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Comment by wirthjason | Hacker News Reader

These articles always make me conflicted. On one hand the Japanese convenience store is quite good but there’s so much fetishizing about them. In the end it’s just a sandwich, and if you eat enough of them you’ll realize there’s no “magic”.

That said the conbini is often the subject of many Japanese food TV shows and I enjoy seeing in-depth programs of how something is made and the creativity in their production. I learned that 7-11’s fried rice is made using real woks with an elaborate setup of robotic arms to toss the rice with the wok and spatula. The length they went though to get the flavor just right is very impressive.

On the sandwiches, one of my gripes is that they are often filled in a way that makes them look really plump and full of ingredients when cut in half. But everything is in the center so by by the time you make it to the edge it’s just bread. To me the sandwich is visually appealing but lacks balance and consistency from first bite to the last.

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The glorification and even fetishisation of plain, everyday things in Japan simply because they're thought of as being uniquely "Japanese" is a weird aspect of the culture, which thanks to the Internet has found many adopters from all over the world.

It's a function of an ultranationalist view of one's own culture as being "uniquely unique", i.e. more unique than any other culture is unique. The Japanese even did come up with a quack "science" named "Nihonjinron" which is still a basis of the domestic school curricula. This and the military, rote-learning nature of their education system leads to obviously ridiculous overestimations like the alleged "magic" of a convenience store sandwich never being questioned or ridiculed, so they stick. Any Japanese person in Japan is confronted with a million little "Nihonjinron" falsehoods like this one every day, thereby creating a false sense of superiority and regrettably, xenophobia and chauvinist nationalism: "All other cultures are inferior to ours!", "Are your convenience store sandwiches even magical, gaijin bro??"

I find this to be a really odd and cynical take on Japanese culture. It’s true that the Japanese take pride in certain aspects of their culture - and rightfully so - but isn’t this true of every culture?

I am from the United States, where “American Exceptionalism” is a phrase that is used non-ironically. The American flag is plastered everywhere, and pickup truck commercials routinely go on and on at length about how tough Americans are. I find the Japanese to be quite modest by comparison.

I also think that the “fetishization” of every day items in Japan is not being driven by the Japanese, but by foreigners who are genuinely impressed by things they have seen there. I could go on at length about different things they do well in Japan that I would like to bring home. Today it is convenience store sandwiches.

Can I ask what country you are from where people don’t have any unique cultural offerings that they are proud of?

> I also think that the “fetishization” of every day items in Japan is not being driven by the Japanese

Well, the Japanese themselves made capsule toys (i.e. collectibles you can get from gacha machines) out of water heater thermostats.

https://japantoday.com/category/features/new-products/new-mi...

That's just cute though, I mean, why not make toys out of them?

You're making quite a leap there -- asking OP what country they're from that doesn't have "any" unique offerings and conflating that with the idea that the level of self-pride is up there with America or Japan.

Pride, and self-esteem, live on a spectrum. Having any pride at all is not equivalent to having absurdist levels of it. And from my experience, a lot of people in countries that weren't very successful (usually: poor, corrupt, or colonized) in the 20th century are pretty muted in their pride and/or will readily believe that people from other countries are "better".

I've lived in Japan most of my life and while there is some truth to what you say, I think the notion that Japanese are ultranationalists or that they think all other cultures are inferior to Japan's is plain wrong.

One thing is that nationalism is taboo in Japan. While Japan doesn't reflect on its war past as strongly as Germany, there is still a strong sense of guilt and any nationalistic sentiment reminds them of war times and is perceived as creepy. Also a survey showed that Japanese don't have as much confidence in their technology and economy compared to what other countries think about Japan. I think this is largely because the Japanese are more aware of Japan's decline than people from other countries who's impression of Japan might be from the 90s, at the peak of Japan's economy. Also humility is a strong part of Japanese culture.

That said, Japanese will love it when foreigners talk about their convenience stores, or any other praises about Japanese culture. I also agree that foreign media outlets fetishize Japan when Japan is just a normal country just like any other. Foreign media often write stories about Japan having a family renting business for example, and that particular story turns out to be completely made up. They also write stories that exaggerate Japanese politeness. Then on the other hand there are stories that exaggerate Japan's ultranationalism which is a very fringe movement. Foreign media just write whatever drives clicks and so Japan gets depicted as more unusual than it really is. Also Japanese aren't so aware of what is written about them and even when they are, they don't react strongly so as to force Journalists to correct their stories.

How is nationalism a taboo when basically all prime ministers since WW2 got into office on the nationalist or even ultranationalist ticket? Shinzo Abe is the most recent example - how many times was he elected, three or four I think. So your premise is wrong, I think you might have mistaken the façade the Japanese show to the world as the real thing. True, they won't tell you they think Japan is above all others because that would be rude, but they sure as hell believe it.

Well you are right that the LDP, the conservative party, has been elected basically every time in post war Japan. I disagree that it is based on nationalism though.

LDP gained power with the help of the CIA when the US was worried about the Soviet Union and wanted to rearm Japan (the LDP wants to rearm Japan). The majority of Japanese public has even up to this day been opposed to getting rid of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution which outlaws Japan from going to war, which is why Japan's constitution remains as the oldest unamended constitution in the world despite the LDP's efforts to amend it. I think there's a big gap between how the LDP's right wing members (its worth noting that the LDP is a large multi faction party with a wide range of political ideology) and the Japanese public largely because many LDP members are relatives of people responsible for WW2 and so they have revisionist view of the war. The Japanese public on the other hand are Pacifists because of Pacifist education. Teacher's unions were largely socialist/communist especially the early days and strongly against imperialism. Also pacifism is a part of Japanese identity because of the constitution that prohibits war, much like how gun ownership is a part of American identity.

The LDP has been in power so long that it is really the only party that has experience running the country. Japan has had brief success in electing opposition parts two times, but both times, a major earthquake occurred (1995, 2011) and the Japanese public wanted the LDP back for stability. I think that the LDP remains in power today because Japanese want stability and harmony.

I will say that pacifism is waning, but this has less to do with a sort of make Japan greater again nationalism and more to do with North Korean missiles being fired towards Japan. Again Japanese want stability and harmony so slowly opening up to the possibility of constitutional revision is largely a factor of wanting stability. This also means the Japanese absolutely hate the fringe ultra nationalists who blast their hatred on their mega phone vans. I will say though, the desire for stability and harmony also helps the nationalists because the left (besides the communist party) sees protests as divisive and unfortunately pushback against the right is rather weak.

If anything most of my Japanese friends seem convinced that Japan is in freefall and that the rest of the world is somehow more civilized.

They are probably politically members of the left-of-center minority, have lived abroad, or both.

Do you speak or understand any Japanese yourself? If you ever tune into channels like ABEMA Prime and look at their political discussion of Japan's future you'd see everyone from left to right on the political spectrum all share a very bleak view of Japan.

I dont think its so simple. Japonism was a phenomenon rampaging through Europe in the arts and high society well before transistors existed. You dont get quite the same thing for other "exotic" cultures. There must be more to it.

I think it's more a question of degree, Europeans were also obsessed with ancient Egypt[1] at the same time. But that faded away, where Japanese culture has retained its appeal. Of course, ironically anime are full of medieval European-esque knights and wizards and elves, so the draw of 'exotica' is widespread.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptomania

I suspect part of it is that China was so cut off from the rest of the world for so long over the last century. When I was growing up through the 70s and 80s, and even the 90s the only asian culture you got exposed to was mainly Japanese culture and Hong Kong movies. Mainland China was a cultural black box. Even the Chinese culture we did have access to, like "The Water Margin" and "Monkey" TV shows were Japanese productions.

I also grew up in that era and the other part worth mentioning is that Japan seemed to be taking over the world economically. Japanese cars rapidly replaced American cars on the landscape, Japanese electronics did the same. Japanese money was said to buying up the entire country.

It was pretty natural to fetishize a culture that seemed so staggeringly successful and ascendant.

I think Japan cultural was/is seen as both ‘untainted’* due to their historical isolationism and the ability to mostly resist foreign encroachment and sufficiently sophisticated enough not be considered inferior which makes it pretty unique from the western perspective.

*of course modern Japanese society is probably much closer to Victorian Britain than to what Japan was in the 1850s

IMO the only reason we (Americans) fetishize Japanese culture is because we know about it. That’s all. They export their culture better than most other countries (and not necessarily intentionally). People fetishize American culture in other places. Why? Because we export it.

Any group of people will have someone that will find something cool. But that someone must first know about that something.

That said Japanese convenience stores really are awesome and I wish the rest of the world had them.

You must not have seen much of the world, then.

I live in Japan; other parts of Asia have the same usual Japanese combini brands (I’ve lived in Shanghai and spent time all around China, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, HK, Singapore, Korea), they are nice but admittedly I have no idea if they also satisfy the vast breadth of services that you can do at the Japanese ones (shipping and receiving packages, getting documents from your local government, paying all your taxes, buying tickets to events and travel, faxing documents internationally, and more - I have used all of these many many times and am glad they’ve had them), not to mention the glut of variety of snacks, sweets, full meals, very well executed frozen foods, and warm prepared foods, all of which are delicious, often competitive with eating out. They’re always sparkling clean and usually can do everything without any hassle or even talking to another person, within seconds. Amazing operations if you ask me.

I have been all around the North American continent; there are no places as far as I know that have anything remotely as nice as a Japanese convenience store anywhere there. American drug stores absolutely suck in comparison and all the food they sell are pretty much disgusting in comparison. Everywhere I’ve been to in the Middle East (Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Turkey) also lacks analogous businesses as far as I recall.

I don’t know the current state of convenience stores in Europe since I haven’t dropped by anywhere in the last several years, but in my travels of Germany, Italy, and Iceland, I don’t recall ever seeing anything analogous. Maybe I just didn’t know to look for.

I have also been to parts of India, and once again, maybe I didn’t know what to look for but didn’t see anything analogous there either (though the explosion in delivery businesses as of late looks interesting, but a different category altogether).

So yeah; I’m interested in knowing what experiences you’ve had that make you confident I’m living under a rock.

Yes, Europe has almost no convenience stores, I think there are some 7/11 in Scandinavia.

But here's the thing: We don't have convenience stores because we value or food and local cuisines. US and Japan uncultured compared to us, to a similar extent, so as you're American I am not surprised you like Japanese convenience stores.

No classy Japanese, of which there are not many, would think of them as suppliers of actually good food, though.

And of course there's trashy gas station food in Europe, but nobody from the middle and upper classes would ever touch it, we would rather starve. That's mostly for Bulgarian truck drivers, Russian farm helpers, etc.

Lol what Japan is uncultured, doesn’t value food and local culture? Must be why the hottest food trends globally are mostly second rate knockoffs of Japanese food, and the world over treats pretty much any ordinary Japanese food and cultural goods as among if not the finest you can find anywhere (wagyu beef, high end seafood, so on). Let alone the fact that “classy Japanese” go to convenience stores all the time since they really are great, and is also known for preserving its culture better than practically any developed culture. Have you even visited before?

Must be a troll, or at least have a prohibitively closed mind.

As the saying goes: "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all".

Can you instead share examples of interesting convenience stores from other countries or cultures? I'm sure there are many people here who have not had the opportunity to travel and would like to live vicariously :)

You need to think outside the box. You can have actually great to-go food without ever entering a convenience stores, even in Japan or the US. This notion that "I want Japanese trash food to be respected" is as hilarious as it is creepy to me.

his sentence makes perfect sense if some of the parts of the world he has been to don't have them.

in that case, it's you who has not seen enough parts of the world to understand his pov, to wishe the rest of the world had them

I've seen of the world what I need to see, that includes Japan and the US. Wasn't impressed.

You get something similar in anime, especially Isekai ("other world") where the protagonist travels to some other worlds and amazes its inhabitants with something Japanese - Japanese food especially are nearly always founds to be extraordinarily delicious.

Lots of Anime / Manga is state sponsored through the government's "Cool Japan" initiative, a very well funded undertaking to project soft power into the world through pop-cultural means. That's why a lot of the content is either putting Japanese culture on a pedestal, or showing the "outside world" as a dangerous, uncultured place. Exceptions apply of course - Japanese people have weird ideas about Paris, for example, which they think of as "almost as good as Japan". I guess by associating themselves with French culture, they think it will make them more cultured in turn. A funny side-effect of that is "Paris Syndrome" - a described ailment in Japanese medicine for the culture shock when Japanese people travel to Paris for the first time and see that there are Africans, or men with beards, or a candy wrapper next to a trash can. There are reports of Japanese women fainting on the streets of Paris by the truck load.

That would make it even stranger given some of the dubious material in those anime. Gate is basically A JSDF ad, but still has a loli vampire in it..

> I learned that 7-11’s fried rice is made using real woks with an elaborate setup of robotic arms to toss the rice with the wok and spatula.

I would not mind seeing how that setup is implemented!

The vast majority of the odd robotic cooking contraptions I've seen on YouTube have almost always been bespoke once-offs (eg, someone's homemade project). Something that actually scales and is cost-effective would very likely be constructed very differently, and likely genuinely interesting and insightful to observe.

This is the best I could find. Sadly there’s no video clip.

https://dogatch.jp/news/tbs/tbstopics_69799/detail/

Found a frozen food factory tour reel

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8N8BCD3q_M0

Look for material from china - I've seen videos where something like 90% of ingredient-to-table pipeline was robotic, including the waiter

Robotic waiter is easy and already implemented, just look at conveyor belt sushi or iPad ordering.

I meant robotic pipeline that starts at electronic ordering, mostly robotic cooking, and delivery by free-driving delivery robot on the restaurant floor.

OK, makes some sense. Though getting a free-driving delivery robot instead of a conveyor belt sounds a bit like using humanoid robot to wash dishes instead of a dishwasher.

Free-driving delivery robot makes sense when the restaurant has "classic" seating, including with no adjacent walls, and portion sizes that would make conveyor belt quite wide

Maybe. Though this reminds me of people trying to design a horseless carriage:

It's totally doable with modern technology, but in all honesty, modern cars work better.

(Off-topic: now that I think about it, it would be fun to see a 'self-driving carriage'. Ie you keep the horses, but replace the coachman with technology.)

FWIW, conveyor (or just any other static logistical mover) vs independently driving robots (or even crewed systems) is a valid spectrum that you apply in both internal factory logistics (from workers driving, through automatic robots, to conveyors and internal trains) and nation-wide systems (lorry vs. train, pretty much)

Yes, it's a valid spectrum. Definitely!

About your other example: I would expect self-driving lorries in a few decades to look very different from current human-driven lorries.

it looks something like this

https://youtu.be/xn4hBelQLlI

I've seen videos where it's much larger scale restaurant. the chefs are basically just responsible for filling those bowls and they man multiple stations. there are also versions with a wok.

That machine is cool but 7-11’s process was nothing like that. That machine is for individual servings at a restaurant. The one 7-11 used was more industrialized and made to produce pre-packaged food to be served frozen then heated up at home.

sorry i wasn't implying this is what the 7-11 looks like. just sharing an example i can find of industrial level cooking automation

You can tell from the simplified Chinese that this is owned by Chinese i.s.o. Japanese, which is just another great example of the above mentioned idea of "unique" Japanese.

The signage may be Chinese but the locale is Singapore. That said, 80% of the "uniquely Japanese" things mentioned in the sister article are found in any East Asian city with a significant Japanese presence.

Eg: vending machines for pet cacti

It's Singapore, as mentioned in the description (and the prices are quoted in SGD).

The filling thing is something you fall for only once though. After that you know exactly what you are going to get.

I still like convenience store sandwiches after 9 years eating them, even if I don’t eat them every lunch any more.

You’re totally right. I know exactly what I’m going to get and that’s the problem. It’s mildly annoying to see that nice looking sandwich and know that the first couple bites will be good but then rest are frauds.

That said, it’s mildly annoying to order fast food in the US and it comes out looking nothing like the picture on the menu. I’ve rarely been let down by JP fast food however. The food almost always looks like the picture.

You win some, you lose some.

> That said the conbini is often the subject of many Japanese food TV shows and I enjoy seeing in-depth programs of how something is made and the creativity in their production. I learned that 7-11’s fried rice is made using real woks with an elaborate setup of robotic arms to toss the rice with the wok and spatula. The length they went though to get the flavor just right is very impressive.

Interesting!!! Do they have an online version of the shows?

Japanese konbini food is way better and healthier than convenience store & most cheap fast food in north america. That is what everyone is jealous of and leads to the fanboying.

Of course there is better stuff in japan, it's the fact that the super convenience food is way healthier and tastier and better than the cheap shit in many other countries is the key point.

I was going to comment the same thing about the sandwiches, they are deceptive about the filling. I usually go for mabodoufu or cup noodles and a salad, but to be honest I would be happier if I could get a roller grill hot dog at a Japanese 7-11.

It's funny to realize that onigiri are probably some of the worst offenders when it comes to centralized fillings. But I personally would never think to complain about those kombini onigiri.

So maybe if the bread is OK, it's still worth it to some people to get some bites that are more like just bread.

(Yes I do consider seaweed the crust of an onigiri :-))

Btw, magic to me was finding an Aquarius vending machine with the bonus size cans while walking home on a sweltering summer day.

I roll my eyes about most of these articles (lived in Japan for ten years)but one thing I would really praise is the packaging of onigiri. Whoever invented that is a genius.

Isn't onigiri meant to be most of rice? Can't say the same for sandwiches.

Might depend on who you ask.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_sandwich

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