5 ms·

Yeah, careful with using that ramen as a currency unit. It sure is cheap, but it's the kind of food that will mess up your health long-term.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
This is a weird statement: I ate at a ramen restaurant a couple of nights ago. It was quite healthy, I think I had pork, egg, spinach and seaweed in mine. There are plenty of good ramen restaurants branded from Japan. It is not the best food, but it is not the worst food either.
- graeme 13y ago
  In context, I think ramen should be read as "only ramen".
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Especially since what was referred to was "packs of shitty ramen."
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  They're not thinking of ramen-at-the-noodle-house ramen. They're thinking of nothing-but-cheap-dry-noodles-and-salt ramen.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    Ah, I forget hacker news has an American biased perspective, where ramen just means cheap crap you get in packets, not the fancy stuff we have in Asia. And of course, ramen in Japanese just means "Chinese noodles", plenty of people in china eat them everyday in china and they are just fine. Imagine if some Chinese poster said "Yeah, careful with using that white bread as a currency unit. It sure is cheap, but it's the kind of food that will mess up your health long-term". Isn't that weird o first glance?
    - consz 13y ago
      If you only ate wonderbread for all 2k calories of the day, it would mess up your health -- just as eating $0.125 packets of ramen would mess up your health if that was all you ate.
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        Not all ramen is $.125 a pack though, most of it in the world is actually not! It is just stupid and shallow that people think "ramen" would just mean the crap that they sell in American grocery stores. Why not just use the real name of what you are talking about? "Instant noodles," "instant ramen," or "fangbian mian" would be much more accurate and much less bizarre.
        venus 13y ago
        From wikipedia: > In North America, Japanese instant noodles were imported starting in the 1970s bearing the name "ramen", causing the term "ramen" to be often used in North America to refer to instant noodles. So there you go. I'm sure it will disappear in time, as awareness of asian cuisine develops.
        seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        And this is hackernews, where all the readers must be from North America? I doubt the poster is even in San Francisco, where there are lots of decent ramen restaraunts to be found. On that same wiki page, there is nary a pic to be found of instant noodles.
        consz 13y ago
        Well, yes, it is an english speaking website, so I imagine the colloquial usage of 'ramen' probably refers to whatever the colloquial US usage of 'ramen' is.
        venus 13y ago
        Not sure why you're making such a big deal about it. Misuse of loan words is common in many languages, not least Japanese. Why, not 3 hours ago I was talking to someone who is about to rent a マンション (mansion) in Tokyo. Needless to say it is not any kind of mansion an english speaker would recognise, and I didn't see any pictures of same on the japanese wikipedia page. [1] It happens. It will probably happen less now the world's so interconnected. Not worth four comments in a row! [1] For the uninitiated, in japan a "mansion" basically refers to an apartment in a building built to a certain quality.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

This is a weird statement: I ate at a ramen restaurant a couple of nights ago. It was quite healthy, I think I had pork, egg, spinach and seaweed in mine. There are plenty of good ramen restaurants branded from Japan. It is not the best food, but it is not the worst food either.

graeme 13y ago
In context, I think ramen should be read as "only ramen".
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Especially since what was referred to was "packs of shitty ramen."
jacques_chester 13y ago
They're not thinking of ramen-at-the-noodle-house ramen. They're thinking of nothing-but-cheap-dry-noodles-and-salt ramen.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Ah, I forget hacker news has an American biased perspective, where ramen just means cheap crap you get in packets, not the fancy stuff we have in Asia. And of course, ramen in Japanese just means "Chinese noodles", plenty of people in china eat them everyday in china and they are just fine. Imagine if some Chinese poster said "Yeah, careful with using that white bread as a currency unit. It sure is cheap, but it's the kind of food that will mess up your health long-term". Isn't that weird o first glance?
  - consz 13y ago
    If you only ate wonderbread for all 2k calories of the day, it would mess up your health -- just as eating $0.125 packets of ramen would mess up your health if that was all you ate.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      Not all ramen is $.125 a pack though, most of it in the world is actually not! It is just stupid and shallow that people think "ramen" would just mean the crap that they sell in American grocery stores. Why not just use the real name of what you are talking about? "Instant noodles," "instant ramen," or "fangbian mian" would be much more accurate and much less bizarre.
      - venus 13y ago
        From wikipedia: > In North America, Japanese instant noodles were imported starting in the 1970s bearing the name "ramen", causing the term "ramen" to be often used in North America to refer to instant noodles. So there you go. I'm sure it will disappear in time, as awareness of asian cuisine develops.
        seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        And this is hackernews, where all the readers must be from North America? I doubt the poster is even in San Francisco, where there are lots of decent ramen restaraunts to be found. On that same wiki page, there is nary a pic to be found of instant noodles.
        consz 13y ago
        Well, yes, it is an english speaking website, so I imagine the colloquial usage of 'ramen' probably refers to whatever the colloquial US usage of 'ramen' is.
        venus 13y ago
        Not sure why you're making such a big deal about it. Misuse of loan words is common in many languages, not least Japanese. Why, not 3 hours ago I was talking to someone who is about to rent a マンション (mansion) in Tokyo. Needless to say it is not any kind of mansion an english speaker would recognise, and I didn't see any pictures of same on the japanese wikipedia page. [1] It happens. It will probably happen less now the world's so interconnected. Not worth four comments in a row! [1] For the uninitiated, in japan a "mansion" basically refers to an apartment in a building built to a certain quality.