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Comment by graderjs | Hacker News Reader

Well it's Japanese in that it comes from Japan, but it's not Japanese in the sense that wasp eating is a "widespread tradition" in Japan, or only in Japan, I guess.

It sort of sounds like you're embarrassed by the idea that people might think that Japanese are somehow bad (maybe "backward and poor"?) for eating insects, but I think that's an unnecessary accommodation of Western-folks' possible biased misinterpretations... I mean I understand wanting to be conscious of that, but I don't think it's "good" to be like, "Oh, it's a bad thing, let not anyone think that we all eating insects or nothing".

It could even be a sort-of inter-East-Asian-racism like, "Don't let people lump us in together and think we are like those Chinese who eat insects way more than us".

Maybe, I got you wrong there, but you know what I mean? :p ;) xx ;p

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Yeah no, I'm neither Japanese nor particularly averse to entomophagy. As another commenter said, this story seems to fall squarely in the realm of "lol what will those wacky Japanese think of next!" stories about things that are actually quite weird even in Japan: used panty vending machines, whale ice cream, hourly friend rentals, etc etc.

Yeah I get ya. I know that genre, but I don't think that story is it. Interesting to know you see it that way tho! :P :) xx ;p

I think it’s more than for some reason stories about Japan being super weird seem to be very popular in Western media.

Ah, yeah, I know that type. I guess those stories just seem so 1990s to me. I haven't seen any in a long while. Must be because I lived in East Asia for 10 years, I'm out of that bias. :P x

If you can find an article about eating wasps, in such a well presented way, from another culture, then I would be interested. The place on the globe doesn’t interest me as much as the subject.

Totally agree, it's not the Japan thing. It's just a fascinating and different thing.

I was just talking with my wife about this. She's from southern China and went to a restaurant in north China with her northern colleagues. There they ordered cicada pupa, which were the most expensive thing on the menu.

With a lot of these expensive Chinese foods, there's an overlap with traditional Chinese medicine, as seen in bird's nest soup, black chicken meat, and such. And indeed, they convinced her to try one, saying that cicada are great for health and such. She felt guilty given that it was such an expensive dish, so she tried one. Reliving that memory made her feel nauseous.

(agree)

> but something practiced in a couple of villages in Gifu prefecture

It could say "the Gifu prefecture tradition..." and still "actually only a couple of villages do it" would be valid, and so on and so on...

On the other hand the way we write headlines lends itself to misinterpretation deliberately. It could say "A few people in Japan eat wasps" but nobody would click.

I'm probably confused by the smileys, but I don't see any embarrassment. It is just a factual observation that corrects a headline, which in turn might try to normalize insect eating on behalf of the cricket protein industry.

Ha, it just seemed like, "Hey hey hey, before anyone gets any ideas that this is some Japanese thing, just know: We don't eat insects here OK? it's not normal." And i was like, "Hm, why need to be so defensive?" Anyway, that's what I saw :) :P x

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