shared moment headings (draft)

Show & Tell

Japanese food and eating etiquette 

my research question/central proposition is:
(state what your central proposition is, or if you have not yet determined one, then what your research question is).

A tangible guide can be used to understand why food, etiquette and manners are important in the cultural identity of Japan. It can also help future travelers learn appropriate eating etiquette and manners before going to Japan.


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How can a interactive guide be used to challenge westernised perception of Japanese dining and help future Kiwi exchange students who are interested in travelling to Japan learn and establish a confident understanding of food that is embedded in Japanese table manners and etiquette? 

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I have been reading:
(these are the theories, ideas, narratives, etc. that have contributed to your understanding of your topic and/or your understanding of the design approach you may be taking towards it - design has theories too).

"Less noticeable signs can catch us off our guard and rob us more insidiously of our sense of security. Most of the picturesque (vivid) details that strike travellers as weird have to do with table manners."- Margaret Visser

“We turn the consumption of food, a biological necessity, into a carefully cultured phenomenon. We use eating as a medium for social relationships: satisfaction of the most individual of needs becomes a means of creating community" – Margaret Visser

"...a foreign culture is not easily shared; one must learn its language, penetrate its symbols, get the feel' for it that only comes from protracted interaction and a sustained effort at understanding."  -Pierre L. van den Berghe, pg 9

Van Den Berghe, P. L. (1984). Ethnic cuisine: culture in nature. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 7(3), 387.

The Five Stages of Culture Shock: Critical Incidents around the World by Paul Pedersen

"Without a fixed cultural identity, the multicultural person is forced back on her or his own subjectivity to interpret experiences. It is easy for the multicultural person to be overwhelmed by the cultural context."

Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions

“Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other, as conditioning elements of future action. “Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, 1952, p. 181)

Gannon, M. J. (2008). Paradoxes of Culture and Globalization. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc.

“As globalization has proceeded, it has created many changes that influence all or most of us, sometimes in very minor ways and at other times critically.”

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"Other people, in other parts of the world today, have rules that are different from ours, and it is important to try to comprehend the reasoning that lies behind what they do if we are to understand what we do and why." - Margaret Visser

"We still remember that breaking bread and sharing it with friends "means" friendship itself, and also trust, pleasure and gratitude, becomes, in its sharing, the actual bond which unites us."

- Margaret Visser

"Family dinners are rituals too, even though the typical "plots" of a family meal might include the device of lowering the level of formality as compared with other ritual occasions... Conventions, as the word suggests, are attitudes and patterns of behaviour we have in common: we "come together" in accepting them, or at least in knowing what they are, as everybody does - everybody, that is, with whom we are accustomed to associate." - Margaret Visser 

"Food is still our ritual relaxation our chance to choose companions and talk to them, the excuse to recreate our humanity as well as our strength, and to renew our relationships." - Margaret Visser

How Americans pretend to love 'ethnic food'

"when you buy "ethnic food," you're essentially buying it from people who learn to cook it on the fly, mostly men, who have often never cooked back home. What ends up happening is they hide technical deficiencies behind salt, butter, and fat. That's the food we have gotten used to."

-Roberto A. Ferdman

How Americans pretend to love 'ethnic food'

"The word ethnic has this complex history of both trying to reflect changing relationships and understandings of culture and trying to avoid more taboo terms.   It came into play mostly in the 1950s, and is most commonly used in the world of food to mark a certain kind of difference — difference of taste, difference of culture."
-Roberto A. Ferdman

"Superficial understanding of a culture is often said to be worse than no understanding at all."
"..it gives one a false conviction that he knows it all."
Japanese Culture and Behavior: Selected Readings by Takie Sugiyama Lebra, ‎William P. Lebra



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I have been looking at:

(this is where you outline the most influential exemplars or design precedents that have informed your ideas of how you will respond to your topic as a designer).

Cultural semiotics, info graphics artist models?

(moodboard visuals)
-east and west
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I am thinking about designing:

(this is where you either state or speculate on what your response to the topic will be. Some will be quite fully developed; others will be at a preliminary or exploratory  stage. Either way, something is required that tells us how you are thinking about what you might eventually make).

-moodboard of books (S, R)
-moodboard of japanese aesthetics(R)
-Mindmap (S)

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We are thinking of designing a guide that aims to teach future exchange students about Japanese eating etiquette through text, imagery and tangible elements that our audience can interact with to make the learning more innovative and fun. It also makes it more unique from other learning guides that are out on the market. We aim to use Japanese aesthetics throughout the book to ensure our whole concept works cohesively and help set the theme.

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This is my design work at this stage:

(this can be sketches, images, iterations, photos of prototypes, anything that shows at least the beginnings of a design concept/idea/direction).

interactive parts of book

-chopstick holder(R) - bring bluetack, put everything into a moodboard
-japanese setting(S) - follow the image example (have photograph images)

http://bronmarshall.com/2010/spring/turning_japanese.html