Original and American knockoff

06/02/2002 English German

Edition # 40
San Francisco, 06-02-2002

Japan, Finally Aircraft as Arcade Tokyo Gastronomy Tokyo Fish Market Masks Beverages Beer Paper tissues Shuwattchi! Fashion Safety Technophilia Shinkansen Japanese speaking English Busy Bodies Rambunctious Youth Surveyed by Students Geishas Original and American knockoff Consumer Frenzy Japanese toilets Bicycles in Tokyo Train station in Tokyo Uniforms Taxis To Bow Shoes Off and Shoes On Hiroshima Ryokan Japanese Bath In the temple for AOL Koya-San Cemetery in Koya-San

Original and American knockoff

Angelika What beer is to Michael, a good cup of coffee is to me. However, I prepared myself before the start of our journey to switch to green tea, although I'm still not crazy about it. It seemed unlikely to me that the Japanese would brew good coffee. But what did we find in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Kyoto? Small cafes in the European style, offering not only excellent coffee but also delicious cakes, including cream cakes. The cafes were always packed. The Japanese love their coffee. Unfortunately, there is also a "Starbucks" on every corner, the American coffeehouse chain that, like McDonald's, establishes itself in every country in the world (I read with horror in the New York Times that there are now "Starbucks" locations in Austria and Germany too - a misery). I believe you won't find as many "Starbucks" in any American city as you do in Tokyo.

Figure [1]: American chains are moving in

Figure [2]: Green tea at Starbucks

The stores were exactly like the American ones. However, I was highly amused that Starbucks in Japan has a Green Tea Frappuccino on the menu. In general, Tokyo does not hold back when it comes to culinary offerings: Italian, Indian, French, Chinese, Thai, Californian, and of course, Japanese cuisine are all on the menu.

Figure [3]: The American chain AM PM in Tokyo

In Tokyo, we went to eat Italian for testing purposes. And once again, we revised a prejudice: the food did not lack authenticity. Who would have thought? Usually, immigrants bring their cuisine to the respective country. Not so in Japan: here, only a vanishingly small proportion of foreigners actually live there. And I swear that both the chefs and the waitstaff in the Italian restaurant were entirely Japanese. We also noticed that the food wasn't altered to suit Japanese taste buds, as is often the case in America, where suddenly every dessert is overly sweet. Restaurants also always provide the correct silverware, I read in the travel guide that the Japanese place great importance on this. Michael ate fish at the Italian restaurant and actually received a fish knife. That has never happened to us in our five and a half years in San Francisco. And we really do eat a lot of fish.