Precisely because Chinese noodles made from American wheat can alleviate famine situations and increase the labor force to facilitate the industrial recovery in urban areas of Japan, this dish often appears in popular culture works intentionally or unintentionally. among.

Radio, film and music were the three main media that grasped the pulse of urban society at that time, and were also the main sources for describing Chinese noodle food culture. Both artists and directors used this dish to present various scenes of daily life in early post-war Japan, such as the desperate food problem, the gap in eating habits between the old and new generations, and the differences in gender and class between specific characters.

One example of the ubiquity of ramen in popular culture is the entertainment radio program "Puzzle Classroom" that has been broadcast by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) for 20 years. The program often uses clever wordplay to comment on current social events. . The show launched on January 4, 1949, and food shortages were the theme of the first episode. The program uses a "text graffiti" written in Japanese syllables to express the impact of food shortage on a young couple:

On a date, they can only eat ramen,

Empty pockets, unchanged,

What an embarrassing tryst.

This passage not only expresses the lack of interest in ramen shops, but also shows that ramen is an imported American wheat product that is more common than other cuisines. This poem also conveys the poverty of repeatedly choosing to eat ramen. The text implies that ramen is a cheap and ordinary dish. It is because it is relatively easy to obtain that the author frequents ramen shops so frequently. In addition, the fact that he was unable to take his date to eat elsewhere also reflected his inner helplessness.

Famine was a recurring theme in the show's first season. In another episode of the popular radio show, host Mr. Aoki (Kazuo Aoki) reads a poem written by the audience, with the first word of each sentence beginning with the syllable of a designated word.

In an episode in early 1949, Mr. Aoki chose the word "Tian Zhi Song", and an audience member immediately used the syllables of this word to compose a poem, "I want to eat a lot." Tamagoyaki, freshwater eel, pork cutlets and fried shrimps are all free of charge." The text of the program also clearly proves that food discussions, which had become rare due to the defeat of the war, had once again become a common entertainment pastime in the late 1940s and often appeared in popular cultural works.

Ramen reappeared in the early postwar period in Ozu Yasujirō's film "Chazuke no Taste", set in 1952, the last year of the American occupation. Released.

The plot of the movie centers on a middle-aged woman who is tired of her husband and wants to travel; the subplot of the movie develops around the couple's niece Setsuko Yamauchi, who refuses this As a matchmaker for the couple, they ventured into the city alone, and thus met a young student named Okada Nobu (he was also a friend of Setsuko's uncle) at a pachinko shop.

Noboru Okada, a male student, roams the city with Setsuko, who comes from a well-off family. In the key scene of the movie, a bowl of noodle soup called "ramen" appears. This is the first time that it is used in a Japanese movie. scene of this vocabulary.

Ozu Yasujiro used ramen as a symbol in "The Taste of Ochazuke" as a socioeconomic stratification and difference in the living and eating habits of men and women, and ramen appeared for the second time in a film he produced. middle. The young student taking the rich girl on a city tour and treating her to a bowl of ramen is so strange to the rich girl Setsuko, which also highlights the difference in life between the two characters. The couple had the following conversation in one scene:

Okada Noboru: It’s delicious, right?

Setsuko Yamauchi: Yes, it’s delicious.

Okada Noboru: The soup is the key to the deliciousness of ramen. This kind of food can't just be delicious, it also has to be cheap.

Setsuko Yamauchi: Is that so?

Okada Noboru: There are many cheap and delicious places here. There's a yakitori shop on the other side of the fence that's also delicious. You can go next time.

Setsuko Yamauchi: OK, please take me there.

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The contrast between male students’ familiarity with ramen and other working-class foods and the lack of awareness of rich girls also shows that this dish has a specific gender and class image. Since most of the patrons of this dish are workers and students, this young woman's adventure in the poor urban areas is a kind of rebellion against middle-class female ethics, and she should not easily trust the pachinko beater. student.

There is another early post-war film that also appears in ramen, that is director Naruse Mikio's 1954 work "Wanju". One of the four protagonists is a single mother whose only daughter is about to get married and move away with her new husband.

In a key scene in the movie, the daughter decides to treat her mother to a meal before leaving home, so she takes her mother to a Chinese restaurant. Although the mother was quite touched, she still told her daughter that it was the first time she had treated her to dinner. As mother and daughter ate Chinese noodles quietly, the daughter's full expectation for this dish contrasted with her mother's disdain represented the gap between generations.

This scene clearly shows that in Japanese society at that time, ramen was still a dish that was embarrassing to such a middle-class middle-aged mother. From my mother's point of view, enjoying a bowl of ramen was a betrayal of mainstream class etiquette and gender norms. Therefore, although for the daughter, ramen noodles can be a perfect expression of intimacy, for the mother, the daughter's filial piety is not successfully conveyed through the bowl of ramen in front of her.

Chinese noodles are also the theme of Misora ??Hibari's 1953 hit song "Suona Soba Shop" (チャルメラそば屋). Misora ??Hibari was a famous enka singer in Japan's post-war music scene. She was also the first artist to record a song with the theme of Chinese noodles. The song calls this dish "Suona Soba", alluding to the scene of cart vendors pushing their stalls and playing suona to sell noodles. The lyrics also describe the ubiquity of ramen at that time:

The Suona girl is here again

Although I am petite, I still run all over the countryside

I am an interesting noodle stall merchant

This The old gentleman drank some wine and was in a good mood

Waddle and walk carefully

Okay, another bowl of noodles, hulu, hulu, hulu

Thank you Come. Waiting for a long time

Now, familiar suona girls can be seen everywhere in Tokyo

Shinjuku, Asakusa, Ueno, Shimbashi

I play the suona

The scene of the noodle stall described in this lyric more or less coincides with the short story about the Chinese noodle vendor discussed in Chapter 1 ; Tipsy guests, working-class housing estates, and suonas are all central themes in Satomura Kinzo's short stories. But what’s particularly special about this song is that its lyrics describe a young woman selling noodle soup everywhere, rather than a middle-aged man. This also adds an unconventional, humorous and unconventional atmosphere to the lyrics. .

Chinese noodles, as shown in the movies of Naruse Mikio and Ozu Yasujiro, are obviously regarded as a masculine cuisine, and the consumers are mostly working class and student groups─ ─Because it’s cheap and filling. The vulgar language and style of the female noodle vendor, coupled with her petite figure and female appearance, show a kind of adaptability in social relations and the uninhibitedness of Tokyo labor culture, and such a vendor selling Chinese noodle soup is better than World War II. There were many more before.

In fact, the reappearance of ramen during the American occupation underscored the reorganization of the Japanese labor force in the face of American wheat imports. The imported supplies included supplementary food intended for heavy industry workers, but were channeled into the underground trading mechanism by police and thieves who made huge profits, and finally fell into the hands of ramen vendors, giving ramen an opportunity to flourish again. .

Ramen noodles were widely circulated on the black market in an era when supplies were extremely scarce. As the focus of public attention shifted in the 1980s and 1990s, it was intended to contribute to the history of this country. It symbolizes that while leaving written records, the foreshadowing of folk culture can be remembered again.

About the author

George Solt

Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1978, he moved to the United States with his parents. Obtained a doctorate in history from the University of California, San Diego in 2009. He has taught at New York University in the United States and Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, and is now an independent research scholar. The research field is contemporary Japanese history, mainly focusing on the relationship between contemporary Japanese political and economic transformation and social reconstruction. The recent second research topic is the history of gaming in contemporary Japan.