Alister Cookie’s Letter from Japan
I once joked that “little things mean a lot in Japan”, but I couldn’t have been closer to the truth. It seems that everything is smaller in Japan. However in the larger scheme of things, this might be a boon in disguise.
Lately I’ve been perusing the labels in the local supermarket where I live (here just outside of Tokyo), looking for some shred of Americana to assuage my culture-shocked adrenals. Although you may chance across some labels you once loved and cherished as a child, not everything makes the transition seamlessly to Japanese speed.
For instance, in America when you open a bag of Oreo cookies, you’re easily confronted with a few dozen. If you don’t exercise a bit of self-restraint, you’re liable to tear through that bag until your teeth turn black. You almost feel obliged to finish the next row cause they’ll invariably go stale if you don’t. After all, you wouldn’t want to disappoint all those black and white smiling faces.
Not so in Japan, the bags come a third the size, with 2 individually wrapped packages of 8(the Japanese have a passion for wrapping things). Hence, if you start down that self-annihilating path of pure-cookie-gorging-ecstasy, you’ll encounter a fence or two you’ll have to hop. Oh you’ll get your cookie fix all right, but in smaller portions and not to where you’re doing serious damage to your health. From a sociological standpoint, smaller sizes function almost like a safety valve, in place for those like myself whom can’t practice proper restraint. The Japanese understand subtle psychology of finishing a bag of cookies, ”oh, better stop now, I’ve already gone through one.” In America you can always rationalize you’re well within your rights because the sizes are so big, ”What dude? I’m still on my first bag! Get outta my face with that carrot stick!”
Maybe the Japanese have taken a hint at the passion of unbridled American consumerism, where more is always better. The Japanese are well versed in the credo “less is more”. Maybe their American cousins across the waves look just a little too pudgy. Maybe implemented restraint isn’t such a bad thing. One thing’s for sure, you’re not going to see too many fat Japanese people outside the sumo ring lining up for Jenny Craig.
NPR said this morning America was the most overweight country on the planet, with a good 3/4 the people tipping the scales. This almost begs the question, what if Americans learned to do with less? Could it be there’s some bad planning on the part of companies who don’t always have their consumers’ best interest at heart? Is it such a good thing to give the consumer all that they want, even if it’s detrimental to their health? If we want a healthy population, maybe certain changes need to come from the top down.
Of course Americans are so used to super-sizing their meals. We have been conditioned to believe bigger is better. Can you imagine what would happen if the cookie bags magically appeared one morning a third their previous size? Why, there’d be a riot in the shopping aisles! How do you change peoples’ minds about the concept “more is better”? How do you make people understand enough is sometimes less than you thought you wanted?
The same NPR broadcast later said the Japanese live longer than any people on the planet, with more than 25,000 people over the age of 100. Apparently they must be doing something right.
“Yeah, shut up and pass them goddamn cookies bee-yach!”
Lately I’ve been perusing the labels in the local supermarket where I live (here just outside of Tokyo), looking for some shred of Americana to assuage my culture-shocked adrenals. Although you may chance across some labels you once loved and cherished as a child, not everything makes the transition seamlessly to Japanese speed.
For instance, in America when you open a bag of Oreo cookies, you’re easily confronted with a few dozen. If you don’t exercise a bit of self-restraint, you’re liable to tear through that bag until your teeth turn black. You almost feel obliged to finish the next row cause they’ll invariably go stale if you don’t. After all, you wouldn’t want to disappoint all those black and white smiling faces.
Not so in Japan, the bags come a third the size, with 2 individually wrapped packages of 8(the Japanese have a passion for wrapping things). Hence, if you start down that self-annihilating path of pure-cookie-gorging-ecstasy, you’ll encounter a fence or two you’ll have to hop. Oh you’ll get your cookie fix all right, but in smaller portions and not to where you’re doing serious damage to your health. From a sociological standpoint, smaller sizes function almost like a safety valve, in place for those like myself whom can’t practice proper restraint. The Japanese understand subtle psychology of finishing a bag of cookies, ”oh, better stop now, I’ve already gone through one.” In America you can always rationalize you’re well within your rights because the sizes are so big, ”What dude? I’m still on my first bag! Get outta my face with that carrot stick!”
Maybe the Japanese have taken a hint at the passion of unbridled American consumerism, where more is always better. The Japanese are well versed in the credo “less is more”. Maybe their American cousins across the waves look just a little too pudgy. Maybe implemented restraint isn’t such a bad thing. One thing’s for sure, you’re not going to see too many fat Japanese people outside the sumo ring lining up for Jenny Craig.
NPR said this morning America was the most overweight country on the planet, with a good 3/4 the people tipping the scales. This almost begs the question, what if Americans learned to do with less? Could it be there’s some bad planning on the part of companies who don’t always have their consumers’ best interest at heart? Is it such a good thing to give the consumer all that they want, even if it’s detrimental to their health? If we want a healthy population, maybe certain changes need to come from the top down.
Of course Americans are so used to super-sizing their meals. We have been conditioned to believe bigger is better. Can you imagine what would happen if the cookie bags magically appeared one morning a third their previous size? Why, there’d be a riot in the shopping aisles! How do you change peoples’ minds about the concept “more is better”? How do you make people understand enough is sometimes less than you thought you wanted?
The same NPR broadcast later said the Japanese live longer than any people on the planet, with more than 25,000 people over the age of 100. Apparently they must be doing something right.
“Yeah, shut up and pass them goddamn cookies bee-yach!”
posted by senor puppet at 5:56 AM
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