国的日式餐馆总数在过去10年中增长了250%，英国的日式餐馆在过去5年中增长了300%。尽管日式餐馆的拥有者不一定是日本人，但来此消费的食客认可的是日餐。

The remaining paragraph of the article addresses other factors that appeared to make Japanese culture “cool”, with pop music and “Hello Kitty” among them. Other items, too, but I guess I’ve never noticed them, and therefore don’t know how to translate them.

Cheng Li’s conclusion may or may not be correct, but is certainly conventional Chinese-Communist-Party wisdom about “building soft power” – from that perspective anyway, Japan’s application to UNESCO isn’t only about image, but about enhancing national cohesion (增强民族凝聚力), too.

Weekender: Cherry Blossom, moving Northward

Bremen-Walle (South), April 2011

No matter what an environment looks like, and no matter what’s in the news, it’s cherry blossom time again, even Bremen-Walle, a place which doesn’t necessarily epitomize beauty otherwise.

The earthquakes currently seem to come and go in Japan. Not surprisingly, the usual cherry-blossom tourism has suffered this year, too, while Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office is now no longer advising against all but essential travel to Tokyo.  (If the German foreign office issued a similar statement, many citizens would probably sense a political conspiracy to get them all killed. I have met people here who even reconsider  scheduled travels to China.)

It struck me this week that I have learned much of my Chinese language skills, as far as they go, from Japanese people. To learn Chinese must be easier for them than to learn English, and some of them are easier with speaking Mandarin than with speaking English.

But to listen to non-native speakers who are still fluent in Chinese is always inspiring.

____________

Related
Cherry blossom in Tokyo, Deutsche Welle, April 8, 2011
Sakura Latte, This Japanese Life, Febr 22, 2011

____________

Winter

Everything seems to hibernate

Most grown-up people who I know don’t really like winter. “I hate it”, I was told in town last night. The person who said it couldn’t explain  exactly why. I asked if it was because this season of the year was unpractical.  “Yes, probably”, she said. But looking at her, I realized that this was hardly the main reason for her feelings, even if people easily say these days that they hate something while,  in fact, they only dislike it. This is especially true for townsfolk. People from outside town complain less, even if the season’s impact on life is biggest here.

Winter is unpractical indeed when rain freezes, or when it snows. We aren’t  at home all of the time, and when it snows, nobody takes care of the path to our door. Given that this is a rather rural place and that even our closest neighbors aren’t exactly next-door, we won’t take care of their drives, nor will they take care of ours. That can be a problem if the postman slips and hurts himself, or if one of the people who do their paper routes with those undesirable local rags (they come for free, with mostly irrelevant stories and lots of advertising) hurts himself.

Then again, whenever it currently snows, it snows amply. It would take a real  lot of people to lumber down this path before it turned into hardened mash and became slippery. And I don’t mind shovelling the snow away once I’m back home.

It’s a near-meditative activity, under the silent trees surrounding this place. It’s like gardening, but doesn’t require the same attention to what you are actually doing. The most likely interruption is a good-natured  but playful sheepdog from the neighborhood who will run you over, waiting to be snowballed in return.

Most children love winter. Most grown-ups don’t. Is it because it curtails many of our usual activities, or because the vast white landscapes come across as a reminder of death? Winter is a time of silence.

The nuisance of going by car or by railway can hardly be the main reason for the seemingly wide-spread aversion to winter. But the better the chances for a white christmas become, the longer faces seem to become. A white christmas had seemed to be on the top of everyones’ wish list in the past.

Hannelore Schmidt, 1919 – 2010

Hannelore (Loki) Schmidt died on October 21, 2010, aged 91.

Her name lives on.

1001 Chinese Posts

Justrecently’s Authoritative Blog. Making sense of China since 1908.

Merkel in China: old friend, younger than ever

Never before have official articles in China been adorned with such beautiful pictures of Angela Merkel, noted Johnny Erling, German daily’s Die Welt correspondent, as they were on her most recent visit to the country. A youthful, radiant, and color-boosted portrait of the now 56-year-old chancellor was chosen this time – in the past and on similar occasions, she had looked much older, Erling seems to remember.

Merkel’s meeting with the Dalai Lama in 2007 – “forgotten”. The clashes at the Copenhagen Climate Summit – “forgotten”. And the Chinese press refers to Martin Wolf‘s (Financial Times) Chermany concept – but without Wolf’s implied warning that the world’s biggest exporting countries could be fiddling at the expense of free global trade.

Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Center for Global Development wrote in June that it could be harder to prod Germany into the direction of expanding demand, than China. While China was an intentional mercantilist which had now made some contributions to rebalancing the global economy, Germany, as an accidental mercantilist, could hide behind the fact that the weakening of the euro was beyond its control. It would be hard to pressure the country, as its decisionmakers were frequently perceived as “prudent, deferred gratificationists, the far-sighted custodians of tomorrow, of the future, of our children”.

China Daily‘s Chinese edition doesn’t mention Martin Wolf’s (马丁·沃尔夫) concerns about Chermany (中德国) either.

“There is reason to believe that as China and Germany come closer to each other, Chermany will certainly attract attention, too [similarly to Chimerica].”

There are official Chinese reservations. The Chinese article lends an argument from an earlier article in English (also published by China Daily):

“But one should also note that during the recent development of Sino-German relations, some new unharmonious sounds appeared, too. In the old fields of cooperation, there was some antagonism. The relations were always seen as complementary. But facing China’s rapid rise, especially after China replaced Germany as the world’s biggest exporting country, some German media, as well as some in the political and economic spheres, have expressed irrational antagonism toward the Asian nation“. German views of China had become more negative, seeing China rather as a competitor, and demand that China should assume more responsibilities.”

Africa and Google are also mentioned by China Daily as samples of “negative” German media coverage. And somewhat indignant, China Daily realizes that Germans actually care about politics, too:

“Formerly contained areas now reveal disagreements. Political and ideological differences have always been negative factors in Sino-German relations, but they were always controllable. But recently, German officials have put pressure on China, concerning human rights questions, and German media have used all kinds of anniversaries to criticize China’s government, and even to question the government’s legitimacy, and its ability to govern.”

For sure, Merkel followed her traditional visiting pattern, in that she met with dissidents in China. One of them was He Weifang (贺卫方), a law professor and Charter 08 signatory who nominally teaches at Peking University but is apparently “exiled” in Xinjiang now.

He and Merkel discussed human rights, freedom of the press, and internet censorship. He had suggested that Merkel should take Chinese politicians to Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court to help them understand how an independent judiciary worked.

Meantime, China Daily keeps discussing soccer.

____________

Update/Related
Cadres: We Want to be Loved by You, July 16, 2010

Related
Geithner/Soros/Summers: “Growth Now”, June 23, 2010
No Global Governance, January 1, 2010
Unharmonious Days at the Voice of Germany, Nov 14, 2008

World Soccer Cup: The Three Measurements

Each of the 34 Chinese models represents one team participating in the South Africa World Soccer Cup 2010, in a sina.com babe parade (世界杯宝贝). Maybe it’s a good omen for the German team. After all, 白姝羽 or Crystal – her three measurements (三围): 84/60/89 -, is carrying the trophy, and she, umm, represents Germany.

World Soccer Cup: Four out of 34 Represents

It’s this Time of the Year Again

Spring, Sheep on the Range