NOTE: Be sure to watch the Writing Workshop #6 video below and respond with a comment sometime this weekend or next week. The Paper #3 assignment is in the post below that one (the video will help you with that, too). For next week, just read Chapter 8, "Tokyo Redux" for class. We're almost done!
Answer 2 of the following:
Q1: According to Tony, why are the Japanese as a culture so obsessed with making pleasure an art? Why do activities like eating, relaxing, and even drinking tea become rituals that have to be followed religiously? Another way of answering this question is, why aren't we built this way? What characteristic makes Americans and Japanese so different?
Q2: Somewhat related to Q1, when Tony goes to the ryokan retreat, he feels like the clumsiest, most uncouth barbarian. As he writes, "We are big, hairy, smelly, foreign devils, unsophisticated, loud, clumsy, overexpressive, and overfed, bliundering thoughtlessly through life" (143). Though he's only half-serious here, what makes him feel this way? Why might a lot of Japanese culture produce this effect on Western tourists?
Q3: When forced to eat a "mountain potato" and natto, Tony is unpologetic about how disgusting he finds both of them, even writing that "I thought I would die" (153). In general, what makes one culture find another culture's food disgusting? Does he explain what he objects to? Is taste culturally constructed like language and religion?
Q4: On page 144, Tony lists some (but not all!) of the taboos to avoid during the kaiseki meal. As Westerners (and Americans, especially) we have relatively few taboos about the eating of food beyond "don't use your hands, don't burb at the table, etc." Do you think these rules can actually increase one's enjoyment of the meal? Or are they merely a way to exclude people who don't understand them (making a division between "them" and "us")?
Q1: The biggest characteristic I could think of would be the time spent. Growing up, I was the child who would eat fast, or not much at all so I would have more time to go hangout with friends in the evening. For Japanese families, they tend to focus on more quality time spent together. Q2: I think Tony feels like that because we're so used to being rushed everywhere so when he's forced to slow down, he isn't use to it and it's a subtle, yet difficult adjustment.
ReplyDeleteParker: can you e-mail me this instead of posting it here? I don't want people to cheat on the questions and borrow your answers. These are important pre-writing for the papers, so unlike the video responses, I don't want you to share these. Thanks!
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