The popularization of other Chinese dishes in Japan dates further back than that of gyoza, however. The influx of Westerners into Yokohama, Nagasaki and Kobe during the 1860s set the stage for the diffusion of Chinese cuisine in modern Japan. Although the Chinese had no legal right to remain in Japan before the first Sino-Japanese treaty was concluded in 1871, they were brought in under the legal protection of Western powers. Western merchants relied heavily on their Chinese staff — servants, clerks and middle-men — to run the households and enterprises that they relocated from the China coast. During the 1870s and 80s independent Chinese merchants began to settle in Japan as well, so that the Chinese soon constituted the majority of the foreign population residing in the ports.
That is from Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity, by Katazyna J. Cwiertka. One thing I learned from this book was how much Japanese wartime experience created the notion of a national cuisine in Japan. Before the war, for instance, soy sauce and rice were not common foods in many parts of rural Japan.
Certainly the largest Chinatown in the Greater Tokyo metro area is in the port city
of Yokohama.
Japan is famous for its ability to absorb foreign influences in unusually producive ways,
such as the Chinese alphabet, which is only part of the larger Japanese alphabet, parts of
which are phonetic rather than ideographic as the Chinese is.
There are Portuguese influences in the cuisine that go back nearly 500 years, such as tempura,
which comes from a Portuguese form of cooking. Also from the Portuguese is one of the words
for “thank you,” namely “arigato,” which is derived from the Portuguese “obrigado.”
Hmm…also to unfairly pick on barkely, arigato does not derive from portugese — just because it sounds somewhat similar does not make the one derived from the other.
Some quick googling suggests that “arigato”
comes from two Chinese words that mean
“to be” and “difficult,” although apparently
in the Japanese it is written in the kanji
alphabet rather than the Chinese system.
However, it is apparently widely believed
that arigato comes from obrigado.
woqong,
I cannot resist poking back on the “words”
versus “ideas” issue. I am sure that you are
aware that it is the written form of the Chinese
language that provides its unity. Even people
living next to each other, at least up until
recently when uniform educational systems were
imposed in the PRC and Taiwan and Hong Kong,
spoke very differently to the poioint of being
mutually incomprehensible. They would be able
to communicate by drawing the symbols on their
hands to each other.
Which leaves with the question: if what one
says is the “word,” but these vary for something
that is commonly understood when the written
symbol is shown, does this not mean in fact that
we are dealing with a common idea?
Regardless of whether Chinese characters are used as logographs more than ideographs in Chinese (and there is a good argument), the use of Chinese characters in Japanese (and in Korean, where still used) is more as ideographs, as seen by how they are used when representing native Japanese words.
In addition, when representing Sino-Japanese words, generally it takes two characters to represent a single word. The parts have independent morphemes, but the whole is definitely different from the sum of its parts. (One of several reasons why all those stupid “crisis + opportunity” things are stupid.)
However, the fact that different Chinese languages pronounce the same word differently does not diminish the system being logographic. There’s a difference between representing an idea and a morpheme.
If you have to buy dofus kamas, please come to our company.
I went to a chinese restaurant once and I must say I was pleasent surprised.I always had the idea that chinese food is chhh but I am glad that I went to that restaurant because my opinion has changed.The Magic Of Cooking
Comments on this entry are closed.