In Japan, one compliments the chef by slurping up their noodle soup as loudly as physically possible. Not only does this practice indicate the customer’s enjoyment of the meal, it also allows the meal to be eaten before it has a chance to cool down. Now jump on over to Cheltenham, England and you’ll see that in the rare instance that somebody is gorging on a steaming hot bowl of noodles, they do so in puckered silence.
This topic came to me when I remembered an instance where my friend, who was drinking his soup from his bowl, was told off by our other classmates for his lack of manners. It is a well known fact amongst them that the correct way to drink soup was to do so with a spoon. The spooning technique itself was also quite important – you must scoop away from yourself to show, I don’t know, selflessness or something like that.
My apparent fascination with the table manners of different cultures lies in how they reflect the mannerisms of the locals. By simply walking through the streets of these two places, the contrast between the young people of Japan and those of Cheltenham is quite clear. The Japanese go about their day adorned in bedazzled badges of their favourite animated characters and wearing all the colours of the rainbow. Cheltonians seem to be more inclined towards dull grays, blues and blacks and oversized clothing. The shared enjoyment of a meal among strangers in Japan could be seen as a reflection of their attitude towards others in the sense that they seem content in displaying themselves in a more flamboyant, open way. In the case of my former classmates in England, I noticed that the most important aspect that they held onto was what kind of first impression they gave. Everybody was incredibly polite but, save the handful of close friends, that was the extent to which they would ever present themselves to others. Again, their table manners can be reflected in how they act – very, very polite.
Our culture is so deeply ingrained into the way we act and I believe that it is the small things that become quite prominent when one is in the state of culture shock. Please keep in mind that this short blog was written purely from my (probably very bias) point of view and I would love to know what kind of thoughts other people have on this idea. Comment below!
2 replies on “Soup”
I feel sorry for your friend. He doesn’t deserve being called rude. The classmate needs to open up mind more in my opinion. However, eating with mouth open is indeed rude for me and I think it can be an international rule. The scoop thing seems strange to me too and I heard nothing about it before.
The part when you talk about the English “showing their truth side to their own close friends” and “being really really polite” yuck me. I’ve heard the English being cold, but I only thought that it was just a stereotype. How creepy it is to “faking” and hiding one’s truth personalities in the public! To me it seems tiring and even a bit scary, as there seems to be no trust among people.
In contrast, I prefer the casualness and friendliness among Japanese strangers. That’s more me and even reading your descriptions about it lift me up. =)
Thank you so much for this blog post. I’ve grown up in Canada where we have a similar social structure to Britain. Table manners were always a big thing at school with many of the international students. Most Canadian students grew up learning to be polite at a dinner table: always use utensils, don’t chew with your mouth open, don’t slurp your food; basically to be discrete. I myself found that there were some international students who paid no attention to these “rules” and they were considered very rude by myself and fellow students.
I think it is unfair to call my young self and fellow students closed-minded for feeling this way. After all, the country that we had always lived in and still were, had different customs that we had no idea weren’t universally accepted. Of course we thought that the child slurping their soup was unpleasant because we had rarely experienced something like that in public.
When it comes to being “fake” as the comment before mentioned, I have to beg to differ. I’m not sure that I can say this for every city or individual, but I have found strangers very pleasant to talk to both in Britain and Canada. In Japan, I understand that people proclaim their passions up front with their clothes or personalities. This sounds wonderful and a lot of fun; however, I do appreciate the subtleties found in European culture as well.
People express themselves in all sorts of ways all over the world. Not everyone is going to be able to appreciate other cultures until they have been exposed to them and come to understand their meanings. What can appear to be close mindedness is actually a lack of knowledge simply because of a difference in culture.