Category Archives: japan & asia

Karami: A new product that’s an old Japanese American twist on salsa

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karamiForget Pace Picante Sauce, which used to make a big deal of being made in San Antonio instead of phony salsas made in New York City. Forget San Antonio as well as New York City. Look no further than Pueblo and Boulder, Colorado.

Boulder-based entrepreneur Kei Izawa and his partner, Jason Takaki, are launching a new product this weekend that really isn’t new at all. Karami is a Japanese American twist on salsa that tastes pretty great on a lot of food including chips, meats and fish, but its origins are as a Japanese side dish, the kind you might see served next to rice.

Karami, which means “beautiful heat,” has a salty, savory vegetable base that’s enhanced with a subtly sweet flavor and a mildly spicy kick. You can’t put a finger on one overarching taste, which makes it a perfect example of the Japanese word, “umami,” which translates as “pleasant savory taste” and is considered one of the five basic tastes following sweet, sour, bitter and salty. It’s a Japanese concept that’s perfectly embodied in a spoonful of Karami.

What makes it Japanese American, not Japanese?
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Domino’s Pizza Japanese app features Vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku

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Pretty cool: Domino’s Pizza goes all in on mobile tech wizardry — at least for its Japanese market — with a new app featuring Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid, synthetic/anime J-pop persona that’s entirely digital. According to a new video that has Domino’s Japan CEO Scott Oelkers introducing the app, Domino’s staff came up with songs for the app, and the Vocaloid software program generated the singing by the animated star Miku. Pretty cool…. wonder if Domino’s will be able to come up with an English-language US version, and if young Americans would order their pizza from a singing app?

Pop culture including J-pop builds bridges between Japan and the US

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I’m a fan of anime and manga, although I don’t actually follow the zillions of comics or animated series and movies, because they’re instrumental in building bridges between Japan and the United States. I’ve spoken with eager young Caucasian anime fans in full cosplay (dressed in costumes playing the part of their favorite anime characters) who said they’re taking Japanese classes, and are planning on Japanese Studies in college, because they love anime so much.

That’s some powerful tug on the hearts and minds of our country’s future leaders.

And anime and manga are just the most visible signs of pop culture’s powerful effects, thanks to the many festivals and conventions across the US, and the popularity of anime programming on cable TV. Just take a look at video games, movies, and music, and Japan’s influence on America goes way beyond instant ramen and sushi happy hours. (Ramen shops are exploding in cities everywhere, but that’s another post….)

Curiously, though, J-pop, or Japanese pop music, hasn’t made too much of a dent in the American charts over the years.

Just last year, if you have kids you may have caught a catchy bit of bubblegum rock called “Sugar Rush” from the soundtrack of the Disney animated feature “Wreck-It Ralph” (notice how if it’s an American film we call it “animated feature” and if it’s Japanese we call it ”anime?”). The song plays over the end of the film, which will be released on DVD and Blue-Ray, etc. on March 5. You can see the super-sweet adorable video of the group singing it on YouTube above.
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Korea’s obsession with plastic surgery is creating a generation of clone-looking young people

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The striking graphic that opens the article on Jezebel.com

The striking graphic that opens the article on Jezebel.com

As I read with disbelief the daily dispatches about North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s bellicose statements about aiming nukes at the United States, threatening South Korea and putting his impoverished country under martial law to “prepare for war,” I know that there are very serious issues hanging in the balance in east Asia.

But I can’t get this story, I Can’t Stop Looking at These South Korean Women Who’ve Had Plastic Surgery from a couple of weeks ago out of my head, so I had to comment on it.

South Korea is the world’s busiest country for plastic surgergy, especially for women. By some accounts, 20% of South Korean women have had some form of cosmetic work done on their face, with eyelid surgery to add a fold being the most popular cut. This particular surgery’s been popular with Korean women in the U.S. too — back in 2009 I mentioned it in a post about contact lenses that make eyes look like an anime character’s eyes.

But in South Korea, the societal pressure has apparently become so strong to conform to certain ideals of “beauty” that young women and men — teenagers — are getting their face sculpted.
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Hello Kitty hitches a ride into space

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Like zillions of other people, I’m enchanted by Hello Kitty and amazed by the worldwide phenomenon of the cute cat that was born in Japan and now adorns all manner of products and objects and toys and appliances worldwide. And, I’m enchanted by this totally cool video of a 7th grade school science project, in which Hello Kitty flies into space and back: