Today I'd like to present a Japanese Perspective on Rice, according to Youtube.
This video was originally created by Japanese television station BS1, has around 72,000 hits as of February 10, 2009.
It's worth thinking about why a video segment like this would be created. Is it informative or is it subtle marketing? Or is it something more?
The video's purpose - the reason it was created - is for a domestic viewing base. Its intent is to inform, ostensibly, the Japanese audience as part of standard news programming without being explicitly a commercial or similar type of sponsored programming. But why does the sidepanel of the video on the youtube sound so marketed (note that at the bottom of the paragraphs is the contact information for a rice company)? Further, what do 'indisputable claims' such as "the best rice [is] produced in Niigata", or,"the Super Brand Rice has is the most essential...for Japanese dishes" mean? Is that marketing or is it actually a statement of culturally-constructed fact?
Further, I'm curious about why Japan is so interested in how other countries respond to their rice product. The idea that 'other countries' would come to like (or perhaps even prefer) Japanese rice probably would not get a 10 minute video segment in said other country, except perhaps to lament the decline in the viability of their own domestic rice market. How does culture, and foreignness, interact with rice in this video clip?
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