Culture Shock

By Mai Kawamoto

When people travel abroad, most of the time they will experience culture shock. Many people feel a big difference in customs (food, manner and point of view) from their home country. I am someone who has experienced some culture shock between America and Japan.

American food size

The American food portions always completely satisfied our appetite. All American food is big in size!! Hamburger, Spaghetti, Pizza, drink and dessert…It is twice or sometimes three times the volume as the food in Asia. For Asian girl, one portion could feed 2 people. For that reason every restaurant provides customers with containers for leftovers. Moreover, there is unbelievable the drink size. Imagine! 64 oz!! I had never seen this size before I came to America.

I also compared an American coffee store with a Japanese one. You will see how much the size is different between America and Japan.

America

Japan

0.0338 0z = 1 cc
1 dollar = 118.15 yen

Thus, even though the volume is totally different, the price is almost the same! It is a great price and tickles our mind.

The sense of taste

American and Japanese have a different sense of taste. A strong taste is popular in America but the Japanese prefer a mild taste. In Japan a customer seeks a restaurant with delicious food but with modest flavor. For example, American cake is extremely sweet. Japanese cake is much more modest in taste but still full of flavor. In my opinion, all American cakes have the same taste, because all cakes are so sweet.

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