RMIT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY VIETNAM

MODERN ASIA COMM2377

ASSESSMENT 3 - MAJOR ESSAY
Student Name: Dao Viet Trung
ID: 3461763
Lecturers Name: Brenda Mattick
Group: 1
Deadline: 2nd January 2015
Topic number: 3
Submission Date: 2nd January 2015
Words count: 1405

Over many centuries, human societies across the globe have established
closer contacts thanks to the helps of communications revolution (Yang,
2007). It also means that cultural images of different societies are getting
closer. Sushi is one of the examples of this trend when it is one of the
most popular dishes in many Western countries. Globalization process and
new technologies such as transportation devices and mass media has

contributed significantly to the popularity of Sushi in Western. This paper

examines how these elements enhance Sushis images in the West.
To understand how Sushi gets popular today, it is essential to know how
sushi started to emerge in Western countries at the first time, which was
happened in around 1970s in America (Sakamoto & Allen n.d).
Globalization is defined as the interaction and integration among people,
companies and governments of different nations (Globalization 101 n.d).
This definition clearly describes the process of Sushis first arrival since it
was the result of the expansion of many Japanese businesses to America
in between 1950s and 1980s, when Japans economy was recognized
globally for its fast and powerful growth at that period (Kasulis, 1995). In
The Lexus and The olive Tree book, Friedman (2000) stated that Once a
country makes the leap into the system of globalization, its elites begin to
internalize this perspective of integration. Applying this perspective of
Friedman to the case of Japan, it can be concluded that successful
globalization or integration of Japan economy in the world helped Sushi
to be one of the popular Japanese elites adapted by America. Following
America, some Europe countries started to catch up the trend set in
1990s. One of the clearest examples about the popularity of Sushi in those
countries is the case in London as there were many successful restaurants
serving this dish in London through that period, including Harrods Sushi
Bar (1995), Moshi Moshi (1994) (Sakamoto & Allen 2011). As can be seen,
globalization as well as the economic power of Japan in that period played
a big important aspect in the promotion of Sushi in many Western
countries.

The role of Japanese immigration during post-war period was also an

important part shaping the way Sushi took part in Western cultures. When
coming to US, they brought their knowledge of making Sushi and used
them to serve the local people for the first time (Yang, 2013). Japanese
Immigration could be seen as having connection with transnationalism,
which refers to the interactions linking people and institution across the
borders of nation-states (Unicef n.d). As mention in the first paragraph,
the rise of Japanese economy led to the globalization of this country as
more Japanese businesses set their location in US, which created
interaction with other local companies. Globalization is also about
interaction with people of different nations (Globalization 101 n.d).
Therefore, the arrival of immigration was affected greatly by the
contribution of globalization and made Sushi became popular in local US,
which was seen as the first step for Sushi to expand to Europe countries.
Technologies development is one of the core parts in the process of
spreading Sushi in Western. With the help of the new transportation and
preservation technique or the invention of refrigeration chemistry and
storage in around 1960s, the materials for making Sushi, especially fresh
ingredients like Tuna, could be easily transferred through a long distance
(Brown, 2012). As can be seen, development of technologies in this
context can be seen as modernity, or the increase in movement of goods
(Understanding modernity n.d). Faster process of transferring goods
helps Sushi to travel to outside Japan easier and serve other cultures
easier. The arrival of immigration as the basis component of Sushi boom in
US and contemporary Western was also supported by technologies since

transnationalism is facilitated by increased global transportation and

telecommunication technologies (Nationalism, Transnationalism, Identity
n.d). The new technologies created more opportunities for Japanese
immigrants to travel long distance and bring cultures closer to the
Western background. It can be concluded that the role of technologies
make Sushi goes further from its original home country.
Mass media played an important role in the exposure of Sushi in some
Western countries. In America, Sushi was appeared in Saturday Night Live
parodies in around 1980s (Brown, 2012). By being shown in such TV show,
the image of Sushi was broadcasted to a large amount of people in
America in that time. The emergence of Japan economic through that time
was also reflected through many media in US (Sakamoto & Allen n.d),
which also helped people got to know more about this country in term of
more aspects beside economy, including the understanding about
Japanese cultural cuisine like Sushi. Europeans get to know Sushi in the
same way to America through many television programs, especially some
cooking shows that have the same genre to Sushi (Cwiertka 2006).
Appadurai (1996) states that the multiplicity of the forms and the rapid
way of moving through daily life routines help electronic media provide
resources for self-imagining as an everyday social project, which means
that media can reflect daily life in many ways and many forms in a rapid
way. Modernity is also about increasing movement of information among
formerly separated areas (Understanding modernity n.d). Therefore, the
ability of mass media to spread information can be regarded as modernity
when this channel can reflect daily life and information in a rapid way as

Appadurai mentioned. Japanese Sushi can be seen in this context when

the flexibility in contents of electronic media makes people come closer to
this dish. With the characteristics of mass media that are more flexible
than print materials, Sushis images become the common part of
Westerners minds.
However, in order to be existed in the Western background, Sushi
becomes different from its traditional form due to some basic factors.
From the perception of Westerners, especially American people, eating
raw fish idea was a repulsive thing with them (Jetro 2013). Therefore, an
Americanized sushi version, including avocado, mayonnaise without any
raw fish, was introduced to demand the common tastes of them (Yang
2013). As can be seen, Westerners not only adapt this cultural dish of
Japan but also try to modify them to fit with their food background. When
people of different cultures come to contact continuously, acculturation
happens since cultural and psychological perspectives become different
from its original states and California Roll is one of the examples about
how acculturation is blending (Rudmin, 2003). Theory of globalization also
reflects this change of Sushi since it indicates that globalization requires
localization, or everything in some cases has to be localized to suit with
the taste of local people (Shimemura, 2002). The concept can be easily
found in this case when Sushi has more variants that are not existed in
Japanese culture when the perspective of taste in Western cultures is
different from the original version of this cuisine.

Another reason contributes to the change of Sushi in Western is due to the

help of modern technology, reducing a lot of well-trained Sushi chefs. New
technologies help to make Sushi faster than chefs, while it takes around
10 years of training to be qualified sushi chefs taking part in the
traditional sushi bars (Yang 2013). Modernity is also defined as the sense
of that the present is discontinuous to the past (Understanding Modernity
n.d). Technology modernity makes Sushi becomes discontinuous to the
original form since the process is less supported by humans. Sushi robot,
for example, can make 3600 pieces within one hour, which is much faster
than normal chefs do (Sakamoto & Allen n.d). This example also refers to
one of the McDonaldization principles: Calculability, which tends to focus
on quantitative aspects of service offered or time taken for making
products or the opinion that number of products is more important than
quality (Ritzer, 2004). Since Sushi goes global, the quantitative strategy is
needed to serve more people in both external and internal Japan, which
makes this dish loses one of the traditional components.
To sum up, the emergence of Sushi is one of the clearest examples about
the effects of globalization as well as technology development to the
cultural image of a country. Sushi is not only one of the most popular topic
in Western but also the other places in the world contemporarily
nowadays. However, due to this popularity, Sushi is also different from its
original state in order to fit with different tastes of different cultures.

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