It looks like such beautiful place
It’s crazy how much Japan and Britain are mirror images of each other.
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Archipelago countries dominated by a single large island at opposite ends if the same continent
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Settler colonized the second largest island in the archipelago
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Genocidal imperialists who love killing
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Creaky-ass stupid monarchy
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Top-down transition from late feudal systems to bourgeois liberalism in the 1800s
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At times global industrial powers but now degraded through decades of neoliberalism and submission to the US
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Current ethnic group settled the main island under murky circumstances in the first millennium CE (very unclear how much the natives were integrated or eradicated, timelines, etc)
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Extremely decrepit right-wing social democracies
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Politically obsessed with farmers despite not being remotely food self-sufficient
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Extremely disproportionately centralized around the massive capital city in the southeast of the main island, which is not just dominant to the home country but a globally leading financial center
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Historical tradition obsessed with feudal class of heavily armored, violent, horseback warrior thugs/landowners (knights/samurai) who transitioned to fancy lads and project backwards a cultural refinement of honor and courage (chivalry/bushido)
The only real differences are that 1) the English eradicated their own ecology more than any country has ever done and Japan has maintained it shockingly well given population density and level of development and 2) the British Empire lasted so much longer and was so much better established than the Japanese that the metropole absorbed tons of colonized peoples, while Japan remains a de facto ethnostate with extremely low non-native population.
Northern Ireland
Holy shit my sides lmao
yeah i’ve got multiple dozen apologies for pointing out how everything bad is about the Netherlands.
I can’t believe you’d do our Chinese boys so dirty.
- Projects soft power through media franchises that help mask the actual government/population are largely right-wing reactionaries.
all British export media is like “wouldn’t you love to be slapped by the prince one day” while all Japanese export media is “you can control an entire universe and sexually dominate every being in existence”
13. can’t handle spicy food at all
both produce very good scotch too
Japan is lucky enough to be next to China, so by absorbing their culinary traditions they actually have edible food, unlike the Anglos
not just borrowing China but homegrown culinary innovations are also extremely good; this is because Japan didn’t become a colonizer until the modern era, whereas England’s ancient status as the oldest-extant colonizer means their food culture has atrophied beyond all hope of recovery
Genuinely: what are some homegrown culinary innovations?
MEAT mentions
Unagi Don is delicious and also hilariously expensive. Eel is very good when prepared by being barbequed.
Katsudon and Oyakodon are both interesting as they’re also very tasty due to the inclusion of dashi when setting the eggs.
They’ve done some culinary crimes to spaghetti that I support.
Japanese Curry is actually kind of its own thing, being more of a stew with a finishing roux. It is basically taken straight from India though I think(?) its become its own thing now.
Did they invent natto? That’s not a good thing necessarily but they might’ve done it.
i thought japanese curry was one of those “white people foods” from the meiji era that japanese people thought was the reason white people were big and tall and successful. so because the brits looked at the rich and extremely varied culinary traditions of india and said “it’s all bits of veg in yellow gravy innit” and then made a dish called curry consisting of bits of veg in yellow gravy, the japanese saw the british sailors eat that and made their own version
yea ur right I thought they got it from india for some reason
Sushi! Ramen! Mochi! Sake!
Ramen is Chinese, the Japanese term comes from “la mien” in Chinese or pulled noodles. Alcoholic fermentation of rice spread to Japan from China, and sushi is likely of southeast Asian origin, with the first written record of sushi-like food from 4th century BCE in China, all of this according to Wikipedia. English Wikipedia does credit mochi being japanese, I’d be surprised if this is actually the case, I found a SCMP headline claiming mochi were introduced from China in 300BCE, pointing to Taiwan’s “moâ chi” and Hong Kong’s “log máih chih” type of rice snacks.
Most foods we attribute to Japanese culture are Chinese in origin.
at least English Water Pie is authentically anglosaxie!
is that even a grainy complement lol
yeah, indigenous people in taiwan have been making mochi since before the japanese occupation (but I don’t know if they were called moachi before that), maybe it spread to japan through the ryukus, or was invented independently. pounding rice and other starches in a big mortar with a big long stick is a thing all arouns southern and western china and southeast asia and africa
3/4 have their origins outside of Japan lmfao
That may be true but I don’t believe it
Those foods are to Japan as hamburgers and pizza are to america: foreign dishes adopted & altered to an extent that many people think of them as the cuisine of the adopter
Well, imagine saying “no, actually pierogi are of German origin, and corn tortillas are of USAmerican origin too!”
Ramen is written in katakana because it is Chinese in origin and foreign to Japan.
The only real differences
You’re forgetting the major difference, which is that Japan makes food that actually tastes like something.
Japanese food is the British food of Asia
THANK YOU, Japanese food is ass compared to everything else in the region
Still leagues above whatever slop those soggy bastards on TERF Island are trying to pass off as “food” ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I do say, this ‘ton katsu’ is rather ‘oishii’
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I went to Hokkaido to see some of its famous highlands and lochs, but got glassed outside of a pub on my first day. I guess it is true that the Japanese are a very insular and xenophobic people.
I learnt tokyo standard japanese but they apparently speak a different dialect in okinawa, I kept asking for 生ビール and they were like ‘cervesa?’
If you do get to Tokyo it is nice that after being out at the pubs you can get a good Tikka Masala (ティッカ・マサラ). Though you should avoid any “traditional cask pubs” as apparently the traditional Japanese style of ale is to serve it warm and flat.
I never had any trouble communicating there, but then again I’ve only ever been around Naha.
If it were economically viable for me, I think Okinawa is the part of Japan I’d like best to live at. Just somewhere far from the US military bases, like Ishigaki. They have that chill islander vibe.
joke spoiler
Doing a bit that if the UK were Japan, then Okinawa would be around Malaga (warm, lots of British people, hence speaking Spanish in response to someone speaking Japanese)
The goal:
Move to Hokkaido
Do a PhD in archaeology
transition (and that is allowed for some reason)
Get really into coats and other fits
Find one competitive hobby I like, and learn to absolutely crush casuals so hard I give them nightmares
still never get over my issues with making decisions
okinawa is truly the gibraltar (pronounced “jibbralder” not “xibraltar”, because of angl*s) of the pacific, except there are many contenders for that title
Ah, woosh me
Why does GB look like Max Stirner though
Lot of ego there
I went to the northern Japanese city of “Glasugowa” and I was pissed that nobody spoke English, even though all the signs were in it.
gurasugowa
Elodo eth
Edo Buro
I’d’ve known kremes Mumbai…
It’s a fractal
the westernmost island (i forgot what it’s called - flatter, greener one in this picture) is the best starting position in shogun total war II, you can chill and conquer the island clans, slowly building power before moving on to conquering the main island and becoming the shogun
or wait was this the crusader kings II strat
Desu ne, innit?
Yo Dayo, bruv
Being forced to grind English Anki decks like a self-made language skinner box. Leave it to tech dweebs to make language learning as unfun as possible.
Thank you someone finally says it flashcards are the most soulmelting thing possible for language learning
Love the fish and potato tempura at their night markets. A lot more karē restaurants than I thought there’d be.
