Some jobs in Japan, a nation known for its poor record on gender equality, have been off limits to women for ages. The sushi counter, for one.
Sushi is emblematic of Japan’s profound cultural influence globally. It has crossed borders, acquiring non-Japanese ingredients such as avocado in the process. That, however, is the limit of the cultural interchange.
Deeply rooted stereotypes, such as the so-called “Edo-style” macho demeanor of sushi chefs and a belief that women’s warmer body temperature leads to inferior taste, have kept sushi preparation an almost exclusively male domain in Japan.
However, some women are out to challenge tradition. They are learning the art of sushi at a time when the government is emphasizing a greater role for women to offset Japan’s shrinking workforce.
“I think women are better at communicating with customers, and they’re kind and gentle,” said Yuki Chidui, 28, sushi chef and manager at the all-women Nadeshico sushi restaurant in Tokyo.
Unlike the usual itamae, as sushi chefs are called, with their closely cropped hair and crisp cocky language, Chidui is soft-spoken and almost child-like, wearing a white summer kimono splashed with pink blossoms.
She has purposely avoided trying to look the part. Her store’s motto is “fresh and kawaii,” or “cute.” Flyers depict her as a doe-eyed manga character. Chidui’s assistant, who switched from working as a tour-bus guide two months ago, wears “manga” buttons on her outfit.
Chidui had been in a rut and felt confined working at a department store when she decided to gamble on starting her own business. It has not been easy.
She has endured insults and blatant questioning of her abilities since opening Nadeshico five years ago. She said people have ridiculed her restaurant when they walk in. Sometimes male customers taunt her and ask: “Can you really do it?”
There are no official statistics on the number of female sushi chefs in Japan but they are rare, according to the All Japan Sushi Association, which groups 5,000 sushi restaurant owners nationwide and estimates Japan has 35,000 sushi chefs in total.
Forbidding women in certain spots dates back centuries in Japan, where culture viewed menstruation as tainted, a primordial fear Western feminists have also historically had to debunk.
The sumo ring is another place billed as too sacred for women. These days, women routinely take part in amateur sumo, but the number of female professional sumo wrestlers still remains zero.
In recent years, the Japanese government has made encouraging women in the workforce its mission, seeing that an already stagnant economy would only get worse unless women are freed from their status of homemaker and child-bearer to contribute more to production and growth.
The government wants women to fill 30 percent of leadership positions by 2020, an ambitious goal given that women now make up only 8 percent of such positions in companies hiring 100 people or more.
Even within that effort, there is no crackdown on specific industries barring women, said Takaaki Kakinuma, an official at the government Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office.
“The initiative is about getting women in leadership positions,” he said.
Becoming a sushi chef is an arduous process, requiring several years to learn how to ball up a decent nigiri sushi, and at least a decade to properly run a restaurant. Chefs-in-training usually are not permitted to hold a knife for the first year, getting allocated to deliveries and dish-washing.
Masayuki Tsukada, 34, who started training to become a sushi chef at 18, shrugs off how there are so few female colleagues.
“It’s just prejudice,” he said, stressing that what counts is experience, such as being able to talk and keep straight all the orders and names of fish at the same time as well as preparing the sushi in front of the customer.
Establishments where Tsukada and other professionals work charge ¥10,000 (US$80) or more for dinner, about three times what Nadeshico charges. Their menus tend to be fancier, with exotic fish, such as marbled tuna or rare types of baby fish.
However, the profession is gradually opening up. Tokyo Sushi Academy offers two-month crash courses in sushi-dom, with about a fifth of the Japanese students being female. A third of the students from abroad are women.
“More women are accepted as sushi chefs at casual restaurants, and more so abroad than they are in Japan,” academy principal Sachiko Goto said. “The traditional sushi places are still male-dominated.”
Still, those enjoying their meal at Nadeshico said they liked what they were getting.
“This tastes so good,” 40-year-old Masataka Nakayama said.
Chidui laments how some Japanese are forgetting the delights of sushi, a dish that is deceptively simple but requires a lot of preparation ahead of time to deliver a fine but varied taste.
However, she feels she is finally getting good at it, and hopes more women will follow.
“This is really fun,” she said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese