The Negative Reputation of British Cuisine

The negative reputation of British cuisine

When I decided to go to study in UK for 2 years, many of my friends and teachers asked the same question in their worried tone. “Can you stand the taste of British cuisine?” Although it is said that British cuisine has been improved and is not terrible nowadays, a strong prejudice against British cuisine still remains around the world, and Japan is not an exception.

Indeed, when I recall my diet in UK, there are several incidents which I cannot help thinking that the terrible reputation of the British dishes might be true. Here is one example. In the boarding school I have attended in UK, every student goes to dining hall as soon as they finish their morning class. One day, for some reasons, I went to the dining hall a bit later than usual and there was not much left for my lunch. And what I was served was, simply boiled pasta without any sauce or seasoning, as they told me they already run out of pasta sauce!! I believe you could understand that I could not have helped but thought that it might be true that some of British people care less about what they have for their meal.

For the sake of British cuisine’s honour, I have to say that it happened in school’s dining hall and even in Japan it is well-known fact that the quality of food in this kind of cafeteria can never be great. So probably I am being unfair if I criticize British cuisine only with my experience in school’s cafeteria, since normal restaurants in town in Britain are, of course, far way better than this. Now then, let’s see general factors and reasons why British cuisine has such a terrible reputation all over the world.

Why does British cuisine taste “bad”?

  1.     Thin and bland taste of meal

The most common complaints on British cuisine is, “The taste is too thin/bland”. Although many people think it is just because cooks do not know how to prepare meals properly, of course it is not true. They intentionally avoid the complicated or elaborated way of cooking, in order to make the most of the original taste of ingredients, just the same as Japanese traditional way of cooking (Wasyoku). This method of cooking works wonderfully when the quality of ingredients is great, but it will be the worst way of preparing meals if the quality is bad, since this method largely depends on the taste of ingredients itself. When there was only poor and small-scale of trading, sometimes it was difficult to gain variety of high-quality vegetables due to its cloudy climates. However, since now we have such a huge trade system, many of British restaurants care much about what they use for ingredients, so we can expect that modern British cuisine is actually improving on this point!!

  1.     Overcooked meat/vegetables

In Britain, there was one time that meat/vegetables were considered as unsafe if it was not cooked until it become soft. This idea was mainly spread among the working-class people, who did not have adequate sanitary devices. Although the sanitary system improved significantly, it is thought that the way of cooking remained as a “tradition”. However, on this matter, we can also expect improvement since the main cause and origin of this habit no more exist. (though probably not in my alma mater since pasta in the cafeteria was always overcooked and became sticky.)

  1.     Religious factor

When we talk about the bad reputation of British cuisine, we cannot avoid to talk about its historical background. There was a time when the puritanism was supported by certain amount of people, and it is said that this puritanical belief prevented people to have luxurious dishes. They prefer to have modest meals, and this was one reason of why people in UK were not as much interested in the quality of meals as other countries people were. Since the skill and knowledge of cooking in many countries were developed by the great demands of better quality of dishes, this difference can be considered as a large factor of British cuisine’s disadvantage.

 

For decades, Brits have been enduring the never-ending jokes about how bad their food is. However, things have certainly been improving throughout the past century, and I’d like to debunk three stereotypes of British cuisine.

  1. They overcook or boil everything

This might have been the case in the Victorian ages, when sanitation wasn’t the best and people viewed health and style in a different way. However, since hygiene has improved, that is no longer the case. The vegetables are now steamed, or is cooked the slightest to keep is fresh; they are not as overcooked anymore.

  1. There is no decent place to dine

This may have been true 50 years ago, but it is no longer a valid arguing point. In fact, London is home to two of the world’s top 10 restaurants, according to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Just check some of the reviews before you enter a restaurant.

  1. The choices are limited

When you think of English food, you think fish and chips. Irish survive on potatoes and Scottish people eat only haggis.

This is obviously far from the truth. Britain has many more traditional foods such as their roasts, pies and puddings, but their food is also diverse. The boosting population of immigrants in England in the recent years have graced the country with great cuisine. You can find great Indian, Thai, Italian, Chinese, and Greek restaurants throughout the country.

 

It is also undeniable that over recent years, many TV chefs have had a positive influence on how people regard British food and cooking. Fanny Cradock did a lot of the remedial work. In the 80s, Keith Floyd inspired many people. Today, chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver――who my American mother watches religiously―― and Nigella Lawson are popular all around the world. With the help of these popular celebrities, the bad reputation of British food is improving.

To sum up this post, I will list a few traditional British food that are actually delicious, based upon recommendations of friends and family who have the experience of living in the UK.

 

Cottage Pie

Beef Wellington

Sunday Roast

Fish and Chips

Trifle

Full English Breakfast

 

What is your image of British cuisine? Tell us about you good or bad experiences.

How bad could it be? Social Media Addiction

Do you use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter?

According to the reports done by Wearesocial and Hootsuite, active social media users have risen up to approximately 3.5 billion people in this April.

Here are the active users of key global social platform:

  • Facebook: 2.046 billion
  • YouTube: 1.5 billion
  • Instagram: 700 million
  • Tumblr: 357 million
  • Twitter: 328 million

(Also, did you know that 500 million tweets are sent daily, 95 million images are uploaded to Instagram daily?)

As one could observe, social media platforms has become the tool of communication for people, connecting people to their childhood friend and to strangers who lives in the other side of the glove that shares the same interests. On one hand, social media has given us many benefits, on the other hand, it had stirred things up in our overall health.

Is it really an “addiction”?

It is estimated that over 210 million people suffer from internet and social media addiction worldwide and the numbers are rising. In another study in 2014, 40% of young adults and 21% of adults admitted that they use social media even in the bathroom.

In this time and age, people are using more of their time on social media. According to Mediakix, people spends an average of 2 hours on social media and young people spend 9 hours a day on social media. 2 hours seem to be a lot already, but 9 hours? That is more than one-third of the day! Now, that is the line when we could call it an “addiction”.

Some may think that “addiction” is exaggerating the issue as the word “addiction” is often associated with words such as “tobacco(nicotine)”, “alcohol”, “drugs”, “gambling”, much more dangerous and serious subjects. That is pretty much true, as Social Media Addiction (also Internet Addiction) is not officially listed in the “Diagnostic and Static Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)”, the manual for mental health professionals for classifying psychological disorders.

However, recent studies had shown that social media is as threatening as any type of addiction.

For example, in 2012, Professor Lei Hao’s research team, from the Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted a study on the axonal transport of cerebral white matter.

35 millennials participated in this study, 18 of whom had Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) and 17 of whom did not. As a result, compared to the healthy test subjects, the test subjects with IAD showed deterioration in the nervous system networks, causing disorder in the axoplasmic transport in the cerebral white matter. Mainly, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the anterior cingulate were severely affected.

The OFC is an area that controls people’s behavior and arouses one’s enthusiasm for rewards. The damage in the OFC would cause people to be impulsive, short-tempered, languid, and lacking motivation.

The anterior cingulate cortex is an area that provokes emotions such as sympathy, pain and fear and adjusts one’s emotions and attention towards something/someone. The damage here would cause people to have certain behaviors.

It has been proven that this same condition occurs in the brains of patients who are addicted to hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

Symptoms

Youtuber, ブロガー, 脚本, 絶望的です, 退屈な, Uncreative, 作家のブロック

  • Depression
  • Dishonesty
  • Anxiety
  • Isolation
  • Loneliness
  • Procrastination
  • Backache
  • Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (a medical condition due to compression of the median nerve as it travels through the wrist at the carpal tunnel, the main symptoms are pain and numbness in the fingers.)
  • Headache
  • Insomnia
  • Neck Pain
  • Dry eyes and other vision problems
  • Weight gain or loss

 

What makes us so addicted to social media?

Before we look at what components specifically makes social media addicting, let’s briefly review over the history of social media.

In the 1980’s, personal computer communication has started to be popularized among the public, as before that, the private and public organization were competing to who could make the computers to talk to each other. However, at this time, web-surfing was more mainstream than posting/blogging.

In 1995, as the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet), has been transferred to the public, people were able to use the internet.

In the late 1990’s, blogging has become a hit, as people could write down their thoughts and personal events to which others could reply and relate, creating a sense of community/friendship within the world of the internet. In particular, “2 channel(ni-channeru)” a text-board where individuals could post their opinions anonymously towards a certain category, was very popular in Japan. Additionally, “Six Degrees” has been launched in 1997 as the “first social media” and allowed users to create their own profiles and invite others to their individual sites. Though its users had reached up to 3.5 million, it had shut down in 2001.

In the early 2000s, websites similar to Six Degrees started to emerge, such as “Friendster”, and after their launch, Friendster has peaked to 100 million users and in 2011, they rebranded as a social gaming site. However, in 2019, it has shut its door completely. As Friendster was competing with Six Degrees, “LinkedIn”, a site mainly focused on connecting people with businesses and schools, was founded in 2002 and now LinkedIn has more than 575 million users.

In 2003, “Myspace” was launched and instantly became one of the largest and well-known social media site. Despite its massive growth of users and its sale, as “Facebook” started to be popularized among the young generation, Myspace’s popularity had declined and Facebook became the number one top visited site in 2008 and ranks 3rd place in the Alexa traffic rankings and generating over $40 billion every year in revenue. Additionally, “Twitter” was created in 2006, allowing users only 140 characters to write down their surroundings and opinions, also known as “Tweets”, which continued until 2017.

In 2010, “Instagram” started as a platform focusing on editing and posting photos and video, with little words to accompany it and its unique feature immediately gained popularity, surpassing one million users in 2 months. In the following year, “Snapchat” had been launched and established itself as a social media platform for sending photos to others, only lasting for a while and disappear, and to share “24-hour story”, a feature to which Instagram adapted later on.

In 2018, “TikTok” a mobile app that specialize in creating and sharing short music videos of 3 to 15 seconds and looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds.

From the twists and turns in history of social media, we could observe that users gradually focuses on “what” and “how” they post and social media itself had transformed itself to be  more accessible, quick and easy to kill some time, leading users to be more addicted to it.

Other than this function, there are more components that makes us addicted to social media.

For example, social validation, also known as ‘The Like Button”. This feature was first introduced in Facebook, and its creators thought this feature would spread positivity among the users with a click of a button. Although that strategy has worked, it also brought up other consequences as some users feels they are pressure to take better photo and write better posts in order to get likes, leading users to doing outrageous and dangerous actions in worst case scenario.  

Another example is the “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO), an feeling of anxiety that one gets when they feel others are having a blast without them. This anxiety leads one to constantly check for any notifications and what their friends are posting. In recent research, more than 67% of social media users claim that they have FOMO.

The “ego” is also often associated with social media addiction as it is the “show-off” side that everyone has and they sometimes (or often, depending on the person) wants to show its existence and gets its ego boost by setting differences or looking at post where others are inferior than them.


How do you solve this?

Psychologist with a patient Free Photo

Although social media addiction is a relatively recent mental disorder and specific treatments hadn’t been established yet, there are some treatment that doctors recommend.

One is keeping track on how much time you spend on social media. This may seem simple and dull, yet, it is effective as a first step as it makes you realize and become aware of the amount of time you’re on social media and you could start making plans based on your daily uses of social media.

Another is turning off or stop notifications. Notifications from social media often makes us wonder what is happening online and disturbs your daily activity, so by turning them off, one could focus more.

You could start a new hobby, such as reading, playing sports, drawing, to get your hands off your device. Going outside without your phone is another option, just walking would relieve your stress and be good exercise.

(If you consider yourself as an hard social media users and these one do the trick, consult a professional for help and advice.)

References:

Phil Longstreet, “Life satisfaction: A key to managing internet & social media addiction” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X16301634

David Blackwell, “Extraversion, neuroticism, attachment style and fear of missing out as predictors of social media use and addiction” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917302891

Jaclyn Cabral, “Is Generation Y Addicted to Social Media?” http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/academics/communications/research/vol2no1/01Cabral.pdf

Wearesocial, “Digital 2019 Q2 Global Digital Statshot (April 2019) v02” https://www.slideshare.net/DataReportal/digital-2019-q2-global-digital-statshot-april-2019-v02

Dave Chaffey, “Global social media research summary 2019” https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/Keep it usable, “Psychology of Social Networks: What makes us addicted?” https://www.keepitusable.com/blog/psychology-of-social-networks-what-makes-us-addicted/                  

 Christina Gregory, “Internet Addiction Disorder” https://www.psycom.net/iadcriteria.html     

Carrier Clinic, “The Good, Bad, and In-between of Social Media” https://carrierclinic.org/resources/good-bad-in-between-of-social-media/

https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/woman

https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/background

https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/psychologist-with-patient_860701.htm

SORISE http://sorise.org/sns-history

「ブログやSNSの歴史」http://www.kogures.com/hitoshi/history/blog/index.html

Jstage「SNSの歴史」大向一輝 https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bplus/9/2/9_70/_pdf/-char/ja

kakeru 「元祖若者SNS、「前略プロフィール」を振り返る」https://kakeru.me/other/snl-zenryakuprofile/

新R25 「流行りの「TikTok」ってどんなサービス? 誰でもわかる基礎解説や人気TikToker紹介も」https://r25.jp/article/628432828338220349

 

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Computer Games

Aside from board games and connect-four, our generation is taking an interest towards gaming – specifically computer gaming. Traditionally speaking, when we are asked about games, we imagine gaming consoles such as: the famous NES, Nintendo 64 to PlayStation 4 Pro and Nintendo Switch. However, our gaming community has shifted from these conventional consoles and ventured towards desktop gaming. The popularity of these desktop games have skyrocketed and is a easy way to temporary run away from your daily fears and escape reality. There are multiple studies that show and exemplify the benefits of time-to-time video game  sessions, however, there are also findings that show the negative impacts of gaming. Here we discuss the pros and cons of gaming and why you should start smashing those buttons!

Firstly, it is a must that you own a working PC. There are gaming computers that are offered at your local electronics stores, which roughly costs around $1500 to $2000. (If you want to play video games at the highest specs) But there is no need to fear since recent games do not require a monster machine to operate these applications. Personally speaking, (Kai) there was an instance where I had melted the internal parts of my MacBook Pro due to overheating and too much gaming. (Please send help) Ignoring some anomalies, a normal family computer is just enough to play most video games, or else it would not be this popular. Its popularity mainly comes from how much it is accessible to most people that own a pc and have access to the internet. Although, people might think desktop computers are too expensive, it is merely a computer, which is not just for gaming, but individuals can also use this for other uses such as video editing, surfing the internet, watching cat videos on YouTube, etc. There is no harm buying a gaming computer that has a slightly faster rendering rate. Since people can use gaming computers for research or even entertainment, it is a convenient tool to have in your household.

Ever have a moment where you want to just punch another human being? Shoot a person? Gaining the ability to cosplay as Lucifer and wipe a whole nation? You can grant those wishes when playing video games. As mentioned above, there are a countless number of video game types that exist in this community. FPS, MOBA, MMORPG, you name it. There are even games that are solely dedicated to driving, specifically a simulation game for driving. (Euro Truck Simulator is a maniac but popular video game that is well-known amongst gamers) Due to the rich selection of games that are available, it can satisfy most people and gives an opportunity to gamers to play what they want.

When imagining what a gamer looks like, what pops into your mind at first? Most of you would imagine a NEET or someone that is introverted. In the the past, yes, hardcore gamers had a bad reputation. Stereotypically speaking, gamers were usually described as the opposite to a sportsman or a partygoer. In recent years, this phenomena has changed as many games have included pro players and is treated as a sport: ESPORTS (Electronic Sports) is what people call it now. In recent years, professional gaming teams hire people such as, fitness coaches, a professional from the sports psychology where they conserve the athlete’s physical and mental well-being. When playing video games, it is a necessity to stay positive; there is no reason to gain stress from video games. (Burning out) However, most of us reside in the casual gamer devision. The main discussion is that, it is important to use gaming as a breather and nothing more. People who take gaming serious can develop negative effects such as addiction, too much screen time, or even develop terminal damage to the wrists and fingers (ie. Arthritis)

Many studies from the psychology field, both cognitive and biological, have indicated that gaming has a positive influence on the body. According to Idtech, studies found that playing video games increases the size and volume of the human brain. Additionally, gaming positively affects, memory, spatial orientation, information organizations, and fine motor skills. There are other studies that include results that subjects that played video games had better eye sight. As most video games require the human to look and react, human hand-eye coordination will be trained overtime, allowing individuals to realize small changes in the surrounding environment. Although there are positive aspects to gaming, some people develop gaming addiction, more straightforwardly, gaming disorder where the individuals lose control and leaves them playing for an exceeding amount. This lead to decreased social interactions and may negatively affect relationships between partners and family members. Just like alcohol, a reasonable amount of gaming is recommended. (Conclusion derived from personal experience (´・_・`) )

In terms of Japan, which is globally known for their advanced technology and gaming culture, there are not that many people that own a gaming computer. That does not mean Japanese people play zero video games, however, people reside to playing games on their cellphones. Especially when riding the train, many Japanese people play games on their phones on their way to work. I personally think that this is due to the overworking society where workers have no time outside their profession. Their only time where they are not restrained to work is when they are heading towards their workplace. Simple and fast pace games are efficient for these people, which sums up most Japanese people. When asked the practical application of legitimate gaming into the Japanese society, it may be hard for people to take additional time off for video games.

We come across the final question: should you play video games? From our subjective view on gaming, there are far more pros for gaming and is   a quick and easy way to relieve stress. Thus, we believe people with excess time and money should buy a desktop computer for personal use, such as internet surfing and schoolwork, while also training your brain by playing video games from time-to-time. We are not promoting people to isolate themselves and play video games, however, a good balance between time with others and time for yourself should allow people to have a better mentality overall.

Mizutamari-Bond

Hi domo~~~~!

It’s Mio and Nanaka’s blog and thank you for coming this time!

Probably, you thought it’s weird that we start with a
strange phrase “Hi domo~~~!”.
It’s from our favorite YouTuber ‘Mizutamari-bond’. They always start with the phrase in their masterpieces. So, for this time of the blog, we would write about them to you to know how hilarious they are and hope you enjoy this and push the subscribe button at last 🙂

However, before starting the blog, do you guys even know ‘Mizutamari-bond’? We think that some of you guys already know them because they came to Sophia University last year for Sophians festival.

 

Profile

Introduction to Mizutamari-bond

They met in the comedy circle of Aoyama Gakuin University, and formed a ‘manzai’ pair. After that, they entered the quarterfinals at King of Cont 2014, opened YouTube channel “Mizutamari-bond” on October 6, 2014. Their first video was posted on YouTube in January, 2015. Those videos had been deleted, but they were posting before 2015. They say the reason for posting on YouTube is “We think that if we post on YouTube, more people could get to know about us and more people get more opportunities to see us.” Surprisingly, they upload their videos everyday in 4 years in a row. The first video posted to YouTube was about 100 times played, but as I said, they keep updating the video everyday and the number of subscribers has been reached 650,000 in June, 2016. Also, the same year of September 16, the number of subscribers to the main channel will reach 1 million. On June 14, 2018, they got 3 millions of subscribers. The contents of their videos are mostly experiments, verifications, “TOSHI-DENSETSU” and so on. They do anything. They live with their juniors in their house calls “Mizutamari-house” and the juniors often appears in the videos.

Why they named “Mizutamari-bond”?

The name of the pair was named by combining two words. Tommy first said ‘Mizutamari’ and Kanta said ‘Bond’ after. So, they combine the two and finally was named “Mizutamari-bond.” Since to decide the name of them, they first decided to use kanji and katakana for being “sharp”.

Rafaowa Channel

The picture above, have you ever seen them? They are “legend”. Our another favorite YouTuber calls “Raphaowa channel.” From April 1st, 2018, some videos were posted daily for a limited month on the YouTube channel. They clearly stated that if the number of subscribers will not be exceed 1 million by 23:59:59 on December 31, 2018, they are going to be deleted from YouTube forever. Funnily, on December 31, it wasn’t exceed 1 million, even the number of subscribers were 328,310. On the final video, they were escaped from the date line for only 11 hours to extend the deadline not to delete the channel. The curtain was closed in about 8 months.

suggested (MIO)

「本気でチャーハン作るドッキリwwwwww」

 

 

「突然後輩にビンで殴られるドッキリが予想外の展開に…」

【ドッキリ】寝てる人の部屋にヒヨコ100匹を放してみた!!

 

Suggested(NANAKA)

「とあるゲームしたら見せちゃいけない水溜りボンドでたww」

「録音した音声だけで人狼ゲームしたら心理戦すぎたww」

「鳥取砂丘でかくれんぼ中にガチで東京に帰ってみた」

 

A BIG NEWS

On April 18th, 2019, they uploaded a new video on YouTube with the title, “A big news”. It was the news that they have collaborated with SHIBUYA109(in Tokyo),MAGNET by SHIBUYA109 and SHIBUYA109ABENO109(in Osaka). It is one of the most remarkable achievements for not only themselves but also as YouTubers. In the video, they said that it has been their dream to collaborate with 109 with an excitement. That campaign has been held on April 24th to May 8th in 2019. During the campaign, 109 has opened a temporary store of Mizutamari bond where people can buy their merchandise and see exhibits which became famous in their video.(ex. food sample of fried rice) In MAGNET by SHIBUYA109, they opened the collaboration cafe and sell the original food they devised.
Also, they declared they would hold a talk live at Toyosu PiT where it can admit more than 3,000 people!! The event was named “Mizutamari High School” and they invited other popular YouTubers (AVNTIS, PAO PAO Channel, Tokai onair, Yu-yami ni izanaishi-shikkoku no angel and Kamiyado) as well.

Sadly, Mio and I couldn’t get tickets for Toyosu PiT talk live but we actually went to SHIBUYA109 to see their temporary store and collaboration cafe after school.

 

Look at the picture above!! There is a huge picture of Mizutamari bond and other famous YouTubers on 109 building. A lot of people were taking pictures of it. It was so exciting to see it and we were so proud of them as fans that they appear on 109, the biggest symbol of SHIBUYA.

In 109, we visited their temporary store. It was so crowded with fans. There were signs of all YouTubers and we could see the famous exhibitions in their video.

We went to the collaboration cafe as well in MAGNET by SHIBUYA109. The decoration and the concept of cafe were well planned and beautiful. All of these were designed by Tommy. There were original tables and balloons with their logos of all YouTubers. A lot of fans were enjoy taking pictures of exhibitions and eating the food. We could take many Instagrammable photos there:) However, it was too popular and most of their collaboration food and drinks were sold out.

We ordered “Mujintou soda”. “Mujintou” means uninhabited island. This drink is ofcourse from their video. There are popular series that they go to uninhabited island and spend survival life in summer. This soda is motif of blue, beautiful sea in Mujintou. It tasted great!! Everything was full of excitement and designed uncompromisingly.

Have you enjoyed reading this blog? We hope that you get interested in Mizutamari bond even for just a little bit. If you are interested, please subscribe their YouTube channel!!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpOjLndjOqMoffA-fr8cbKA

That’s it for Mio and Nanaka’s blog.
Thank you for reading!

Mata ashita! Arigatou-gozaimashita〜〜〜!!

(See you tomorrow! Thank you so much〜〜〜!!)