Whenever I’m back in the U.S. I like to observe how Asian food and culture is presented, since it’s common for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other cultures to all get blended together somewhat, especially the farther you get from the West Coast. When my wife and I were in Las Vegas last month we were amused to see a restaurant called “Wazuzu,” which probably sounded like a perfectly reasonable Japanese word (it’s actually gibberish), just as the name “Mr. Sulu” sounded like a Japanese name (it’s not, and in the Japanese version of Star Trek it’s changed to Mr. Kato). Whenever I walk into a sushi restaurant, usually sporting a name like “Kabuki Sushi” that would never be found in Japan, I prepare for the staff to greet me with an irasshaimase!! (“welcome!!”), though I’m never surprised when it turns out that this is the only word of Japanese they know, as most sushi shops are run by entrepreneurial-minded Koreans instead of Japanese. Which is all fine, as long as the sushi is good.
Perceptions of Asian culture in the U.S. are interesting to observe.
