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This got a report for xenophobia and, to my mind, it is xenophobic. It could totally be interpreted a different way where it's inviting you to consider the cross-cultural nature of cuisine that gets boiled down into a single name, but it seems like most people, myself included (having seen how some other "Yes, but" comics go), don't.
I think it's worthwhile to leave this post up because the comments surrounding it are worthwhile and actually transform this into something insightful.
I clearly didn't interpret this comic the same way as everyone else has, and if you think it would be better to delete it, I will.
I've seen this joke in many forms before, and it's usually more like "it's a little humorous when this happens" rather than some sort of xenophobic criticism. Like the cowboy themed restaurant in Fresh off the Boat or Bobby's Japanese/German restaurant in King of the Hill:
I don't think it's better to delete it. I like to interpret it as the Bobby Hill Japanese fusion restaurant thing too even if I don't think that's what was intended by it. All the discussion here is really nice.
You are nice.
I have a different take on this.
long answer:
Japanese cuisine uses certain methods and ingredients, even specific ratios and recipes, some of which are passed down generationally either within a family or in apprenticeships or in education and training programs that give official certifications, or even just OJT.
The thing is that Japanese culture places a lot of value in excellence and attention to detail. Traditional Japanese cooking is comparable to traditional French cooking in that regard (and yes, I'm aware that not all japanese cuisine is high-class traditional fare, but even a basic dashi stock or a ramen broth are things that people take pride in and pass on their recipes, complete with regional variants and a lot of subtlety and nuance).
Anyway, I lived in japan for a few years in my twenties and I traveled around and tried a lot of different regional specialties and variants on some of the classics. I also frequented a lot of chains like Sukiya, Yoshinoya, and all the different konbinis. So my description isn't limited to fancy kaiseki-ryori in centuries-old ryokan villages. Japanese food, even the basic stuff, has a certain quality to it, which is hard for gaijin to imitate unless they train for years with a Japanese chef.
I preface this with all that so you don't assume I'm speaking from ignorance. Since returning to the US, I've been disappointed with the quality of "Japanese restaurants" here. I've been to a couple in New York that were good. I could tell the owners and staff were Japanese by the quality of the food alone. Overhearing them speaking Japanese to each other only confirmed it.
But there isn't much of a Japanese diaspora in my area, and the "Japanese restaurants" around me are all run by Chinese families. I've stopped expecting Japanese-quality Japanese food from these. Sometimes I still go just to get my fix. But it's not the same. The ingredients are different. The ratios are off. The love and care, passion, pride, and everything else that goes into Japanese food just isn't there, and it shows up as different tastes, different textures, different aromas, etc.
Not to mention it's just hard to find some things here. Famima chicken just isn't a thing here. Even Karaage is hard to find. Oden might as well not exist. All the different kinds of yakitori (quail egg, cartilage, horumon, etc.), matsuri specialties like okonomiyaki and takoyaki, taiyaki, and so much else; the little shops outside the train stations and all the smells and tastes that go along with them; so many regional dishes like motsunabe, okinawa soba, etc.; and just so much else (donburi, ebi furai, chawanmushi, onigiri, korokke, katsu curry, soba/udon shops and all their interesting toppings.). Ugh, I'm drooling just thinking about it all. But I digress.
Obviously no one shop could do all of that, but "Japanese food" outside of Japan is typically very limited in options. Some sushi, mostly westernized variants. It's rare to find many options for nigiri, or any at all but I've never seen a kaitenzushi in the US. Occasionally a ramen shop (if you're lucky, but even then the broth just isn't right, the chashu and shoyu tamago just aren't right; and good luck finding moyashi namuru!). Other than that, you're probably limited to a few things listed as appetizers. Maybe gyoza, edamame, and a couple other things that are considered popular in the west.
It's just not the same though. It's not just the selection, it's the quality. The ingredients, the recipe, everything is just off.
tl,dr: Japanese cuisine has a certain quality, which is a deeply cultural phenomenon, but the "Japanese" restaurants near me are all run by Chinese families, and as someone who spent years in Japan I can tell the difference in the quality of the food.
I don't see how it isn't considered cultural appropriation. If a white guy tries opening a Japanese restaurant people will say it's cultural appropriation (and probably call him a weeb). So how is it any different when a Chinese family opens a Japanese restaurant? I don't see any way you can reconcile those two things without implying that Asian people are all the same, which is racist.
about the other nationalities:
I don't know why the picture in the OP shows the Filipino, Korean, and Thai flags. The Korean and Thai places near me are all run by Chinese people too. And there might be a couple Filipino grocery stores but I don't know of any Filipino restaurants in my area.
Korean, Thai, and Filipino food are all amazing, by the way. I've been to all three of those countries too. And just like with Japanese cuisine, each one has so much variety that just gets lost in the US. They substitute a lot of local ingredients which just aren't the same, they don't offer dishes that seems too strange to the western palette, they tweak a lot of dishes to make them more suitable to the average westerner, etc. I've never had a pad kra pao in the US that even came close to measuring up to how it is in Thailand.
For what it's worth, Chinese food is good in its own way. I don't have anything against the Chinese diaspora. I just don't see how it isn't cultural appropriation for Chinese families to run Japanese or Thai restaurants.
Its the execution that determines if its appropriation, or appreciation. Appropriation of Japanese is something I'm closely familiar with because my interest in Japanese craftsmanship, knives and blacksmithing
If someone is using the culture to sell a mediocre, tangentially related product, disrespecting the original culture, is appropriation. If the product itself is executed faithfully, with dignity and respect to the culture it comes from, or is inspired from, then it's appreciation.
There are a lot of Japanese knife scams that poorly attempt to imitate somebody the features of Japanese knives, made out of junk steel, mass produced in China. These are appropriation.
There are some western blacksmiths who are genuinely as skilled as their Japanese counterparts, who make excellent Japanese style knives, faithfully recreating all of the details, features and quality as authentic examples. This is appreciation.
Thank you. I hate seeing people say that if a black woman from Queens opens a Mexican bread shop that it is appropriation.
It depends on how much they care. If the chinese people running the restaurant are just half-assing japanese food and using japanese culture for the name and clout, its disrespectful. Effectively just trying to profit off the culture. Whereas if those chinese people are trying their best to understand and replicate the culture, it's fine.
Hot take: a japanese person can "appropriate" their own culture. If they just take advantage of their name and ethnicity, without actually learning about the culture. This is just really rare in practice because people of any ethnicity are usually forced to learn about their own culture when growing up
I am Asian. There are Japanese restaurants in my city run by white people and I donβt consider it cultural appropriation. Cultural acceptability is a wide spectrum.
Personal experience:
Right now I live in an extremely multi-cultural city, and generally wildly multi-cultural country. The best Japanese restaurant I've been to was a Ramen restaurant stationed in another city that is ran by an actual Japanese chef that (presumably) does not speak any other languages.
In the town I am stationed right now all Japanese restaurants I've been to were okay. But nothing even close to that Ramen place. Day and night. Fact is, many Japanese, Thai and Korean Restaurants are ran by Chinese business people and mostly staff. Not all, but I've been to few.
To add, Kepab is common back in my homeland, but 99% of the time it was never made by Turkish cook cause we don't get many foreigners back there. Kepab in the city I live right now is almost always made by Turkish or middle-east-descent person. AND IT IS DELICIOUS! I've tried many different joints at different prices and none of them was even remotely as bad as the ones I've used to eat back at home.
I've learned to prefer cultural food cooked by the person relating to that culture. Chinese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Slavic (Polish, Ukraine, Czech, etc.) is always tastes better if it was made by someone who is from that country. It just how it is.
Appreciate this very thoughtful mod response. Itβs easy to get too wrapped up on yes/no answers when reality is far more fuzzy and complicated than that.
As an AAPI, I didnβt see anything more to this than a funny little nod to the people who actually prepare ethnic cuisines in countries not of their origin.
I saw it for the humor too. As a joke, at steakhouses - my southeast Asian wife used to demand "authentic" Texan bbq from REAL Texans. She'd say things like, "He looks like he's from Wisconsin. I can tell."
Yeah. We're all called chef in the kitchen. It's respect. Who cares where you're from if you can cook it with love (or, as the occasion calls for, salt)
Good to see a mod comment not being a pile of human garbage. Served as a gentle reminder we're not, in fact, on reddit.
or it could be that the larger majority doesn't see it that way and people are being overly sensitive and that can apply to both the person reading this, and the intentions of the og artist
People from anywhere can cook authentic food from anywhere else as long as they know what they are doing, so this is bs
It reminded me of this asshole, who happened to be Italian, claiming that a professionally trained chef could not cook proper Italian food because he was Mexican
Every good Greek restaurant I've ever been to had a kitchen full of Mexican cooks. Most of my favorite Chinese takeout places were run by Koreans. Folks cook food.
Many of the Greek-owned Italian restaurants and diners in my are being transferred to Albanians, but the language in the kitchens is invariably Spanish.
Even the concept of food being "authentic" or "inauthentic" is pretty dumb. Pretty much every food short of raw foraged ingredients is the result of cultural exchange.
You could argue that an Italian cooking with chilis or tomatoes is inauthentic and that the resulting food is more Mexican than it is Italian.
Extending the concept from ingredients to techniques, you could argue that every food that relies on the cold chain (refrigerated/frozen storage and transportation) is an American food because the cold chain was created by an American.
its about expectations. I grew up in California and have some specific expectations about Mexican food. they are different than if I was raised in Jalisco. I went to a "Mexican" restaurant in Budapest and their interpretation of Mexican food is VERRY different.
Mexico, like the vast majority of countries, has wildly different food styles by region city so anyone who immigrated elsewhere will start with their local style and then adapt it. In the US there are a ton of Mexican restaurants that vary significantly. I find it interesting how Americanized Chinese food is actually very consistent between restaurants compared to Mexican food.
Itβs less the who and more the branding. Itβs funny that one has to have the right βlookβ to sell you the food of a nation, or customers will reject it. The sorts of comments you hear while working in a Chinese run Japanese restaurant in the USβ¦
I thankfully don't know anyone who goes to a japanese restaurant to stare at the people working there. It's got its name from the food they make there, not from the ethnicity of the people inside the building.
In my teenage years I embarrassed myself by trying to order in Japanese... The server was Korean.
I'm Korean, and I get where this is coming from. You do things right, and it's all good. But if you use teriyaki sauce in bibimbap, I'll fucking burn the place down.
Not enough Latinos/Hispanics.
Came here to say this, as someone with first hand experience there should be at least a Mexican either doing the dishes or running the prep and maybe another hurrying stuff around or running the floor
Japanese are generally rather xenophobic, so a "japanese restaurant" abroad only having anything else is quite the irony.
We doing passport checks on the staff before eating at a restaurant now?
I go to a Japanese restaurant to eat Japanese food. Not to eat a Japanese waiter or chef.
Where would I go if I wanted to eat a.... the other thing you said...
Probably Japan
Wow. Imagine getting offended by "xenophobia" for the most banal of observations.
I am Turkish.
I go to Turkish restaurants.
Lots of Arabs working there.
Same food has become part of their culture too over last few centuries living side by side.
Some of our food is straight up borrowed from them, in fact.
Pretty sure one used to live/work in Turkey.
They cook it well.
I like it.
I assume similar?
Most Hawaiian Barbecue restaurants around here aren't run by Hawaiians.
Most donut shops around here aren't run by people from... wherever donuts came from.
You know the Panda Express gonna be bussin when you walk in and the staff is 100% Mexican.
Even when an actual Japanese restaurant franchise opens a place here, they are usually run by local people. I don't think that has much to do with how authentic the food is.
Like I don't care if my baguette was technically made by a guy born in Clermont-Ferrand. Flour, salt, water, baker's yeast. Nothing else. Do it right, and congratulations, that's a baguette.
I only ever see Hispanic people in the buffets.
For the Japanese hibachi grills our cook was from Venezuela and everyone else but one cook was white LOL. The one guy was not Japanese.
In the Filipino restaurant the cashier was Chinese. But her husband was Filipino. Both were amazing and the food was amazing.
Every single Mexican restaurant though is mostly if not all Hispanic.
And the bars and diners and other shit is just everyone.
A person doesn't have to be from a particular country to know how to cook their cuisine.
Or it could be like where I live, and every ethnicity of restaurant, especially the good ones, where the second panel is just π²π½ π²π½ π²π½.