Since last summer, the Covid pandemic has calmed down and Japan has reopened its borders to foreigners. As a result, I had the opportunity to travel to Japan twice for field research and to experience Japanese food in Japan after more than three years of studying and eating Japanese food only in Berlin. With fresh memories of the diversity of food and drink in Japan, I am very much looking forward to the eighth season of the methods course „Berlin’s Japanese Foodscaapes“ to study Japanese restaurants through visits and conversations with chefs and staff for hands-on methods training. This year, five MA students will design and conduct their own research projects on Japanese food in Berlin, and I am very excited to see the results.
We will be working with Seikei University again. Yoko Kawamura’s students will meet with our students online for their very first interview experience. FU students will interview students from Japan about their eating habits, experiences with foreign food in Japan and with Japanese food abroad. We will also invite guests for interviews, go on field trips, and hopefully enjoy lots of good Japanese food and learn more about the Japanese foodscape in Berlin and the people who make and sell Japanese food and beverages. Students will be developing their own projects over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for an update!
After the 3.11 triple disaster of tsunami, earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster, many Japanese from northern Japan, as well as the greater Kanto area, relocated to other, often rural, areas in western Japan. Some even left the country and moved abroad. In recent years, I have met a number of Japanese women who are involved in Berlin’s Japanese foodscape and cite the Fukushima nuclear disaster as the main reason for their migration from Japan. They are particularly health conscious and interested in food safety and organic food.
I would like to introduce a Japanese woman who came to Berlin in 2012 because she was disappointed by the lack of opportunities for political participation in Japan after having participated in many anti-nuclear demonstrations. Although she had no previous connection to Germany, she came to Berlin because she was attracted by then-Chancellor Merkel’s decision to shut down all nuclear power plants in Germany. She started a catering service and cooked for events in the city’s hip and young start-up scene and the art world. During the pandemic, she had to turn her business into a delivery service because no events could take place. As sustainability is important to her, she tries to avoid plastic waste and does not use plastic containers for her delivery and catering service, but reusable containers. Since coming to Berlin, she has been interested in vegetarian and vegan foodways and recently became a vegan herself. She shares her thoughts and experiences with vegan food in Berlin and actively engages with Japanese vegan activists on the internet, contributing to online vegan magazines in Japan to spread her vision of veganism and sustainable food.
During our conversations, she told me about her dream of moving to the countryside and farming there for a while. And that’s what she’s done, recently joining an organic farming community in the countryside near Berlin. She describes her new life as very simple and quiet and seems to enjoy living in the middle of nature. To earn a living, she processes farm produce from this same farm and delivers it by mail to Berlin. All vegetables are fresh, organic, seasonal and unpackaged. She makes pickled vegetables, syrups, jams and pastes with Japanese ingredients. She also continues her catering business and cooks at events on the farm, in the surrounding area or in Berlin. By living and working on the farm, she discovers new tastes, recipes and edible plants and shares her discoveries with others through her cooking and social media.
By living on the farm, which she describes as an anarchist and feminist collective with nearly 20 members, she continues her food activism. She was already politically active in Japan when she joined the anti-nuclear movement after the Fukushima nuclear disaster and continued to participate in anti-nuclear rallies in Berlin. Sustainable food and biodiversity are important to her for personal reasons, as she learned firsthand how a particular variety of corn she liked in her childhood became extinct in Japan. At the farm, she learns more about sustainable and organic agriculture, debates and activism related to land rights and commons, and participates in collective actions and food events. Moving to the countryside allowed her to connect with like-minded people, explore new issues, and participate in activities that support her ideas about good and sustainable food and foodways.
In a project on „Cool Japan“, two of our students created a flipbook comic, that explores how Japanese candy is connected to Japanese pop culture. Their goal was to trace the extent to which the efforts to promote the concept of „Cool Japan“ may or may not have impacted the sweetscapes in Berlin. To do this, they have selected stores to interview owners and managers about how they choose and market the products they sell. Furthermore, they talked with customers of these stores about why they buy these candies.
Dieses Jahr hat eine Gruppe unserer Studierenden in der Forschungswerkstatt ein Video zu Izakaya in Berlin gedreht. Darin schildern sie ihre Eindrücke und Erkenntnisse über die Besonderheiten eines Izakaya, die sie aus Interviews und Beobachtungen gewonnen haben. Viel Spaß beim Ansehen!
Meine Fahrrad-Route vom Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften/Japanologie der Universität Wien bis nach Hause führt mich täglich an zahlreichen Belegen für die Popularität, die Vielfältigkeit und die Hybridität japanischer Esskultur in Wien vorbei. Ramen-Bars mit teilweise verwirrender Auswahl an Nudelsuppen „asiatischer Art“, japanische Fine-Dining-Restaurants und die Wiener Interpretation eines Izakaya – samt hölzernen Menütafeln an den Wänden – säumen den Weg: eine ideale Spielwiese für japanologische Feldforschung vor Ort! Dieser Gedanke kam mir zwar oft auf dem Rad, er stammt aber natürlich nicht von mir, wie nicht zuletzt dieser Blog belegt: In Berlin nutzt Cornelia Reiher japanische Esskultur bereits seit Jahren für studentische Forschungsprojekte und die Vermittlung von Methoden. Angelehnt an dieses Projekt haben die Studierenden des Wiener „Proseminars 2“ (ein BA-Kurs mit Schwerpunkt auf die Vermittlung von wissenschaftlichen Methoden in der Japanologie) nun im abgelaufenen Sommersemester die Vielfalt der japanischen „Foodscape“ in Wien untersucht, um anhand dieses Themas erste Forschungserfahrungen zu sammeln.
Während ich diesen Beitrag schreibe, feilen die Studierenden alleine oder in Zweier-Teams vermutlich (hoffentlich!) an ihren bald fälligen Seminararbeiten. In Mittelpunkt des Proseminars stand eine erste Heranführung an qualitative Forschungsmethoden – besonders Interviews und (teilnehmende) Beobachtung. Die Themen mussten die Studierenden dabei selber bestimmen. Viele Projektideen kreisen um den Themenkomplex „Authentizität“ und die Hybridisierung von japanischer Esskultur im Wiener Kontext. Wie werden zum Beispiel „Regionalität“ und „Saisonalität“ in japanischen Kaiseki-Restaurants in Wien umgesetzt? Wie passt das Angebot von veganen Alternativen mit dem Anspruch von „authentischen“ Ramen zusammen? Passend zu diesem Schwerpunkt hatten wir die Auseinandersetzung mit der japanischen Foodscape im Unterricht unter anderem in den Kontext der Forschungsliteratur zu „culinary mobilities“ gestellt. Im zweiten Teil des Kurses lag der Fokus dann auf der Praxis: Beobachtungsübung, Interview-Vorbereitung, Interview-Übung, Analyse. Einzeln oder in Zweierteams haben die sich Studierenden an ihre Forschungsinteressen herangetastet, passiv oder aktiv beobachtet, Interviewleitfäden erstellt und Pilotinterviews geführt. Natürlich wollten wir dabei auch wissen, was unsere Vorbilder in Berlin machen. Ende April haben Berliner und Wiener Studierende ihre Forschungsideen und erste Ergebnisse in einem Online-Workshop miteinander geteilt. Ihre Erfahrungsberichte kann man auf diesem Blog und hier nachlesen. Für die Zukunft schlummert in diesem Austausch sicher noch viel mehr Potential für eine vergleichende Perspektive auf japanische Foodscapes in Europa. Welche Elemente im „Glokalisierungsprozess“ japanischer Esskultur ähneln sich, wo und wie wirkt sich der spezifische lokale Kontext der zwei Metropolen aus? Während die unterschiedliche Zeiteinteilung des Studienjahres in Berlin und Wien ein Hindernis darstellte, bietet der Ausbau der digitalen Lern- und Forschungsinfrastruktur neue Möglichkeiten zur Vertiefung solcher Fragen. In Zeiten eingeschränkter Mobilität und einer immer schwereren Energie- und Klimakrise wird es ohnehin weiterhin wichtig sein, japanologische Forschung und Methodenlehre vor Ort (also nicht in Japan) zu gestalten, ohne dabei die Praxis aus den Augen zu verlieren. Japanische Foodscapes in Europa bilden für diese Herausforderung eine machbare und faszinierende Lösung.
Hanno Jentzsch ist Politikwissenschaftler und Universitätsassistent (postdoc) am Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften/Japanologie der Universität Wien. Er forscht zu den Themen ländliche Revitalisierung, local governance und Staat-Zivilgesellschaft-Beziehungen im ländlichen Japan sowie Landwirtschaftspolitik und soziale Wohlfahrt. Veröffentlichungen u.a. Harvesting State Support (University of Toronto Press, 2021) und Rethinking Locality in Japan (Routledge, 2021, mit Sonja Ganseforth).
While hopefully enjoying their semester break, participants of this course are currently working on their projects on various aspects of Berlin’s Japanese foodscapes. During the course, we did not only practice different methods of making and analyzing qualitative data, but students also created and planned their own research projects. Three teams work on projects about the labeling of Japanese food in Asia supermarkets and Japanese restaurants, the promotion of sake in Berlin’s izakaya and the impact of Japanese pop culture on the consumption of Japanese sweets in Berlin respectively.
The project team exploring the labeling of Japanese food in Asia supermarkets and Japanese restaurants focuses on the labeling of vegan food and ingredients. Students will compare different types of labels and the availability of vegan options in Asian supermarkets and Japanese restaurants in different parts of Berlin to find out how retailers and restaurateurs deal with the growing demand for vegan Japanese food and dishes in Berlin. This group will present their findings in a video that will contain footage from interviews and visits to restaurants and supermarkets.
Another team will investigate representations of and marketing strategies for sake in Berlin’s izakaya. The group has selected different izakaya with owners of different nationalities to interview to find out how they are promoting sake to their customers in Berlin. This also includes visits to izakaya to observe the drinking culture and atmosphere in these very popular places. The group plans to create a video to present their findings that will contain a general introduction to izakaya in Japan and Germany as well as footage from interviews and observation.
The third team will inquire how Japanese sweets are linked to Japanese popular culture. As shops selling manga and other pop culture from Japan increasingly offer sweets and snacks from Japan, students have selected shops to interview owners and managers about how they select and market the products they are selling and to talk to customers about why they buy these sweets. This team will create a flipbook comic with their own artwork to present their results. This is a new format, so please stay tuned to check out the videos and the flipbook comic on this blog in October.
The integration of online technology into the learning environment is an amazing opportunity for the exchange of information and to develop new and exciting ideas. As a part of our course “Research methods in Japan studies” we recently had the opportunity to meet with students from the University of Vienna via Zoom to discuss our projects.
During this informal meeting between students, everyone’s passion and creativity soon made us forget that we were in a digital meeting. This is why we often fell into a more natural rhythm of speaking without actively using features such as “raising hands” or other online tools. Therefore, we all were more dependent on verbal cues, which supported a positive atmosphere. Each of the four groups presented their project on Japanese food in Vienna and in Berlin. Detailed explanations and presentations enabled insights into how the students in Vienna are working on their interesting research topics. These include the marketing of Japanese products in Austria as well as the local representation of washoku in Vienna’s Japanese Foodscape. Other projects deal with anime and Japanese food and female management in Vienna and hierarchical structures in Japanese restaurants in Vienna. We, in turn, presented a project about Japanese sweets in Berlin and the effects Cool Japan might have had on their consumption.
After each presentation, we asked each other questions about the respective project. Some questions were concerned with research methods, sometimes we gave feedback or just talked about general ideas related to the projects. This was incredibly useful and introduced new angles from where to look at our research. Through this exchange, we were able to overcome our rather single-minded approach and perspectives that might have restricted our creative output and research. We also made great progress with our project because we had to summarize and visualize our general ideas as effectively as possible in order to present them during the meeting. When we prepared for the meeting we realized that some aspects of our project were too abstract and unclear for an audience unfamiliar with our topic, so we changed our research project quite a bit. Questions from the students from Vienna also made us think about certain aspects, especially practical issues and feasibility. Due to the valuable comments, all participants started to rethink certain aspects of their projects and look for ways to overcome the limitations and difficulties we identified during the discussion.
In summary, the feedback we received motivated us to move forward with our project. We were also very impressed by the Vienna students’ presentations and their unique topics and learned many new things. We would like to thank the students from the University of Vienna for their cooperation and the incredibly positive experience. We are looking forward to seeing the results of their work soon and to more collaborations!
Are you vegan and do you love Japanese ramen? Then you might wonder how you can get information about supreme ramen shops with regional ingredients in Berlin or Vienna. Japanese Studies students from Berlin and Vienna can help you out. On Thursday, June 23, 2022, four students from Vienna University and three students from Freie Universität Berlin met online for a student conference on regional and vegan Japanese food in Berlin and Vienna. And here are the results.
Maja Schachner and Vivien Überfellner presented their research on “authenticity and regionality in Viennese Ramen bars” (“Authentizität und Regionalität in Wiener Ramen-Bars“). They looked at interior design, staff, service, and menu in order to decipher ways to create authenticity in ramen bars. They also considered management and customer expectations using participant observation, expert interviews, and secondary literature. They discovered certain strategies to introduce vegan options as “inauthentic” while importing products from Japan was read as authentic.
Referring to kaiseki, a Japanese cuisine often featured in Japanese restaurants, David Wurz talked about the „significance of regionality for Japanese food in Vienna” (“Bedeutung von Regionalität für japanisches Essen in Wien“ ). Since regionality and seasonality play an important role in this type of Japanese cuisine, he was interested in how restaurants in Vienna met these standards. Using qualitative interviews with chefs and staff from restaurants, David was able to discover the frequent use of mushrooms and asparagus as seasonal products in Vienna’s Japanese restaurants.
Another take on customer experience took the group “Vegan ramen options in Vienna” („Vegane Ramenangebote in Wien“). Bridging the gap between authentic Japanese cuisine and demands for vegan alternatives is important for restaurateurs. Patrizia Stromberger found some insightful answers to this problem in the Viennese gastro scene. She used interviews with a mix of Austrian, Japanese and Chinese restaurant owners in order to analyze the influence of cultural background on adopting authentic or vegan options. Patrizia found out that one restaurant owner referred to taste as the relevant marker of authenticity. However inclusive this might seem, only Japanese customers’ taste seems to be relevant to authentic taste, thereby impeding the adaption of Japanese food to vegan customers.
We presented a Berlin perspective on how food labeling plays a role in promoting Japanese food in Asia food markets and Japanese restaurants in Berlin. Especially important for our project are the ways labels are presented on Japanese food products from Japan, products of Japanese food from outside Japan and Japanese food products produced in Germany. Furthermore, we want to find out about labeling practices in Japanese restaurants via doing semi-structured interviews with managers and analyzing menus.
In summary, all four groups found different ways of employing social scientific methods in order to find out more about regional, vegan or seasonal food presentation in Japanese-coded shops and restaurants in Vienna and Berlin. So, stay tuned for the results of our projects which are due in September.
by Ioanna Moka, Olha Tkachuk, Leonie Uhl and Richard Weber
On June 21st and 23rd respectively, we had the chance to present our research project to a group of students currently studying at the University of Vienna. They in turn also talked about their own projects. We are conducting a research project on Berlin’s izakaya culture (“Verweilen und Trinken auf Japanisch”, English: “Staying and Drinking the Japanese Way”) which involves fieldwork including semi-structured interviews and participant observation. During our meeting, we learned that the students from the University of Vienna were using similar research methods. Therefore, we were able to engage in a lively Zoom discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of certain methods.
It was exciting to learn how each project (“Excuse Me, Where Can I Find the Umami Spice?”, “Ramen in Vienna” and “The Response of Japanese Restaurants in Vienna to the COVID-19 crisis”) was conceptualized and where each student’s motivation stemmed from. In the first group meeting, one student told us about her group’s experience with on-the-spot, spontaneous interviews. While they picked people to interview randomly in the beginning, it became clear early on that without the interviewee having prior knowledge about the topic, interviewing them would require an extensive explanation from the students, which would not benefit the project.
In the second meeting, there were two female students researching restaurants’ strategies during the Covid-19 lockdown in Vienna. Their primary methodical approach was to inquire about the experiences of restaurant managers and ideally conduct interviews with them. Moreover, the students planned to talk with the employees and customers about their perspectives on how the owners or managers coped with this extraordinary situation. After sending many e-mails and visiting restaurants in person, their interview requests were not answered and/or denied indirectly with the excuse that the manager or owner was not present and they should come back the next day. The following day, the students went to the restaurant and once again, the manager was not there. As a possible solution, they decided to analyze the Covid situation in Vienna in general. However, an additional obstacle was the language barrier. Every digital message was written in German only, thus, writing e-mails in different languages (German, English, Japanese) could be a solution to avoid future misunderstandings.
Overall, the discussion pointed out each project’s strengths and weaknesses, but also helped to connect with students who study a similar topic across a distance. We felt as though we had known each other for a while, even though we met for the first time. This exchange has not only connected us as students but also showed that we were all experiencing the same difficulties, which was extremely reassuring. This shared understanding made this exchange much more valuable, and we are hoping for the chance to repeat exchanges like these in the future.
In May, our students interviewed students from Seikei University about their food habits. This was not only a valuable exercise in conducting interviews but also a valuable intercultural experience and an opportunity to connect with students from Japan.
We would like to thank Professor Kawamura and her students from Seikei University. Furthermore, we would like to thank Seikei University for promoting our Blog through their websites and Facebook pages.
