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Can someone explain the situation that started this? "he signed a one-year contract to teach sushi-making skills to young chefs in Pyongyang" Was this just in
by oneiric 13y ago
Can someone explain the situation that started this?
"he signed a one-year contract to teach sushi-making skills to young chefs in Pyongyang"
Was this just in the classified ads? I thought North Korea was closed off from the world and Japan an enemy. Was this a low point in military tensions?
Similarly what kind of flights went between Japan and DPRK?
- dreen 13y agoI am guessing this was during the reign of Kim Il-sun when the country was apparently faring a bit better, and there were less sanctions etc. Also, did everybody in USA stop consuming sushi during war with Japan? Was it forbidden after the Pearl Harbor?
- indiecore 13y agoI don't think they had sushi in the west then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in_the_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in... Wikipedia was pretty unhelpful but there don't seem to be many western references until the 1950s and it probably wasn't popular until the 80s when Japanese culture started getting big.
- nitrogen 13y agoQuoting a dead comment: indiecore 14 minutes ago | link [dead] I don't think they had sushi in the west then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in_the_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sushi#Appearances_in... Wikipedia was pretty unhelpful but there don't seem to be many western references until the 1950s and it probably wasn't popular until the 80s when Japanese culture started getting big. The term "sushi" does seem to skyrocket around 1980: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sushi http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sushi
- indiecore 13y agoJust out of curiosity but are all my posts dead or did the wiki link just trip the spam filter?
- sciguy77 13y agoYes, that's true. The late rise of sushi in America is briefly mentioned in the movie Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
- burntsushi 13y ago@indiecore - All of your posts are dead. Looks like you've been hellbanned. I've seen folks have success restoring their account after emailing the HN admins. Good luck!
- dreen 13y agoOh, I stand corrected. Thanks for this little bit of knowledge :) My point was that if the dictator wants some sushi, then enemy or not, hes gonna get the best guy for the job, and where else do you look for a sushi expert than Japan? Thinking about it more, how much of a missed opportunity this was for Tokyo, they could have had the perfect spy planted right next to King Jong-il!
- SoftwareMaven 13y agoFlights would go through Beijing.
- jpatokal 13y agoThere's a huge North Korean community in Japan, which are a major source of funds to North Korea. Until North Korea confessed to abducting Japanese citizens c. 2002, there was even a ferry that traveled regularly between the two. The main catch is that Japan's "North Koreans" may be internally registered as such, but they're actually descended from people who were in Japan before 1948 and for most part have never even been to North Korea. This is all further complicated by the fact that Japan doesn't actually recognize North Korea as a state and holds on to the fiction that South Korea is the sole legitimate country on the entire peninsula. Wikipedia has a capsule summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongryon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongryon