ASIEN 149 (Oktober 2018), S. 111–124 Forschung und Lehre Japanese Foodscapes in Berlin: Teaching Research Methods Through Food Cornelia Reiher Summary This paper introduces research and fieldwork methods education for Japanese Studies students at Freie Universität Berlin. It aims to support training in research design, research methods and fieldwork in and beyond Japan in order to respond to the increasing demand for systematic and transparent research practices in Japanese Studies and Area Studies communities. Drawing on Berlin’s vibrant Japanese foodscape this course provides students with opportunities to plan and conduct research projects on various aspects of Japanese food. Students present their research results and reflections on methods and fieldwork in video tutorials online through the course blog. Based on my experiences with teaching this course for four years, I suggest that in order to teach a successful method course in Japanese studies programs, it is important to 1) inspire students to conduct their own fieldwork, 2) provide opportunities for students to actively participate in the course and decision-making processes with regard to the syllabus and 3) make students’ results visible in order to build a body of knowledge other students can draw on. In doing so, the course contributes to a more systematic method training in Japanese Studies through continuity. Keywords: Japanese foodscapes, Berlin, qualitative research methods, video tutorial, teaching research methods, culinary globalization Cornelia Reiher is Junior Professor for Japanese Society at the Institute for East Asian Studies (Japanese Studies) and the Graduate School of East Asian Studies, Freie Universitaet Berlin. 112 Cornelia Reiher Introduction Japanese food is currently very popular in Berlin. Gourmet journals feature special issues on Japanese cuisine 1 and new culinary events related to Japan pop up consistently. Japanese food is no longer limited to sushi and teppanyaki, but is characterized by an increasing variety of dishes such as okonomiyaki, gyōza, noodle soups and takoyaki 2 that were unknown to German consumers until recently. Additionally, Japanese desserts, sweets and beverages have gained popularity. This includes matcha (green tea powder) that is not only used for the tea ceremony now, but mixed in all sorts of drinks from matcha latte to matcha beer and desserts. Japanese bakeries or confectioners also sell more traditional sweets like dorayaki, mochi and anpan. 3 Because of this ongoing diversification and great plurality, Japanese foodscapes in Berlin are an interesting case for studying the globalization of Japanese food (Cwiertka and Walraven 2013, Farrer 2015). The first Japanese restaurants in Germany opened in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf in the 1970s to serve the growing Japanese business community. Back then, especially teppanyaki was popular. In 1973, a Japanese restaurant named Daitokai opened in Düsseldorf and later established branches in Cologne and Berlin. The Berlin branch opened in 1983 and still exists today (Trenk 2015: 139). In the mid-1990s, sushi came to German cities, with kaiten sushi4 being particularly popular (Keßler 2012). Sushi bars were not only run by Japanese but also other Asian people, especially with Chinese and Vietnamese backgrounds. During the last decade, noodle soup restaurants specializing in rāmen and udon5 opened in German cities (Trenk 2015). Because of their omnipresence and popularity, Japanese eateries and Japanese food in Berlin are an exciting topic for field research. In addition, almost everybody is interested in food. Last but not least, food is one of my main research interests (i.e. Reiher and Sippel 2015, Reiher and Yamaguchi 2017, Reiher 2017). Therefore, when assigned to teach method courses in the Japanese Studies MA program at Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) in 2015, I decided to utilize Berlin’s Japanese Foodscape and provide students with the opportunity to conduct research projects in Berlin in order to prepare them for fieldwork in Japan. The advantages are obvious: without a large budget or the time-consuming organization of a field trip to Japan, students are 1 See for example Garçon 2017, Tagesspiegel Genuss 2017, Lust auf Genuss 2019. 2 Teppanyaki is a dish that uses an iron griddle to cook food. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake containing various ingredients. Gyōza are dumplings filled with ground meat and vegetables. Takoyaki is is a ball-shaped snack made of dough filled with octopus. 3 Dorayaki is a red-bean pancake. It consists of two small pancake-like patties and a sweet red bean paste filling. Mochi are Japanese rice cakes. Anpan is a Japanese sweet roll filled with sweet red bean paste. 4 Kaitensushi is a sushi restaurant where plates with sushi are placed on a rotating conveyor belt or moat that winds through the restaurant and moves past every table, counter and seat. 5 Rāmen is a noodle soup with thin, Chinese-style wheat noodles. Udon is a type of thick wheat flour noodle. Japanese Foodscapes in Berlin: Teaching Research Methods Through Food 113 able to study a Japan-related topic, conduct their first interviews in Japanese and learn to design and carry out a research project by applying qualitative social science research methods. In addition to written assignments, students present their findings and insights on how to conduct fieldwork in video tutorials that are published in a blog on the internet so that other students can profit from their experiences (Reiher 2016).6 In this article, I will discuss how qualitative social science methods can be taught in Japanese Studies programs. In order to produce reliable, comparable and comprehensive research results in Japanese Studies, scholars from area studies and social science disciplines alike can relate to, it is of utmost importance to train students of Japanese Studies in research methods. Therefore, I suggest that for teaching a successful method course within the constraints of a Japanese Studies curriculum, it is important to 1) inspire students to conduct their own fieldwork, 2) provide opportunities for students to actively participate in the course and decision- making processes with regard to the syllabus, 3) make students’ results visible in order to build a body of knowledge other students can relate to, and thereby to contribute to a more systematic method education in Japanese Studies through continuity. In order to elaborate on these suggestions, I will first introduce some challenges related to qualitative social science research on and particular to fieldwork in Japan and outline the course and its objectives resulting from these challenges. Drawing on the students’ projects, I will then discuss how students experienced and solved challenges at different stages of their own projects and how they learned from projects and data from previous courses. The paper will conclude with reflections on what makes a good method course. Challenges of conducting and teaching fieldwork and research methods in Japanese Studies Many of the problems researchers encounter when conducting research in and on Japan are similar to problems generally related to qualitative research in any context. Without a clearly defined research questions and a reasonable research design, researchers will be lost (Turabian 2007). Planning and organizing research or gaining access to the field can be challenging no matter where research is conducted. In qualitative research, data are collaboratively made by researchers and those they study in interaction. However, to know what data are and how to make useful data is a very difficult task that “can leave a novice researcher frozen at the start of a study” (Richards 2015: 36). Information only becomes relevant data and evidence for researchers’ arguments, when it is recorded and its relationship to a research question is established. Thus, the critical question for any research design is “What 6 The blog is called “Forschungswerkstatt Japanische Küche in Berlin” (Research workshop on Japanese foodscapes in Berlin) and can be accessed via this link: https://userblogs.fu- berlin.de/forschungswerkstatt-japan/. 114 Cornelia Reiher do I need to know in order to answer this question” (Richards 2015: 37). But, even after fieldwork is successfully conducted, the work doesn’t stop. In all research projects, organizing and analyzing the collected data is time consuming and can be frustrating at times (Richards 2015). Thus, organizing and analyzing data is the next great challenge. Particular to Japan, however, is the challenge of conducting research in a foreign language and negotiating cultural and social norms, especially when doing fieldwork for the first time (McLaughlin 2010; Bestor 2003). As researchers arriving in Japan, students must learn “to navigate unfamiliar social protocols to see [their] project[s] move from idea to tangible result” (McLaughlin 2010: 1). Access to the field can be difficult, too. Sometimes it is hard to gain access at all, in other instances, relying on a certain network too much, may result in a biased perspective (see Timmerarens 2019, this issue). In some cases, exploratory fieldwork is necessary in order to build trust and to gain access, because trust is particularly important in Japan (Bestor et al. 2003: 14). Trust building involves constant negotiation of informants’ and researchers’ expectations and reciprocity (see Gerster 2019, this issue). Another challenge is to carry out fieldwork in a foreign language. Even the most fluent speaker of Japanese might have to master unfamiliar terminology particular to the research topic or the social group he or she is interested in (Smith 2003). To address all of these problems in class is very difficult due to the limited time available in the Japanese Studies curriculum. At Freie Universität Berlin, a method course is mandatory only in the Japanese Studies MA program. Two courses of altogether four hours over one term are available for method teaching. It is incredibly difficult to introduce students to all the steps in the research process and to all methods of data collection and data analysis in such little time.