Japan's Asian Export Success - The Rice Cooker

[Mulboyne]

[YT]5i5j082oDL8[/YT]
This review reminded me of a scene from "In the Mood for Love" at the beginning of the clip above.

UPI: "Where There Are Asians There Are Rice Cookers - How National Went Global via Hong Kong" by Yoshiko Nakano
Many tales have been told about how, staring in the 1960s, the Japanese consumer brands conquered Western markets -- some of the histories have been written by the `winners' (e.g., Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony), some by the "losers" (Halberstam's 1986 The Reckoning, comparing Ford and Nissan, among them, having become a classic case of "I told you so", Toyota's recent bout of clay feet notwithstanding). In "Where There Are Asians There Are Rice Cookers: How National Went Global via Hong Kong", Yoshiko Nakano offers an uncommon and often touching story of Asian business people reuniting after the Pacific War in a win-win collaboration. Japanese consumer-product giant Matsushita (under the National brand, among others) gained its earliest globalization experience...by bringing an entirely unsexy, yet theretofore unavailable, labor-saving product -- the rice cooker, a product without Western-company competition -- to Hong Kong's consumers...Though rice is the essential, even religious, component of the food cultures in both Japan and southern China, the rice traditionally used, and the ways of cooking it, are different. One example: traditional Japanese rice cooking practice forbids taking the lid off until the rice is completely cooked, while Hong Kong rice cooking favors addition of ingredients just before the rice is completely cooked. (Matsushita staff in 1960: "Is that how they cook rice in Hong Kong?!")...more...

[GomiGirl]

So perhaps Greji can tell me the difference between the "resident rice cooker" and the "domestic rice cooker".

[waruta]

Supposed to leave the rice to steam for another 10 mins after its done for the "umami" and then stir it...damn HongKongnese know nothing 'bout rice*

*Disclaimer

Zojirushi and their IH upper-end models are quite cool, with the pressure cooker option, goes up to 104 Celcius for brown rice...I had to lug one of the bigger 6kg models all the way to Europe for a buddy of mine recently, but it was worth the Yodobashi points....