MODERN ASIA COMM2377
RMIT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY VIETNAMMODERN ASIA
COMM2377ASSESSMENT 3 - MAJOR ESSAY
Student Name: Dao Viet TrungID: 3461763Lecturers Name: Brenda
MattickGroup: 1Deadline: 2nd January 2015Topic number: 3Submission
Date: 2nd January 2015Words count: 1405
Over many centuries, human societies across the globe have
established closer contacts thanks to the helps of communications
revolution (Yang, 2007). It also means that cultural images of
different societies are getting closer. Sushi is one of the
examples of this trend when it is one of the most popular dishes in
many Western countries. Globalization process and new technologies
such as transportation devices and mass media has contributed
significantly to the popularity of Sushi in Western. This paper
examines how these elements enhance Sushis images in the West. To
understand how Sushi gets popular today, it is essential to know
how sushi started to emerge in Western countries at the first time,
which was happened in around 1970s in America (Sakamoto & Allen
n.d). Globalization is defined as the interaction and integration
among people, companies and governments of different nations
(Globalization 101 n.d). This definition clearly describes the
process of Sushis first arrival since it was the result of the
expansion of many Japanese businesses to America in between 1950s
and 1980s, when Japans economy was recognized globally for its fast
and powerful growth at that period (Kasulis, 1995). In The Lexus
and The olive Tree book, Friedman (2000) stated that Once a country
makes the leap into the system of globalization, its elites begin
to internalize this perspective of integration. Applying this
perspective of Friedman to the case of Japan, it can be concluded
that successful globalization or integration of Japan economy in
the world helped Sushi to be one of the popular Japanese elites
adapted by America. Following America, some Europe countries
started to catch up the trend set in 1990s. One of the clearest
examples about the popularity of Sushi in those countries is the
case in London as there were many successful restaurants serving
this dish in London through that period, including Harrods Sushi
Bar (1995), Moshi Moshi (1994) (Sakamoto & Allen 2011). As can
be seen, globalization as well as the economic power of Japan in
that period played a big important aspect in the promotion of Sushi
in many Western countries. The role of Japanese immigration during
post-war period was also an important part shaping the way Sushi
took part in Western cultures. When coming to US, they brought
their knowledge of making Sushi and used them to serve the local
people for the first time (Yang, 2013). Japanese Immigration could
be seen as having connection with transnationalism, which refers to
the interactions linking people and institution across the borders
of nation-states (Unicef n.d). As mention in the first paragraph,
the rise of Japanese economy led to the globalization of this
country as more Japanese businesses set their location in US, which
created interaction with other local companies. Globalization is
also about interaction with people of different nations
(Globalization 101 n.d). Therefore, the arrival of immigration was
affected greatly by the contribution of globalization and made
Sushi became popular in local US, which was seen as the first step
for Sushi to expand to Europe countries. Technologies development
is one of the core parts in the process of spreading Sushi in
Western. With the help of the new transportation and preservation
technique or the invention of refrigeration chemistry and storage
in around 1960s, the materials for making Sushi, especially fresh
ingredients like Tuna, could be easily transferred through a long
distance (Brown, 2012). As can be seen, development of technologies
in this context can be seen as modernity, or the increase in
movement of goods (Understanding modernity n.d). Faster process of
transferring goods helps Sushi to travel to outside Japan easier
and serve other cultures easier. The arrival of immigration as the
basis component of Sushi boom in US and contemporary Western was
also supported by technologies since transnationalism is
facilitated by increased global transportation and
telecommunication technologies (Nationalism, Transnationalism,
Identity n.d). The new technologies created more opportunities for
Japanese immigrants to travel long distance and bring cultures
closer to the Western background. It can be concluded that the role
of technologies make Sushi goes further from its original home
country. Mass media played an important role in the exposure of
Sushi in some Western countries. In America, Sushi was appeared in
Saturday Night Live parodies in around 1980s (Brown, 2012). By
being shown in such TV show, the image of Sushi was broadcasted to
a large amount of people in America in that time. The emergence of
Japan economic through that time was also reflected through many
media in US (Sakamoto & Allen n.d), which also helped people
got to know more about this country in term of more aspects beside
economy, including the understanding about Japanese cultural
cuisine like Sushi. Europeans get to know Sushi in the same way to
America through many television programs, especially some cooking
shows that have the same genre to Sushi (Cwiertka 2006). Appadurai
(1996) states that the multiplicity of the forms and the rapid way
of moving through daily life routines help electronic media provide
resources for self-imagining as an everyday social project, which
means that media can reflect daily life in many ways and many forms
in a rapid way. Modernity is also about increasing movement of
information among formerly separated areas (Understanding modernity
n.d). Therefore, the ability of mass media to spread information
can be regarded as modernity when this channel can reflect daily
life and information in a rapid way as Appadurai mentioned.
Japanese Sushi can be seen in this context when the flexibility in
contents of electronic media makes people come closer to this dish.
With the characteristics of mass media that are more flexible than
print materials, Sushis images become the common part of Westerners
minds. However, in order to be existed in the Western background,
Sushi becomes different from its traditional form due to some basic
factors. From the perception of Westerners, especially American
people, eating raw fish idea was a repulsive thing with them (Jetro
2013). Therefore, an Americanized sushi version, including avocado,
mayonnaise without any raw fish, was introduced to demand the
common tastes of them (Yang 2013). As can be seen, Westerners not
only adapt this cultural dish of Japan but also try to modify them
to fit with their food background. When people of different
cultures come to contact continuously, acculturation happens since
cultural and psychological perspectives become different from its
original states and California Roll is one of the examples about
how acculturation is blending (Rudmin, 2003). Theory of
globalization also reflects this change of Sushi since it indicates
that globalization requires localization, or everything in some
cases has to be localized to suit with the taste of local people
(Shimemura, 2002). The concept can be easily found in this case
when Sushi has more variants that are not existed in Japanese
culture when the perspective of taste in Western cultures is
different from the original version of this cuisine. Another reason
contributes to the change of Sushi in Western is due to the help of
modern technology, reducing a lot of well-trained Sushi chefs. New
technologies help to make Sushi faster than chefs, while it takes
around 10 years of training to be qualified sushi chefs taking part
in the traditional sushi bars (Yang 2013). Modernity is also
defined as the sense of that the present is discontinuous to the
past (Understanding Modernity n.d). Technology modernity makes
Sushi becomes discontinuous to the original form since the process
is less supported by humans. Sushi robot, for example, can make
3600 pieces within one hour, which is much faster than normal chefs
do (Sakamoto & Allen n.d). This example also refers to one of
the McDonaldization principles: Calculability, which tends to focus
on quantitative aspects of service offered or time taken for making
products or the opinion that number of products is more important
than quality (Ritzer, 2004). Since Sushi goes global, the
quantitative strategy is needed to serve more people in both
external and internal Japan, which makes this dish loses one of the
traditional components. To sum up, the emergence of Sushi is one of
the clearest examples about the effects of globalization as well as
technology development to the cultural image of a country. Sushi is
not only one of the most popular topic in Western but also the
other places in the world contemporarily nowadays. However, due to
this popularity, Sushi is also different from its original state in
order to fit with different tastes of different cultures.
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