From: ay@cs.duke.edu (Akitoshi Yoshida)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Scary in Japan
Date: 13 Oct 92 16:01:15 GMT
	<1be8q8INN1ss@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>
Organization: Duke University CS Dept., Durham, NC
In-reply-to: keis@psy.uwa.oz.au's message of 13 Oct 92 10:35:52 GMT

In article <1be8q8INN1ss@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> keis@psy.uwa.oz.au (Keis Ohtsuka) writes:

   ay@cs.duke.edu (Akitoshi Yoshida) writes:

   >o Spagetti : use a fork at a regular restaurant. At an elegant place,
   >             use a spoon and a fork.

   Wrong. This Japanized rule always puzzled me.
   Italians do not use a spoon to catch loose spaghetti falling off from
   a fork. You are supposed to roll strands of spaghetti around the fork.
   The degenerated rule probably came from the culture where they don't
   know how to eat spaghetti.                       


   And I beg you not to make a sucking noise when you eat spaghetti
   as if you eat "Udon" or "Soba."  I can't stand for it.  

You deleted what I had said before and quoted me wrong. My original
posting says that in Japan people eat the following meals in such and
such ways.        ~~~~~~~~

I was specifically talking about the Japanese customs that some of you
find interesting or funny.

I know Italilans don't use a spoon to eath spaghetti, but lots of
Germans do. I know some French people who use a fork and a spoon. I
don't know Australians. How do you eat? 

Talking about making a noise while eating spaghetti, have you seen a
film called "Tampopo" by Jozu Itami? In one scene, a group of young
Japanese girls are taking a lesson on how to eat spaghetti. The
instructer says, "You must not make any noise when you eat
spaghetti... In foreing countries, people eat spaghetti without making
any noise... You will be ashamed when you make noises...". And she
shows how to eat spaghetti elegantly. Although some of the girls are
surprised to hear that, they start to eat spaghetti quietly without
any noise.

Then, there comes a strange sucking noise. Everyone is shocked and
tries to find who is making the noise. They find a middle aged
White man (supposedly American?) eating spaghetti across their table,
and the sucking noise comes from him. The girls look at each other and
seem confused about who is telling the truth. The instructer repeats
to the girls, "In America, people don't make noises when they eat
spaghetti..." The guy keeps making noises louder and louder. The
instructer changes her voice and says to the girls the same thing
again and again. The girls look at each other and seem to have reached
the conclusion on who is right. At the next moment, they all start to
eat spaghetti with lots of noises.

Before I get back to work, I want to say that I agree with you. I hate
to hear that noise. I spent my childhood in Germany, so I din't get
that habit. But like many Germans, I blow my nose loud. When I do this
in Japan, people look at me.  What one culture considers rude or
impolite is often not so in other culture. 

There is another noise that to hate to hear in Japan. The noise that
many men make when they try to clear their throat. They smoke a lot
and cough a lot, so they must have lots of slime in their throat. 

Aki
--
---
Akitoshi Yoshida			$B5HED L@=S(B
Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706
INTERNET:	ay@cs.duke.edu		TEL	:	(919)-660-6561