Abstract
After the March 11, 2011 earthquake which triggered a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Chinese consumers began avoiding Japanese food products, and the PRC banned all agricultural imports from 10 prefectures near the disaster area. However, rather than a meltdown of the market for Japanese cuisine in China, we see a subsequent boom. The focus of this chapter is on this culinary boom, but the story of the burgeoning Japanese culinary field must also include a consideration of how food safety – along with culinary politics and questions of culinary authenticity – has been framed by domestic narratives and narrators within China. A culinary field comprises a social field of tasters, things tasted, producers of tastes, and other actors with a stake in determining these tastes. While a Japanese culinary field has indeed developed in China, it is one now dominated by Chinese actors, who increasingly determine the direction of its development. In other words, the argument in this chapter will focus on the indigenization of this culinary field, which partly insulates it from geopolitical frictions, serving to frame issues such as food safety within Chinese narratives. These narratives will be discussed more generally in the concluding discussion. The main body of this chapter traces the development of this transnational Japanese culinary field. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Shanghai over the past five years, part of a larger project on international cuisine in that city.
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Notes
- 1.
The salt was supposed to provide iodine to protect from cesium poisoning, a spurious idea from a scientific perspective. Guardian, ‘Chinese Panic-Buy Salt’.
- 2.
Legco, ‘Food Control Measures’.
- 3.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 11.
- 4.
JETRO, ‘Gaishoku sangyō no dōkō’, and dianping.com.
- 5.
Yan, ‘Food Safety and Social Risk’. See my discussion in the conclusion of this chapter.
- 6.
Farrer, ‘Multiple Contexts of Protest’.
- 7.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 11.
- 8.
Ibid., 4–7.
- 9.
See Farrer, ‘Shanghai’s Western Restaurants’.
- 10.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 1.
- 11.
Ibid., 2.
- 12.
Interior and exterior photos of the contemporary building can be found on the April 4, 2014 entry of the blog Mikyō: Shanghai jōhō http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ekobiiki888.
- 13.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 2. Photo of the Chinese banqueters is at http://f.hatena.ne.jp/ekobiiki888/20160507005357. The location can be seen on ‘Shanghai Historical Map:’ http://historicalmap2010shanghai.com/%E5%85%AD%E4%B8%89%E4%BA%AD.
- 14.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 2.
- 15.
Miyake, Shanghai inshōki. Zhapu Road would become one of the first restaurants streets to thrive in Shanghai in the 1980s, this time dominated by privately run Chinese restaurants.
- 16.
Fogel, ‘Shanghai-Japan’.
- 17.
Nakano, ‘Eating One’s Way’, 112.
- 18.
Menus are in Tina Kanagaratham’s private collection.
- 19.
Sand, ‘A short history of MSG’.
- 20.
Nakano, ‘Eating One’s Way’, 114.
- 21.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 3.
- 22.
Nakano, ‘Eating One’s Way’, 112.
- 23.
Ibid., 114–118.
- 24.
The exception would be a few ‘Western cuisine’ restaurants? that reopened in the 1970s and 1980s as state-owned enterprises. See Farrer, ‘Imported Culinary Heritage’, ‘Shanghai’s Western Restaurants’.
- 25.
See Farrer, ‘Imported Culinary Heritage’.
- 26.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 3.
- 27.
Farrer, ‘Shanghai’s Western Restaurants’, 117–118.
- 28.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 7.
- 29.
Farrer, ‘Shanghai’s Western Restaurants’, 118.
- 30.
Interview and fieldnotes April 6, 2016.
- 31.
JETRO, ‘Gaishoku sangyō no dōkō’.
- 32.
Asahi Research Center, ‘Shanghai ryōriten chōsa hōkoku’.
- 33.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 5.
- 34.
JETRO, ‘Gaishoku sangyō no dōkō’.
- 35.
Wank and Farrer, ‘Chinese Immigrants and Japanese Cuisine’.
- 36.
Liu-Farrer, Labor Migration from China, 67.
- 37.
Interview and field notes, March 28, 2016.
- 38.
Field notes from April 4, 2016.
- 39.
JETRO, ‘Gaishoku sangyō no dōkō’. In 2010, Beijing at the time had only 10,416 Japanese residents. Beijing had 819 Japanese restaurants compared to 1,434 in Shanghai.
- 40.
Farrer, ‘Shanghai’s Western Restaurants’, 119.
- 41.
Nakano, ‘Eating One’s Way’.
- 42.
Interview and field notes April 7, 2016.
- 43.
Aoki, ‘Domestication of Chinese Foodways’.
- 44.
Interview and field notes August 22, 2014.
- 45.
Interview and field notes April 2 and 3, 2016.
- 46.
BI Intelligence, ‘WeChat Breaks 700 Million’.
- 47.
‘Omakase’ means ‘leave it up to the chef,’ and such set-menus are now regarded by Shanghai diners as a sign of high quality dining.
- 48.
Farrer, ‘Shanghai’s Western Restaurants’, 119.
- 49.
Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets.
- 50.
The two are still partners in the Mediterranean restaurant called Elefante. See Farrer, ‘Shanghai’s Western Restaurants’.
- 51.
Iwama, ‘Shanghai no nihonshoku bunka’, 11.
- 52.
Yan, ‘Food Safety and Social Risk’. I have reported on these narratives in the ‘Chinese Culinary Dreams’ Workshop on Happiness in China, Georgetown University, Washington DC, October 10–12, 2014.
- 53.
Gurunabi, ‘Nihon no inshokuten’.
- 54.
The analysis is based on a reading of the comments on this list of restaurants. http://www.dianping.com/shoplist/search/1_10_113_. JETRO mentions Dianping as the market maker in China (JETRO, Gaishoku sangyō no dōkō).
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Farrer, J. (2017). Domesticating the Japanese Culinary Field in Shanghai. In: Niehaus, A., Walravens, T. (eds) Feeding Japan. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50553-4_11
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