The Journey of Jane and Akiko in My Year of Meats

My Year of Meats is a novel that is about a Japanese-American woman, Jane Takagi-Little, who is a documentary filmmaker. She gets a job offer at two in the morning to produce a Japanese cooking show called My American Wife, sponsored by BEEF-EX, a national lobby organization that represents all kind of meats. In the documentary show, My American Wife, Jane makes a pitch to document that meat is the protagonist of the show and film housewives who can cook with meat. To proceed with the show, Jane and the production crew go on a journey to find the perfect and good-looking American housewives that have recipes, containing meat. Through her journey in the novel, Jane learns a lot about meat. She also finds about her true self, instead of doing what others want her to do.

As Jane travels for the documentary show, she encounters a housewife, Suzie Flowers. In the prologue of My Year of Meats, Jane translates for Mr. Oda, the director of the documentary show, to Suzie on how to act. During the filming, Jane films Suzie making Coca Cola Roast for her family and her everyday lifestyle as a housewife. However, during one of the filming, her husband, Fred Flowers, confesses to Suzie that he is having an affair, shocking everybody on the set. Despite the shocking news, Mr. Oda tells Jane that they will edit and end it with the scene where Fred and Suzie were celebrating on Valentine’s Day. When Jane hears about making the ending as if Suzie and Fred were living happily ever after, she feels that there is no truth within the documentary, which the documentary show ends up lying to the audience. Mr. Oda’s idea of editing to make a happy ending illustrates the idea of participatory documentary filmmaking, which shows the use of editing to create a story that is not true.

Meanwhile, Akiko Ueno is a Japanese housewife that cooks with meat.  She watches My American Wife, and follows the same recipes on the show, like Suzie’s Coca Cola Roast. Her husband, Joichi Ueno, works as the Tokyo PR representative for BEEF-EX. Because of her husband, Akiko is forced to watch the show and fill out questionnaires, in regards to the format of the show and how the meat is presented well. When Akiko and Joichi finish dinner, Akiko throws up in the bathroom, without Joichi knowing. As Akiko watches Jane’s documentary show, My American Wife, she not only learns about meat recipes but there is also a slow shift to her life.

            During Jane’s travel, she is truly inspired by Sei Shonagen’s “The Pillow Book,” as she refers to the book and how Shonagen influences her. She also learns more about meat and where it originated. However, throughout her entire journey, Jane mentions about her standing in being Japanese American and being able to embrace her identity, despite all the racial discriminations she receives from other people. My Year of Meats shifts around between the two women, Akiko and Jane, and how throughout their journey in watching and filming, My American Wife, it changes their perspectives towards life. 

Food: Synesthesia and Discoveries

In Tanizaki Junichiro’s “The Gourmet Club,” is about a club that consists of five members, who go to places to try new kinds of fine food, different from all the same old Japanese food. The group’s search for new and fine cuisine all began from Count G., president of the Gourmet Club. Count encounters a new food experience that later gives him ideas to create his own kind of interesting dishes. In “The Gourmet Club,” Tanizaki uses food as a source of a new discovery and synesthesia to dramatize the idea of exoticism through Count’s encounter with a Chinese club in Japan and the banquet meals he holds for the club members. 

Food is used as triggering one’s senses, which can lead someone to find something new, like Count. It is evident through Count’s encounter with the Chechiang Hall. Count discovers a Chinese club in Japan, the “three-story wooden house in Western style…he stood beneath the balcony listening to the sound of the violin, its eerie melody stimulated his appetite, just as if it had been the smell of food cooking” (109). Before, the sound of music triggered Count’s sense of hearing to discover a place he has never seen. Knowing that the Chechiang Hall consists of real authentic Chinese food, Count tries to find ways of consuming the authentic food. However, it is impossible because of a physical barrier of locked doors and closed windows, representing the idea of exoticism: how geographically China and Japan are far-off. Despite Count’s strong desire for the Chinese food, the locked doors and closed windows echo how his fantasy for consuming the authentic food is still far from what he desires. Yet, Count’s unending efforts for the desire of Chinese food represent the extremity of achieving his goal of trying the food. When he sees the Chinese meals, he is triggered by the visual aesthetics of the empty dishes because of the satisfaction he sees on the people’s faces, illustrating how good the food is. Eventually, Count enters and explores the special Chinese meals he sees at the Chechiang Province.

After Count’s encounter with the Chechiang Province, Count prepares exotic dishes at The Gourmet Club banquet for the members. When the members try the dishes, their senses of tastes are triggered when they consume the Chicken Gruel with Shark’s Fins, realizing that the belching is the satisfying mark of the dish. Count tells them to see the new perspective of a fine cuisine. Count tells his members that the food was made from “Gastronomical magic!…they had to taste it with their eyes, their noses, their ears, and at times with their skin” (131). Although the meals Count prepares are mostly Chinese dishes, there is a barrier in which the taste of the Chinese food Count made can be different from the authentic Chinese food. Count’s ambiguous answer to the members about the recipe, illustrates exoticism, leaving his members far off in their imagination.

Overall, food plays a big part in “The Gourmet Club,” as the members, or gastronomers, are able to explore for unique fine foods in Japan. Between Count’s and the member’s discovery of authentic Chinese food in Japan, illustrates the geographical and traditional barrier between Japan and China. Yet, the role of food exaggerates the idea of exoticism, triggering synesthesia and finding a something new.

 

Spirited Away: The Amount of Greed and Desire Consumed

            Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is an animated film that is about a ten-year old girl, Chihiro, who accidently enters into the spiritual world. Chihiro journeys through an adventure, as she works at a spiritual bathhouse, owned by a witch called Yubaba, to save her parents and return back home. As she goes through the journey, Chihiro experiences a phase of maturity, learning to let go of her past and move on. Throughout the entire film, food plays an essential role that portrays the idea of the amount of food one can consume parallels to the idea of the amount of greed and desire one has.

Chihiro parents are eating the food

Chihiro finds her parents turned into pigs

In the beginning scene, Chihiro’s parents are allured by an irresistible smell of food and find where the food is coming from. The moment when Chihiro’s parents see where the smell is coming from, they are blinded by the lavishing food. Without any hesitation, Chihiro’s parents indulge on the food and say that they can pay after they are done eating. The food in the scene illustrates how Chihiro’s parents are given into their temptation of eating, losing their morals and identities. They take what they have for granted, but ask for more. When Chihiro comes back and finds her parents turned into pigs, the scene illustrates a physical representation of people’s excessive appetite. Her parents were greedy to devour all the delicious food that they overreached the amount they are able to consume as humans thus turning into pigs. Chihiro’s parents giving in to eating the splendid dishes, represent how people are unable to overcome the temptation of their desires yet have more. Many people are triggered by visual appearances, tempted into wanting something. Metaphorically, when people’s greed for commodities they want becomes inordinate, it turns them into pigs. 

No-face devouring all the food served

In one of the scenes, No-face is devouring all the food while the bathhouse workers entertain him and bring in the best dishes, after hearing that he has gold. The food represented in the scene of No-face eating shows how he continues eating what the bathhouse workers serve him. The use of food portrayed in the scene is very similar to Chihiro’s parents. However, the bathhouse workers serving and entertaining No-face illustrates how money is a powerful tool. Money is the one essential tool that triggers people’s desires. The bathhouse workers are driven by their greed for the gold No-face has. In society, many are driven to have good jobs with higher payments. They give No-face the best food in the bathhouse to receive gold as a tip. The bathhouse workers intentions of serving and entertaining are similar to people who have jobs that have a hierarchal status, where the lower status workers entertain their bosses to receive a promotion or higher payments. When No-face desires to make Chihiro happy by giving her gold, she rejects him, which angers him. Food is seen in a negative manner in the scene when No-face starts eating the workers when they ask for gold. As No-face eat the workers, he becomes a big and fat monster. No-face’s consuming the people represents how people are driven by their endless avidity, turning into selfish monsters.

Haku giving Chihiro food to eat

             The role of food in this scene illustrates of how children have less of a greed and desire than adults. Chihiro represents more of the humbleness overcoming the rapacity. In the scene, Chihiro eats the onigiri (Japanese rice balls) Haku offers her to eat because she needs the energy to work again. The scene physically exemplifies how Chihiro consumes the amount of food she only needs, becoming a necessity rather than a desire. For Chihiro, she is not driven by the urge to overindulge on food. Chihiro eating a simple meal, like onigiri, literally illustrates how a simple meal can still satisfy one’s craving. In comparison to her parents, No-face, and the bathhouse workers, Chihiro is the youngest yet most humble character. In the scenes of her parents and No-face lavishly devouring food, Chihiro has always resisted the temptation of desire and has always been conscious of her surroundings. Chihiro, herself, represents how children are less greedy than adults because they still do not know what the “real world” is like yet. Chihiro being aware of her surroundings and making the right choices point out how sometimes children are more aware and humble of their decisions than adults.

            Overall, food plays Spirited Away contains many visual aesthetics and themes throughout the film. Yet, food plays a big part in the entire animated film. Especially, the food portrayed in certain scenes of the film epitomizes the idea of adults and spirits having more excessive greed and desire than children. Therefore, the act maturity and humility does not come in a specific age order. 

Tampopo: Respect For Class

Tampopo is about a widow, Tampopo, who owns a ramen shop and determines to make the best ramen. She is motivated when a truck driver, Goro, and his friend comes to eat ramen at her and later tells her his opinion that her ramen is not delicious. Tampopo then goes through the process of making the best ramen with her teacher, Goro. Although the main story focuses on Tampopo’s progress in creating delicious ramen noodles, there are some scenes in the movies that give a satirical humor towards the various foods. Among the many scenes in Tampopo, the most impressive and important scene where an old teacher is teaching his apprentice on how to eat ramen is the most important scene.

The teacher is telling his apprentice how to eat the ramen.

The scene of an old teacher telling his apprentice on how to eat the ramen sets the main idea of the movie that helps transcends the story into the next scene. The teacher’s attitude towards the ramen illustrates a hidden message, showing that Japan appreciates creating ramen because it allowed Japan to receive the global attention. When at first seeing the teacher take his time at appreciating the ramen and not eating it right away, it is a hilarious and comedic, yet questioning scene because many people do not appreciate the food they eat. Why would the teacher show great respect for a simple dish? The teacher’s attitude towards this simple food illustrates his appreciation for the simple food that has been created in their country. However, the teacher’s action towards the ramen allows me to see that this fast food has a certain respect. Even today, ramen is a known to be one of the global Japanese food sensations.

The Japanese people have high respect for the French cuisine and consider it to be an extreme high-class food. The movie director, Juzo Itami, also adds in a scene that illustrates the Japanese respect for French cuisine, as only people who are part of the high-class society can afford high quality cuisines. On the other hand, the Japanese ramen is a food that is cheap and affordable, there is a lower quality to the food. When comparing a French dish to a Japanese ramen, the French dish may have a higher quality, but the Japanese ramen gives a more cultural and homemade quality. The teacher’s earnest attitude, towards the ramen, portrays that he has respect for the lower quality cultural food.

The teacher’s actions and respect for ramen gives a visual representation to realize that any food, even food with lower quality, can earn the same attention and a different kind of respect, like the higher-class cuisines. Just how the Japanese respects the French cuisines, many other countries have respect for Japanese cultural food. When watching the scene, the movie visualizes a message that ramen is a sensational food that has brought Japan to receive global attention, even from the well-respected Western countries. Through Tampopo, the movie sends a message that sometimes hierarchies are not as important as it seems, because whether it is food hierarchies or social hierarchies, there may be times when the lower-class can earn the same respect as the higher-class.