One of the most fascinating things about the world is the way our perceptions change as the scale we’re observing changes. Something “small” in human scale, like a grain of rice, is huge compared with the next level down (complex living cells), which are far larger than the next level down (say, viruses), going right down to molecules and atoms. Looking at other countries can be very similar. Seen from the U.S., especially away from the two coasts, the various cultures of Asia can tend to blend together, and the average person in Minnesota has little individual awareness about how customs and culture differ between Japan, South Korea and China. (In San Diego I was once asked if I could speak Vietnamese, the idea being that Vietnam and Japan are both in Asia, so…) As you learn more about the countries, of course, things come into better focus. Then we realize that looking at one country as a unit might not be enough. In Japan, the two most famous regions are Kanto, where Tokyo, Yokohama and J-List’s home prefecture of Gunma are (though people from Tokyo invariably think we’re part of the northern Tohoku region), and Kansai, home of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe. Naturally, there’s a world of subtle differences between these two regions in terms of dialect, food and customs — supposedly Osakans are similar to Americans in that they show their emotions right away rather than hiding them like Tokyo-ites, and unlike people from Tokyo, Osakans are less likely to pretend they don’t want to eat the last piece of pizza out of politeness. But viewing Japan has Tokyo-vs-Osaka might not be enough detail, and you can always delve more deeply and discover another level. Last week J-List had our “New Year Party” at an izakaya which promised to provide authentic “Kagoshima style cuisine.” I’ve never been to the southernmost Japanese island of Kyushu, where the city Kagoshima is, so I had no idea how authentic their claim was, but it certainly was fun to experience a new level of Japan.
Some interesting differences between Tokyo and Osaka.
