I thought everyone likes Sushi. That was wrong.

Fumiya Shibusawa
Aug 31, 2018 · 2 min read
Photo by Valeria Boltneva from Pexels

A couple of months ago, one of my friends from Canada came to Tokyo for traveling. We first met in Melbourne while I lived there with my Working Holiday Visa. Since then, we had talked a lot about stuffs like Anime, Comics, etc. But not for food.


After he arrived at Narita airport, we decided to meet up at near his hostel. And I asked him if any preference for dinner.

He texted me back:

“Let’s hit up where you want, as long as it’s properly Japanese😂”.

Well, that answer sounded completely natural, and there was nothing wrong with it. But let’s take a few seconds and think of anything to eat that are properly your country’s in your mind. For me, one of those that are properly Japanese (and that my friend knows or are familiar with) was Sushi.

Who likes Sushi? I mean, who eats raw fish meat on a daily basis?

I know majority of Japanese people like Sushi, and it’s also famous outside of Japan thanks to some ancestors who brought it out to the world. I have seen a lot of Japanese restaurants which serve them in Melbourne as well.

As long as I heard from him, it’s just a different food culture and people around him never eat Sushi or raw food. Fortunately, he loves Sushi, Ramen (his friend even can make Ramen from scratch!), but wouldn’t be willing to recommend them.

Well, it’s a pitfall. Most of us blindly believe that when we welcome our friends or clients from overseas things couldn’t go wrong anyway if we go to Sushi restaurants. Thank you Japanese media, and bye bye.

Funnily enough, I thought everyone likes Sushi, which is completely wrong. Why I thought that way is because I have seen many tourists on TV eating Sushi and saying like, “Sushi! great!”, “Oishii!(‘tastes good’ in Japanese)”, but of course that’s a really tiny bit of parts of population.

My takeaway is, think twice when you recommend seemingly popular food of your country even if it seems to be also liked abroad.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade