Global East Asia Response Paper

In your response paper, identify an important new concept, theory, or insight about globalization from Steger Chap. 2 and discuss it in relation to the assigned readings by Mintz “Asia’s contributions to world cuisine” and Allen & Sakamoto “Sushi reverses course.”

WORD LIMIT: 400 words (approximately three paragraphs)

Sushi Reverses Course: Consuming American Sushi in
Tokyo　　寿司逆流−−東京におけるアメリカ⾵寿司
Rumi Sakamoto and Matthew Allen

January 24, 2011
Volume 9 | Issue 5 | Number 2

Sushi Reverses Course: Consuming American Sushi in Tokyo
Matthew Allen and Rumi Sakamoto

Introduction

Sushi, not long ago a quintessentially Japanese product, has gone global. Japanese food, and sushi in particular, has experienced a surge in international
popularity in recent decades. Japanese government estimates that outside of Japan there are over 20,000 Japanese restaurants, most of which either

specialize in sushi or serve sushi (MAFF 2006; Council of Advisors 2007).1 Some estimate the number of overseas sushi bars and restaurants to be between
14,000 and 18,000 (in comparison, the number of sushi restaurants in Japan is estimated to be around 45,000) (Matsumoto 2002: 2). Sushi stores today can be
found across Asia, the Americas, Europe, Russia, Africa, Oceania and the Pacific. The phenomenon has accelerated rapidly since the turn of the millennium.

While sushi’s global expansion has attracted the attention of Japanese and global media (Kato 2002; Matsumoto 2002; Tamamura 2004; Ikezawa 2005; Fukue
2010) and a number of scholarly works address sushi’s global popularity and its transformation outside Japan (Bestor 2000; Ng 2001; Cwiertka 1999; 2005;

2006),2 little scholarly or journalistic work exists on one important facet of sushi’s recent global growth — namely, the return home of transformed sushi to

Japan, at times in barely recognisable forms. This paper offers an analysis of this “reverse import (gyaku yunyū)” phenomenon and its specific expression in
what we refer to as “American sushi” in Tokyo as a contribution toward assessing culinary globalisation. The nascent American sushi trend brings into
relief aspects of Japan-US relations that are seldom articulated in the context of discourse about food – in particular the continued symbolic dominance of

the US in Japanese eyes;3 and it also is emblematic of how Japan engages aspects of globalisation, in this case fetishising a mundane product that has
become something new in its reimported form. By focusing on this relatively recent phenomenon we also aim to contribute to and complicate the
contemporary arguments that characterise cultural globalisation as a unilineal process of hybridisation, often through localisation.

Using the cases of two high profile “American” sushi restaurants in Tokyo, we show that the Japanese reflexive consumption of “America” demonstrates
that the sign of otherness remains a significant factor in framing domestic consumption. The return “home” of the transformed product that is at once both
familiar and exotic occupies a different symbolic space to the ideas formalised in the so-called “McDonaldisation” (Ritzer 1993) of global production, which
dominates much of the thinking about globalisation of culture. While McDonaldisation may entail efficient, standardised and controlled forms of cultural
hybridisation such as the teriyaki chicken burger, American sushi in Tokyo presents a different type of hybridisation characterised by the playfulness and
unpredictability of its production and consumption. To draw this point out, we employ the concept of “fetish” and offer a reading of cultural globalisation
that is not just about products expanding out from a centre to the periphery where they are modified, but is also about producing and consuming a
fetishised object of desire that has accumulated extra social and symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1977) as it has crossed and re-crossed national borders. As we
will see, the marketability and desirability of American sushi in Japan comes primarily from its symbolic (that is, fetishised) value (we will discuss this in
some detail later).

Before examining American sushi, however, it is important to locate this phenomenon within the historical context of sushi both in Japan and its expansion
to the rest of the world, especially to the United States.

Sushi, Japan and the US

Edomae sushi, or Edo-style sushi, associated in Japan with the origins of sushi, is said to have been created in Edo in the mid nineteenth century. Although
there were many other, earlier forms of sushi developed in Japan, and in other parts of East and Southeast Asia, edomae sushi retains its iconic place as the
forerunner of the current nigirizushi. Its premise, a rather simple one, was based on sticky rice balls loosely held together with a mixture of vinegar and
sugar, topped with a thin slice of raw fish. This is the basis for most contemporary sushi, though outside Japan makizushi (rolled sushi wrapped in nori

seaweed and filled with a range of different ingredients including raw fish) and uramakizushi (rolled sushi with nori inside) have become more popular.4 In

Tokyo however, and in most parts of Japan, the most commonly eaten sushi is overwhelmingly nigirizushi.5

The greater Tokyo area consumes a great deal of Japan’s sushi. Moreover, it is the market leader in food trends. In the city there are numerous tiny, highly

rated and exclusive sushi restaurants, where expensive and difficult to obtain ingredients are put together into beautifully crafted delicate food.6 Indeed,
there are many different types of sushi available in Tokyo: ma and pa sushi stores, often suburban, or located in entertainment districts, which make much

of their income from home delivery; kaitenzushi (sushi often made by robot, and served on a conveyer belt); wafū (Japanese style) restaurants with sushi
bars; family restaurants that specialise in moriawase (selection of different fish) sushi; drive-in take-out sushi; upmarket sushi chain stores; street side sushi
vendors; depa-chika (department stores’ basement food halls) sushi, supermarket and convenience store sushi; and there are the reverse import (American)

sushi, which this article highlights.7 Tokyo aside, sushi is available in Japan in every village, town and city in many forms, and is widely consumed by most

people.8

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Sushi’s emergence in the United States was initially linked to Japanese diasporas in places like Los Angeles and Hawaii. Although the non-Japanese
population found the premise of raw fish and rice unappealing, Japanese food, including sushi, became available in major centres in the early twentieth
century, starting with Japanese immigration and settlements in the 1920s, particularly on the West Coast. It was not until the 1970s, though, that sushi’s
popularity grew among non-Japanese. This was influenced by a number of factors including the rise of Japan onto the global economic stage, which led to
an increasing number of ambitious Japanese chefs arriving on the West Coast, and also to increasing numbers of Japanese expatriate businessmen and their

US colleagues eating out in their new, Japanese-run restaurants (Corson, 2008: 44-7).9 Other factors that contributed to the late 1970s and early 1980s
expansion of the sushi industry included the West Coast counterculture movement, organic and health food movements, diet crazes, high-profile actors and
media ‘personalities’ proclaiming their love of sushi, combined with Japan’s economic growth and increased visibility around this time (Cwiertka 2006: 182;
Issenberg 2007: 97; Bestor 2000: 56). Over the next two decades, sushi in the US became a fashionable food for sophisticated consumers and even a status

symbol for some. In Bestor’s words, “from an exotic, almost unpalatable ethnic specialty, then to haute cuisine of the most refined sort, sushi has become not
just cool, but popular” (Bestor 2000: 56-57).

A second wave of popularisation took place in the US in the 1990s, where sushi’s market grew from primarily being a fetishised, exotic food for the

wealthy, to also becoming a cheap, accessible populist food. Takeout sushi from supermarkets and fast food outlets proliferated,10 and immigrants from

East and Southeast Asia entered the sushi business in large numbers. The introduction of kaitenzushi (conveyer-belt sushi) and sushi robots from

Japan11 made sushi cheaper and even more accessible. Today the sushi industry in the US is large, growing, diverse, and idiosyncratic. Almost any

conceivable form of sushi is available in the US, from supermarket refrigerators stocking $5 take-out uramaki with artificial crab stick and mayonnaise
fillings to $200 servings of fatty tuna at an upmarket restaurant like Nobu’s in New York, with almost everything in between. The popularity and visibility
of sushi has also opened the way for other cheap and fast Japanese food such as noodles and curry.

The US has provided a prototype for contemporary global sushi.12 Certainly many of the more adventurous and imaginative rolls have originated there. It

is the home of various uramaki (reverse rolls) – rolled sushi with nori inside and rice outside – which became popular in the 1990s because many Americans

did not like the “chewy” texture of nori on the outside of their sushi. They preferred it on the inside.13 Using new ingredients, various rolls were created in
the US and spread to the rest of the world: California Roll with imitation crab, avocado, and mayonnaise, Caterpillar Roll with sliced avocado on top,
Rainbow Roll with multi-coloured slices of fish and seafood on top, and Spider Roll with fried soft-shell crab are some of the US classics. There are even a
few kosher sushi bars for Jewish customers who do not eat seafood without fins and scales (i.e. crab, octopus. squid, eels, shellfish etc.), with supervising
rabbis in the kitchen (Lii 2009: 1-2).

Sushi comes home: Rainbow Roll Sushi and Genji Sushi

Consider the American sushi restaurants in Tokyo, that is, restaurants that flaunt their Americanism in carving out a place in the market of the world
capital of the sushi kingdom. They employ a fusion philosophy, using Japanese products and “tradition,” while incorporating foreign influences from
successful overseas sushi enterprises into their new style sushi to suit the palates and the egos of their customers. The sushi that is served in these new-
wave American sushi restaurants (mostly roll sushi with ingredients other than raw fish) is both similar to, and distinctively different from most sushi
available in Japan. It is this difference that is emphasised – the foreign flavours of something that is similar in style to the everyday sushi available in Japan,

yet is quite different in taste and concept.14

We have chosen two of these restaurants, Rainbow Roll Sushi and Genji Sushi New York, because while they occupy quite different market segments (the
former is a moderately upmarket restaurant while the latter is more casual and inexpensive), both are owned by large corporations which have strong links
with the US, and both trade on the image of the US as a marketing device. That is, both foreground the US as the origin of their concept to sell their product
as an object of fetishist desire for consumption among young, predominantly female consumers, and to promote the consciousness of consumers finding
something new, international and interesting in these original iterations of sushi, something not previously experienced in Japan. The more upscale
Rainbow Roll Sushi deploys America as a symbol of cutting-edge sophistication, whereas Genji Sushi New York promotes its products relying on the image
of wholesome and organic food supported by “health conscious New Yorkers” (GSNY website).

Rainbow Roll Sushi was established in 2001 by WDI, a company that brought Kentucky Fried Chicken,
Hard Rock Café, Spago and other successful US eateries to Tokyo. Yoko Shibata, who started Rainbow
Roll Sushi, is a Japanese woman who at the age of 30 returned from the United States, and decided to set
up an “American” sushi restaurant with a “rich and casual” atmosphere (Kato 2002: 218-19). The
restaurant specialises in exotic sushi and offers other mostly Japanese cuisine, including salads, vegetable
and meat dishes, as well as expensive foreign and domestic wines and beers, and desserts. In particular
the use of unusual combinations of ingredients in the production of sushi, the high class menu and the
interior decoration lead customers to assume that the product is special. Rainbow Roll Sushi is aimed at
the top end of the market, in particular at wealthy, trendy young Japanese.

Genji Sushi New York is a chain restaurant franchise
with 83 outlets in the US East Coast and the UK
according to its website. It is aimed at the middle of the

market, especially targeting the lunchtime office crowds, and focusing on take-out and delivery.
Introduced into Japan in March 2008, it projects itself as “contemporary, casual, stylish” with the modifier
“beautiful, delicious NY roll sushi” on its website, and on its menus. This is emblematic of the focus of the
restaurant chain; modern, clean, fast, food that emphasises style, health and convenience, and also
incorporates both English and Japanese on the menu to ensure the foreignness of the product is
emphasised.

Rainbow Roll Sushi is located in trendy Azabujūban on the second floor of a building, which houses an
Italian pasta restaurant on the ground floor. The entrance is discrete, built from concrete slab finished with
a very rough glaze. Waiting staff, both men and women, dressed in black T-shirts and trousers greet
diners, and escort them to tables. In fact, the “industrial chic” décor is consistent throughout the

http://spinshell.tv/cityguide/rainbow_roll_sushi/

http://apjjf.org/data/rainbow_roll_sushi

http://apjjf.org/data/genji

(Source)

Rainbow Roll Sushi’s spider roll (Source)

Note the quotation marks around “sushi” and
the emphasis on New York in the signage

(authors’ photograph)

Some of the sushi available at Genji’s counter
(authors’ photograph)

restaurant. Bare minimalism is the organising theme, and there are few decorations and table ornaments; indeed, grey concrete is the dominant styling
motif. There are booths of concrete in stylish industrial style on the first floor, with high backed western-style seating.

There is a substantial central table made of backlit marble, around which perhaps 20 diners can be seated,
there are semi-enclosed split-level zashiki (Japanese-styled tatami mat booths) that overlook the central
table, and there are seats available at a sushi bar. With the dim lighting, the panopticon-like views from
the central dining table over the restaurant, the monochromatic décor, the Latin American sound track,
and the subdued but lively buzz of conversation from the partially sound-shielded booths, the restaurant
would not be out of place in New York, London, Rio or Sydney. Staying with the theme of discreet
sophistication, most of the food preparation is conducted behind the sushi bar, in a kitchen that is not
visible to customers. Sushi chefs do make sushi at the bar, but they produce only rolled sushi; the more
exotic sushi that involves items like seared scallops, cooked prawns, etc. is made in the kitchen, as it is in
most sushi restaurants.

The pricing of the menu is about average for upmarket
restaurant dining in Tokyo; omakase (degustation) menu
is available at 5,300 yen per person and the average

price of sushi rolls is around 1,400 yen.15 The drinks list

is extensive; indeed the range of shōchū and sake, and
the long European wine list emphasise both the fusion
nature of the restaurant theme, and also perhaps the

izakaya (casual restaurant/bars, where drinking is the
main focus) roots from which part of the fusion evolved.

Genji Sushi New York is quite different. From the
outside the message of a fusion restaurant is very clear.
With its lime green NEW YORK SUSHI sign brilliantly
illuminated, it is in fact a fusion of a fusion. Located in
Roppongi – hence accessible to many foreigners as well as younger Japanese – it is in a restaurant mall in the basement of trendy Roppongi Hills. It is built
in light coloured timbers, with rounded ceiling mouldings imitating the inside of a railway carriage, is brightly lit, painted cream and lime green, with
frosted glass panes surrounding the seated area.

All seats are non-smoking, which is rare for a Japanese restaurant.16 There is a takeaway glass-fronted
display with salads, sushi sets, and other “healthy” foods displayed. The signage is in English only, and
the items on the menu, written in English, have descriptions in Japanese. The menu includes a vast array

of fusion sushi and donburi (rice with topping) – California Don, Tuna and avocado Don, Genji seafood
salad, etc., with prices set at modest levels. The average cost of a single meal “set” was around 1,000 yen.
There were only two employees in the entire restaurant with seating for about 30, so service was
negligible, reflected in the price of the food perhaps.

Staff were dressed in white chef’s uniforms with the
Genji Sushi New York mark prominently displayed on
their breast pockets. They also wore black baseball caps
with the company logo visible. Staff spoke no English,
perhaps unsurprisingly, as the company is focused
closely on the Japanese market, rather than the
expatriate market. The image of what they were selling –
cosmopolitan “New York” sushi to Japanese clients –
was the major marketing point, and this was
emphasised by the décor, the menu, and by the food
available.

Reading the local and the global

While Rainbow Roll Sushi and Genji Sushi New York
still serve some “traditional” sushi (Rainbow Roll Sushi in particular boasts a sushi counter reminiscent of older, more “traditional” sushi establishments
where customers watch their sushi being made in front of them), their main selling points are the image of the US as a fetish for either fashion, health, or
difference, which is manifest in unfamiliar combinations of ingredients in highly sophisticated presentations. Such product differentiation enables them to
locate themselves within the generic sushi market, while selling things that average sushi restaurants rarely incorporate into their menus in an environment
that is quite dissimilar to most sushi restaurants in Japan. Clearly, too, the names of the respective restaurants are relevant in determining their clientele and
their products: Rainbow Roll Sushi, written in English and in katakana, unsurprisingly makes and sells a large range of unusual roll sushi. In addition to
“standard” American sushi like California Roll or Dragon Roll, they offer an array of original roll sushi with interesting and unexpected combinations of
fillings such as fried aubergine, shrimp, jalapeno mayo, raw beef, kim-chee, in very unusual combinations.

Rainbow Roll Sushi consciously foregrounds the signifier “America” in embracing the reverse import
philosophy. Its bilingual website describes itself as “a brand new dining space launched from America”
and states that American roll sushi “completely throws off the preconception of sushi” with the use of
non-traditional ingredients. Japanese sushi, it asserts, was “transformed and expressed in a
revolutionalised [sic] way in California, made itself into the limelight [sic] of New York, the state for
cuisines from all around the world.” With a large selection of California wine and cocktails and stylish

http://metropolis.co.jp/dining/restaurant-reviews/rainbow-roll-sushi/

http://www.umamimart.com/2009/04/American-Sushi-at-Rainbow-Roll-Sushi-Tokyo/

http://apjjf.org/data/restaurant

http://apjjf.org/data/spider_roll

http://apjjf.org/data/sushi_sign

http://apjjf.org/data/genjis_counter

Rainbow Roll Sushi’s dragon roll (Source)

Rainbow Roll Sushi’s tuna and avocado stack
(Source)

Genji’s seared salmon rolled sushi with salad
(authors’ photograph)

interior that its website says is “reminiscence [sic] of a bar in New York,” it differentiates itself from
traditional sushi restaurants, establishing an identity as an American-style “unique” and “playful” sushi
dining bar (RRS website). It is designed to fit a customer who is curious, creative, not conservative, nor
wedded to tradition. This perspective was reinforced by the manager, who informed us that many
customers have read about the restaurant in food magazines, women’s magazines, and in newspapers,
and have been curious to see what the “fuss” is all about (interview). Observing customers consuming the
food, it was noticeable that there was considerable exchange of items among diners, and many

exclamations of excitement and claims of “omoshiroii!” (“interesting/different”) as people tasted the
unusual combinations of ingredients.

The emphasis is on originality, trendiness and frivolity, and customers animatedly discuss the highly
original rolled sushi in particular: spider roll (1,250 yen): made from soft shell crab, cucumber, Japanese

radish, carrot, lettuce, fat rolled, and served with ponzu (citrus based source); Anago sugata roll (1,450 yen):
a fat rolled sushi with sea eel, cucumber, carrot, and kanpyō (dried gourd strips) – a fusion of traditional
Japanese ingredients with western vegetables; or scallop and avocado spicy mayo roll (1,200 yen): also a fat rolled sushi with scallop, asparagus, tempura
prawn, cucumber, avocado, red pepper, mayonnaise, garlic chips, with a spicy miso glaze. Such iterations of sushi demonstrate the playfulness with which
the concept of fusion food is produced and consumed. Customers have a wide range of sushi and other dishes from which to choose, and many of these are

quite original fusions, such as tataki (seared) beef roll, ikura (salmon roe) and smoked salmon roll, an avocado and raw tuna stack, or tempura, asparagus
and avocado roll. A survey of online restaurant reviews by customers also confirms that this restaurant’s appeal is in its difference from standard sushi
restaurants in Japan.

Clearly, though, the rhetoric notwithstanding, the restaurant is not conceptualised as purely American
either. In an interview with a Japanese journalist, its creator Yoko Shibata maintains that Rainbow Roll
Sushi aims not to directly import American sushi but to “pursue the originality of ‘roll sushi in Japan’”
and that she wanted to prove that “although roll sushi was born in America, its original came from Japan”
(Kato 2002: 220). According to her this is achieved by adding some original elements to American roll
sushi, and she further suggests that subtle adjustment of taste and presentation in sushi is something
“only Japanese can do” (Kato 2002: 220). National pride and desire for the foreign are thus subtly
balanced in the creation of American sushi at Rainbow Roll Sushi. While it has an American “flavour” it
also retains a sense of Japanese engagement with the medium.

Genji Sushi New York also has a large selection of American-style rolled sushi (California Roll,

Philadelphia Roll, Rainbow Roll), with some “standard” nigirizushi, complemented with some donburi

(rice with in this case rather unconventional toppings) items such as California-don (raw tuna17 and

avocado) or donburi with organic green onion and raw tuna salad. Genji’s main selling points are that it is
“New York” sushi – it is the sushi that people in New York eat – and that the food it sells is healthy and
stylish. In a slightly ironic twist, the chain has employed the same marketing strategy employed overseas to sell this overseas variant of sushi to Japanese;
that is, it has emphasised the “healthy” aspect of eating their particular kinds of sushi to an extent almost never seen in Japan. Arguably, within Japan sushi

is not perceived as particularly “healthy.” Rather it can be perceived as convenient, cheap, accessible, familiar, or expensive, distinctive and bought for
special occasions etc. But the population generally does not need to be educated to eat sushi (ultimately it is simply a matter of choice, unlike in other
nations, where marketing strategies may involve educating customers that eating sushi is a rational, healthy, and economic choice).

Although Genji is marketed as “‘sushi’ from New York” (the use of English and the quotation marks
around the word sushi indicating that their product is foreign, not traditional, sushi), their menu is
somewhat different from that offered in the New York branches. Genji in the United States, which places a

strong emphasis on “all-natural … environmentally friendly … highest quality Japanese inspired cuisine,”
offers its customers choices of white, brown, or multi-grain sushi. And while the latter two were
introduced into the menu in Tokyo in 2009, they may appear exotic/strange to the Japanese palate. In
Japan, the health discourse and the concern over the “obesity epidemic” are not powerful enough to
persuade most consumers to eat sushi with brown, let alone multigrain, rice. White rice still is the

staple,18 and the recent craze over the health benefit of low-GI whole food in the West has not challenged
white rice’s supremacy in Japan. Another type of sushi not on Japanese Genji’s menu, but on overseas
menus, are rolls such as “Tokyo roll” that contain multiple types of fish/seafood in a single roll, a practice

uncommon in traditional sushi in Japan. On the other hand, Japanese Genji sells roast beef and takana
(pickled vegetable) rolls. These are not sold in New York outlets, where no meat is seen on the menu. This
is probably because, with Japan’s generally low meat consumption, people are not overly concerned about
the risk of saturated fat in meat products, whereas in the US “no meat” may be more immediately equated with “health.” It seems that, thus, the reality of
the “‘sushi’ from New York” is that it is “Japan-inspired American health food” that has been re-Japanised and reintroduced to Japan as something
“genuinely” American.

While interviews with staff at Genji suggested that many customers are young office women interested in the healthful properties of the food, Genji Japan
in 2009 was not yet convinced its customers would eat multigrain rice sushi. Presumably this was too much of a stretch for their Japanese customers, so
multigrain rice currently is not offered. However, the company’s marketing emphasis on the healthy nature of its products seems to strike a chord with
consumers as something interesting, American and different. Situated in the basement food precinct of a very upmarket part of Roppongi, it is surrounded
by expensive boutique food retailers, ranging from delicatessens that sell imported European foods to niche retailers of pastries, specialist cafes, and high
end restaurants. Roppongi is well-known to foreigners too, and it was noticeable that there were many foreigners in the precinct throughout the course of
our study there. The restaurant’s location among other “foreign” restaurants and stores that sell foreign foods is no coincidence; it clearly aims to link its
idiosyncratic health discourse with America as the origin, in contrast to the marketing of the American branches of Genji which emphasise the health

http://www.umamimart.com/2009/04/American-Sushi-at-Rainbow-Roll-Sushi-Tokyo/

http://www.umamimart.com/2009/04/American-Sushi-at-Rainbow-Roll-Sushi-Tokyo/

http://apjjf.org/data/dragon_roll

http://apjjf.org/data/tuna_avocado_stack

http://apjjf.org/data/genjis_seared_salmon

discourse and the Japanese influence.

In these kinds of refracted movements, transformations, and representations, questions of “origins,” “authenticity” and “ownership” take on new

dimensions. And in this reflexive movement back to Japan, the transmogrification of sushi as a new object of fetishist desire within Japan is driven by the

signifiers of “New York,” foreignness, and exoticism. And the consumption of it is driven by curiosity and playfulness.19

Engaging globalisation: locating American sushi

How then, can this new form of sushi be located within the current literature on cultural globalisation? While it is tempting to see globalisation as a
euphemism for Americanisation, many authors now view cultural globalisation as multilateral and complex movements among plural origins and plural
destinations. Concepts of hybridity and creolisation have become central to current discussion of globalisation, which emphasise the creative and often
unpredictable interactions between the local and the global, problematising the idea of globalisation as homogenisation that informed early accounts of
globalisation (Canclini 1995; Appadurai 1996; Hannertz 2000; Pieterse 2004; Kraidy 2005).

In terms of challenging the idea of globalisation as Americanisation or westernisation, Asia has come to occupy a significant place. Phenomena such as
Japanese anime fandom outside Japan (Kelts 2007) or the popularity of Bollywood movies outside India (Rao 2007: 57-58) have been considered as
“counter-currents,” in the sense of offering perspectives on how non-western cultures have impacted on the west and the world, including the United

States.20 Some writers have examined inter-Asian transcultural flows that bypass the west altogether, again underscoring the importance of Asia as a key
player in today’s cultural globalistion at a time when Asia is recovering the position of centrality in the world economy that it had occupied prior to the
nineteenth century (Iwabuchi 2000, 2004; Nakano 2002; Fung 2007; Arrighi, Hamashita and Selden 2003).

On one level, sushi’s global popularity constitutes yet another instance of “Asian” cultural influence in other parts of the world. Its transformation in
different places due to the influences of local markets and cultures could be understood using hybridisation/localisation models, as an instance of a
Japanese original inflected with some local flavour. For example, customers can buy curry sushi in Singapore, spam sushi in Hawaii, duck sushi in China,
kim chee sushi in Korea, and teriyaki chicken and avocado sushi in Australia. Interestingly, though, it is American sushi that has come back to Japan, not

versions from other parts of the world.21 Arguably this is because the experimentation with sushi as fusion in the United States from the late 1990s was
successful and sophisticated enough to spawn imitators in other western nations, and now in Japan. And it is this step – the coming home of the localised,
Americanised product – that displays the explanatory limitations of these models of localisation and hybridisation.

American sushi, on which this essay focuses, illustrates how the global and the local interact in much more complex ways than one-off hybridisation
between two elements. The “reverse-import” sushi, we have observed, was in fact a re-domesticated version of what is available in the US. That is,
although Genji Sushi New York and Rainbow Roll Sushi profess to produce “American” sushi, what they are serving is fusion food that originated in Japan,
moved to the US, was modified there for US domestic consumption, then was re-exported to Japan, where it was recontextualised, further modified and

fetishized.22 In short, the so-called American sushi at these Tokyo restaurants is actually a modified Japanese version of American sushi.23

The reverse import model thus complicates the relationship between origin and destination. It also problematises the assumption behind the hybridisation
model that it is about mixing two separate elements. The concept of cultural hybridity (e.g. hybridity as mimicry; hybridity as syncretism) retains the notion
of origin and destination, original and copy, local and foreign, all of which are seen as binary opposites. In the reflexive movement of reverse import sushi,
however, these dichotomies seem less certain or relevant. When cream cheese and avocado sushi is served as “Japanese” in the US, and “American” in
Japan, where is the origin, and where is the location of adoption? The case of American sushi enables us to understand the specific interactions between the
local and the foreign beyond the simple model of two elements mixing into one. What we read from the American sushi movement is that localities cannot
be defined as simply the “origin” and/or “destination” of a cultural artefact or practice. Rather, they contribute to the production of something that
supersedes both, or indeed multiple localities, with the product even returning to the point of origin in refreshing new forms.

Although, as we have noted, some authors have written about sushi’s global popularity and its transformation outside Japan (see introduction) and others
have looked at how “foreign” food has been adopted in Japan, the American sushi phenomenon in Japan has largely been overlooked. Perhaps more
importantly the aspects associated with consumption have often been elided in the context of globalisation theory. That is, in the case of the consumption of
American sushi in Tokyo, themes of playfulness and fetish are applied by customers, who are looking to something “different” or unusual.

Fetishising American sushi

We propose that American sushi’s consumption in Japan can be understood, therefore, as a kind of playful fetish. We are using the concept of the fetish here
as: “an artifice […] It is the production of desire according to the double genitive: produced by desire and producing desire” (Jean-Luc Nancy 2001: 7). That
is, we are concerned with the symbolic capital which is generated by the sign of the fetish. It is desire for the sake of desire. Indeed, it is arguable that

fetishes in postmodern Japan are recurring forms of social capital.24 Fetishism in contemporary urban Japan, and Tokyo in particular, is a constant motif in
advertising, entertainment, and consumption in general. Blonde boy bands, flaxen-haired pop-singing idols, maid cafes, butler cafes, cos-play stores and
costumers, gothic lolitas, mature women dressing as school girls in advertising, nudity, cuteness: these signs of the fetish are apparent everywhere
throughout Tokyo public spaces – in subways, on billboards, in magazines, on taxis, on building sites, on shop hoardings etc. The fetish to desire the new
sushi because it is new, American, individualistic and original is consistent with such cultural propensities. American sushi has become something that has
superceded the original incarnation, has been commodified as something that lies beyond the everyday experience of consumers, and has been marketed as
an object of desire for sophisticated clients who want to try something different, challenging and new. American sushi is unlikely to become a
“mainstream” product in Japan, but it has certainly differentiated itself in the marketplace from traditional sushi, and the fact that the restaurants we have
focussed on are still in business suggests that their franchise-based market research was probably accurate – they will enjoy modest success in Tokyo’s
highly competitive food sector.

As we have discussed, American sushi demonstrates a specific type of transnational cultural interaction in which a hybrid cultural commodity returns to
the purported origin to become re-hybridised. Sushi is not a ubiquitous transnational commodity that exists globally in identical formats, but rather has
transformed itself and accumulated different forms and meanings as it has crossed multiple borders. The reflexivity of American sushi being sold as
something consumed by Americans overseas, hence desirable to Japanese consumers at home, adds a new dimension of complexity to cultural

globalisation.25

It is clear that the image of America, particularly that of “New York” and “California”, is very powerful for Japanese consumers, particularly for young,
wealthy urban professionals with a sense of adventure. The attraction of consuming “America” in Japan is powerful, though of course the reality here can
be read as America consuming Japan in the first instance by buying into the sushi fad. It could be that the prestigious names of California and New York,
when attached to food that otherwise might not appeal to young Japanese, do indeed increase the appeal of such food for people who seek difference and

something new.26 Currently in Tokyo there are many Korean run sushi stores in places such as Shin-Okubo that sell Korean-styled sushi, including kim-
chee, though these are not marketed as creative and playful reverse import sushi; these are catering to both the developing Korean Wave, and the Korean

tourist market in that part of Tokyo.27 American sushi, or the re-engineered Japanese American forms, on the other hand, targets a different kind of

consumer; typically young, Japanese, educated, curious.28

We suggest that the American sushi phenomenon is partly to do with the branding – the fetish – of “America,” and partly a product of Japan’s desire for
and consumption of (imagined) America. Moreover its symbolic value relies on the inherently hierarchical structure of self-other along the hackneyed
east/west divide, though with a twist. This twist is that the fetish of consuming the otherness of America is contextualised within the form of sushi, which
carries the signifier “Japan.” And it is consumed playfully, reflexively.

The foundation for the marketability of the American sushi we have looked at is that America – since 1945 Japan’s dominant other and a model, a goal of

modernisation, and a source of pop culture to emulate29 – has now embraced Japanese sushi as its own. Moreover, the form of sushi has become something
quite different to what it was when it “left” Japan. The “reverse” in “reverse import” sushi takes on special significance because of the hierarchical
relationship between the two nations. This is clear, for example, in WDI’s concept statement for Rainbow Roll Sushi that sushi has “captivated countless
gourmet celebrities and executives” in America. Tokyo consumers of reverse import sushi are encouraged to identify themselves with imaginary US
celebrities and executives with sophisticated tastes and a penchant for innovation and new sensitivity. This is certainly about consuming America, but not
in the sense of consuming hamburgers, fried chicken and apple pie, that is “authentic” America (whatever that might mean). Eating American sushi in
Japan is about consuming a new kind of cool and hip food that embodies sophisticated, urban, trendy America that in turn adopts and adapts foreign
cuisine as its own, while also retaining significant references to Japan’s status as the origin. This desire to consume the American perspective on sushi is
reinforced by the proliferation of articles in popular magazines and newspapers, popular books etc in Japanese on the spread of sushi worldwide.

Conclusion

American sushi in Tokyo reflects the sophistication and unpredictability of global processes. Starting with an iconic Japanese dish and mixing elements of
contemporary US and European influences, reverse sushi restaurateurs do not simply pay homage to other, foreign roots that their cuisine employs, but
also redomesticate a product which has become internationalised. The two examples we cite can be seen as variations on a theme – that of transforming
something that was originally Japanese into something that is simultaneously both Japanese and something else, and marketing it as something exotic and
out of the ordinary.

But it is the unlikely nature of the food that has been re-imported (conceptually) that is most noteworthy here; it is the significance of what it is they are
selling to Japanese people that stands out. That is, these restaurants use a global marketing strategy – the same sort of strategy employed to sell, for
example McDonalds, Starbucks, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc. – to sell “American” sushi to Japanese. In each of the above cases, concessions have been
made to Japanese tastes, and menus invariably have “local” versions of what were once “American food items.” What we see in the American sushi
movement is that global corporate models have been employed to sell the redeployed, relocalised, and reinvented forms of sushi to Japan in more or less
the same way that McDonalds has been localised for the Japanese market. The significance of selling sushi to young Japanese as an imported concept – a
fetish in the sense that it is about a manufactured symbolic desire – cannot be overlooked, nor underestimated.

We think, then, that the marketing of sushi as “American” and “reverse import” in Japan adds a new dimension to the understanding of globalisation. As
we have noted, the current literature on cultural globalisation typically emphasises products and ideas coming from increasingly diverse sources (mostly
America, Asia, and Europe) that are modified (localised/hybridised/indigenised) in their new destination. The case of American sushi suggests a further
dimension of global transformative processes; that is, it invites examination of how the relationship between the origin and the destination becomes more
layered, more nuanced than current models suggest.

We have also noted that in the way American sushi is sold and consumed in Tokyo, there is a significant element of playful fetishist behaviour involved. In
this respect this case differs markedly from such instances as McDonald’s in Japan (with their much discussed teriyaki burgers; less discussed are their fried

potato with nori flavour, or croquette burger); these products were designed by large US corporations to specifically target Japanese who, they believed,
wanted familiar flavours in alien food types with fast food convenience; that is Japanese influence inserted into a US-based product which retained the
signifier “America.” In American sushi, the product with its own American branding has already become exotic – a Japanese product with American
influences inserted – but it has retained the signifier “Japan.” So when it is consumed in Japan it is as though consumers are eating the others’ versions of
their own food. And consumers eat it with curiosity, playfulness, and at times even with irony, conscious that they are consuming others’ perceptions of
something they are familiar with in its “authentic” Japanese form.

It is apparent that sushi is becoming increasingly sophisticated both overseas and in Japan, as it is adapted to new environments and tastes by chefs who
demonstrate multiple culinary influences and agendas. In each of its iterations the signifier “Japan” is retained. And now sushi has come home to Japan in a
new guise, which relies on overlaying the “Japaneseness” of sushi with the signifier “the US” in creating its chic appeal in Tokyo. The tight linkages

between foreign, cool, hip, different, omoshiroi, and the new and original sushi labelled with “the US” as branding, are undeniable. This reverse movement,
where products and ideas move from the “origin” to other destinations, and then return, transformed, to the “origin” replete with added meanings,
illustrates a complex dimension of globalisation that has rarely been addressed. Interestingly, Japanese consumers seem to have embraced the new fetish of
this American sushi. Perhaps this reflects the growing confidence of Japanese consumers to ironically and playfully consume the other’s version of
something of their own as a fetish – a sign perhaps that globalisation processes may be becoming increasingly sophisticated over time and exposure to
global forces.

Matt Allen is professor and head of the School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong, Australia, and a Japan Focus associate. Rumi Sakamoto is a senior
lecturer in the School of Asian Studies, the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and a Japan Focus associate. Rumi and Matt are coeditors of Popular Culture,

Globalization and Japan.

Recommended citation: Matthew Allen and Rumi Sakamoto, Sushi Reverses Course: Consuming American Sushi in Tokyo, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 5 No 2,
January 31, 2011.

Endnotes

1 The number of Japanese restaurants outside Japan could be considerably larger than the government’s estimate; Mr Uesawa, from the Tokyo Sushi
Academy, for example, informed us in a 2009 interview that there were more than 30,000 Japanese restaurants overseas, though the actual numbers were
difficult to get and can be possibly even larger than this.

2 There is increasing interest in Japanese food in English-language scholarship. See, for example, Rass and Assmann (2010) and Ishige Naomichi (2001) that
examine the history of Japanese food, as well as Aoyama Tomoko (2008)’s work on Japanese food in literature. A few others have looked at how “foreign”
food such as curry has been adopted in Japan (Morieda 2000; Cwiertka 2005). See Krishnendu Ray (2004) on Indian consumption patterns in US.

3 See Gavan McCormack’s Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (2007) for a detailed discussion of what he refers to as the client relationship between
Japan and the US, citing both the 1947 Constitution and the US-Japan Security Alliance as the foundations for the dependence of Japan on the US.

4 And this trend has since spread to the rest of the world. For example, makizushi now accounts for more than 75 percent of all sushi sales in New Zealand
(Nick Katsoulis, owner of St. Pierre’s Sushi, interview Auckland, 16 May 2008).

5 Sushi in Japan does include many forms of rolled sushi, but these are commonly seen as supplements to nigirizushi, which is far more popular.

6 These restaurants are often small, boutique sushi establishments, where the prices are not printed on menus and customers rely on the chef to provide

then with what he (it is always a male who runs such stores) thinks is appropriate for the individual patron. This system is referred to as ‘omakase’ (literally
to trust in the chef’s judgement) and is similar to the French idea of a gustacion menu.

7 Although in places like Shin-ōkubo ‘Korea Town’ one finds Korean-owned sushi restaurants that sell kimbap (a Korean rice roll similar to makizushi, but
without vinegar and with sesame flavouring, and commonly pickled radish and beef fillings), the reverse import sushi in Tokyo has been largely an
‘American’ phenomenon. There are a couple of French and Italian inspired sushi restaurants owned by Japanese, as well as a couple of branches of a high-
profile Hong Kong sushi restaurant, but they mostly serve ‘traditional’ Japanese sushi plus some US-style creative sushi, rather than distinctively French,
Italian or Hong-Kong inflected versions of sushi. One slightly different case is a ‘Handroll sushi’ café that opened in 2010 in Osaka, which serves

‘Australian-style’ handroll sushi (uncut roll sushi that are shorter and fatter than Japanese hosomaki roll, with a larger proportion of fillings like avocado and
deep-fried chicken).

8 According to The New York Times (Tabuchi 2010), the restaurant business in Japan is in decline, and sales in 2009 dropped almost 3 percent from 2008
figures. Sushi businesses have also suffered, but there has been an increase in the number of successful low-end kaitenzushi (conveyer belt-served sushi)
such as the 260 restaurant Kura chain, which uses a low-price, heavily-automated system of manufacture and delivery.

9 According to Hirotaka Matsumoto (a Japanese sushi restaurant owner who became a food researcher), the 1977 publication of Dietary Goals for the United
States by the US Senate’s Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs was instrumental in creating the conditions in which the sushi boom took place
in the US. The report warned readers of the unhealthy nature of the average American’s diet, and recommended that Americans eat less meat and more
fish. This, he argues, in combination with the idea that raw food is healthier than cooked or processed food, made sushi suddenly popular (Matsumoto
2002: 10-12). While such views need to be treated with extreme caution because the ascribed causality is rather over-simplified, health concern is perhaps a
long term factor behind sushi’s sustained popularity in the US.

10 Matsumoto estimates that the number of Japanese restaurants in the US increased from 3,300 in 1993 to 4,100 in 1995 and that the increase was largely
due to the increase of fast food sushi outlets (Matsumoto 2002: 32).

11 A sushi robot shapes rice into uniformly-sized pieces. Such a machine can produce up to 3,600 sushi pieces per an hour, and is much more economical
than hiring trained chefs.

12 Sushi’s incarnation outside Japan, however, is often quite different from that within Japan. In China, one finds Beijing roll made with Beijing duck; in
Hawaii, there is spam sushi; in Singapore, there is curry sushi; and in Australia there is smoked chicken and avocado – the most popular type of sushi.
Check to see whether this repeats what is in text. According to the owners of Sushi Train restaurants in Sydney and Cairns, and a variety of other owners of
sushi bars in Sydney, Australians consume more smoked chicken and avocado than any other single variety. However, raw salmon and avocado has
become increasingly popular in recent years.

13 Interview with staff at the Japan Restaurant Organisation, Tokyo, 11 January 2009.

14 While the number of self-proclaimed “American sushi” restaurants is still very limited (we have identified around 20 such restaurants with some online
presence in Tokyo), US- style sushi – sometimes called “creative,” “new wave,” “fusion” or “fashion” sushi without professing to be American – is now

served everywhere in Japan. In many kaitenzushi, as well as casual “sushi dining” and upmarket “sushi bars” and fusion restaurants, one finds avocado,
cheese, mayonnaise, chilli pepper and other new ingredients alongside more “traditional” tuna and shellfish. While highly trained edomae sushi chefs and
patrons of exclusive and traditional tachino sushi are likely to dismiss the new-style sushi, American-style sushi has definitely permeated the mainstream,
becoming one of the factors behind the current sushi boom and opening the door to other foreign sushi restaurants such as “French,” “Italian” or
“Australian” (but seemingly never “Asian”) reverse-import sushi shops. For the Japanese sushi industry, part of the attraction of American sushi is the

higher profit margin of rolled sushi (up to 80%) compared to that for nigiri with raw fish (40-50% on average). With the increasingly competitive market and
the uncertainty that surrounds the price and availability of raw fish such as tuna, even traditionally trained sushi chefs have begun to learn how to make
American sushi. Sushi industry magazines now regularly carry reports on overseas trends and recipes for new and creative sushi, and American chefs are
invited at seminars and cooking demonstrations for Japanese sushi chefs (Nikkei BP Net 2002). A number of recipe books that cover American-style rolled

sushi have also been published.

15 All prices are as of 2009.

16 Currently Tokyo and other Japanese cities have policies that prohibit smoking in public places. According to one of our informants in Tokyo, these
policies have led to a substantial rise in smoking within Japanese restaurants and bars.

17 While Genji uses raw tuna – by far the most popular ingredients for sushi in Japan – in their ‘California-don’, California Rolls in the US are typically
made with avocado (a replacement of tuna), imitation crab or sometimes with cooked and tinned tuna (known as “sea-chicken” in Japan).

18 See Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (1993)’s account of the importance of rice in the Japanese diet.

19 In interviews with customers at the Roppongi Genji restaurant, most said they were initially interested in trying the sushi because it was “omoshirosō”
(appeared curious); others said that they liked the funiki (feeling/atmosphere) of the restaurant. There was a strong sense of curiosity evinced by the mostly
young people we spoke with.

20 Of course, Japan occupies an ambivalent position in the “west and the rest” scheme due to its early and thorough westernisation and becoming the only
colonial power in Asia. We need to be careful not to treat Asian ‘countercurrents’ as one monolithic trend.

21 As we have noted, though, Korean sushi in its kimbap form, and with specifically Korean fillings is available in Korea Town – Shin-ōkubo – in Tokyo, for
example, but in terms of a product specifically aimed at sophisticated consumers, American sushi has a particular “gloss” that appeals.

22 Rainbow Roll Sushi is even considering opening branches in New York, Paris and London (Kato 2002: 221). If this happens, this will add another stage to
the already complex domestication-exportation process. It opened its first overseas branch in Taipei in 2009.

23 What makes this process of domesticating the imported version of the domestic so fascinating in this context is that Japan has so readily mixed fusions
into everyday cooking practices. Imported foods such as Italian, Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, Mongolian and other exotic restaurants are all
domesticated to meet local tastes, as such restaurants are in most parts of the world.

24 For concepts of social capital, see Bourdieu (1977) and Putnam (2000).

25 Among obvious questions Japanese consumers could ask is: can you tell that it is “authentic” by the number of foreigners eating there?

26 Presumably, too, for expatriates living in Japan, there is an air of nostalgia attached to restaurants with such names.

27 The Korean Wave, driven initially by the popularity of Korean television dramas, has become more sophisticated today, and young pop idols from Korea
have a new fan base among young Japanese women, primarily. The areas around Shin-Okubo are crowded with young women buying pop music, and
accessories, and eating in Korean sushi restaurants.

28 There are, however, a number of fashionable bars and restaurants, where sushi is served in combination with Italian or French food, usually with wine.

29 It should be noted too that the US also maintains a very significant military presence in Okinawa and some other parts of Japan, strongly influencing
Japanese politics and military strategy, a position that is very unpopular with sectors of the Japanese, and particularly the Okinawan, public.

Works Cited

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‘About RRS’ Rainbow Roll Sushi. Rainbow Roll Sushi, n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2009. (link)

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Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 4 | Number 2 | Jan 26, 201

5

1

‘Only a disciplined people can build a nation’: North Korean
Mass Games and Third Worldism in Guyana, 1980-1992 「鍛錬
された民のみぞ国づくりに役立つ」ガイアナにおける北朝鮮のマスゲー
ムと第三世界主義 1980-199

2

Moe Taylor

Abstract: As the 1970s drew to a close, Forbes
Burnham (1923-85), Guyana’s controversial
leader of 21 years, received Pyongyang’s
assistance in importing the North Korean
tradition of Mass Games, establishing them as
a major facet of the nation’s cultural and
political life during the 1980-92 period. The
current study documents this episode in
Guyanese history and seeks to explain why the
B u r n h a m r e g i m e p r i o r i t i z e d s u c h a n
experiment in a time of austerity and crisis, its
ideological foundations, and how Guyanese
interpreted and responded to Mass Games.

I argue that the Burnham regime’s enthusiasm
for Mass Games can in large part be explained
by their adherence to a particular tradition of
socialist thought which holds education and
culture as the foundation of development.
While such a conception of socialism has roots
in the early Soviet Union and, in the case of
Guyana, was greatly influenced by the North
Korean model, it was also shaped by local and
regional contexts.

The deep aversion of parents to their children
losing class time to Mass Games training, along
with ethnic division and Indo-Guyanese hostility
to the Afro-Guyanese dominated government in
particular, proved the central obstacles to
widespread public support for the project.
Despite these contradictions, Mass Games,
which took on a local flavour distinct from its
North Korean progenitor, did in fact resonate
with those who believed in Burnham’s promise
of a brighter, socialist future, while also

appealing to a certain widespread longing
w i t h i n G u y a n e s e c u l t u r e f o r a m o r e
” d i s c i p l i n e d ” s o c i e t y .

Introduction

In the final months of 1979, while the Iran
hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan dominated international headlines,
the approximately 750,000 citizens of the South
American republic of Guyana (formerly British
Guiana) were informed by state-owned media
about the coming arrival of a strange and
mysterious new thing called Mass Games, a
spectacle event that would be, according to one
editorial, “the most magnificent in the history
o f o u r c o u n t r y . ” 1 I t w o u l d r e q u i r e t h e
mandatory participation of their children in
primary and secondary school, parents were
told, and would take place at the National Park
a u d i t o r i u m o n 2 3 F e b r u a r y 1 9 8 0 t o
commemorate the tenth anniversary of the
founding of the Co-operative Republic, as part
of the broader Mashramani celebrations
( G u y a n a ‘ s v e r s i o n o f C a r n i v a l ) . I t w a s
presented to Guyanese as both a performance,
a spectacle, implying entertainment; but also as
fundamentally educational in nature, a project
of the Ministry of Education whose primary
value lay in what it stood to offer the nation’s
youth. It was also made clear that this event
was the latest fruit of fraternal cooperation
between Guyana and the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK), which had taken on

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2

2

increasing importance in the life of the country
during the last six years. It was the dawning of
a decade in which North Korean-style Mass
Games became a major facet of the cultural and
political life of Guyana, and it is this episode in
Cold War international relations the present
study seeks to document. More specifically this
article examines the ideological, political and
cultural factors which moved the ruling
People’s National Congress (PNC) to import
and adapt North Korean Mass Games, and how
Guyanese interpreted and responded to the
state-driven experiment.

Guyana, North Korea and the Burnham Era

Guyana is the sole English-speaking country in
South America, bordering Venezuela, Brazil
and Suriname on the northern coast but
culturally affiliated with the Anglophone
Caribbean. First inhabited by indigenous
Amerindian peoples, successive periods of
colonial rule by the Netherlands (1648-1814)
and Britain (1814-1966) saw the arrival of
slaves from Africa and indentured labourers
from India, China and Portugal (in particular
the island of Madeira), forging a pluralistic
society with six official ethnic groups. However
modern society and politics would largely be
shaped by the often troubled relations between
the two largest communities: Indo-Guyanese,
mostly Hindu with a sizable Muslim minority,
working the sugar estates and rice farms of the
r u r a l c o a s t l a n d , a n d A f r o – G u y a n e s e ,
predominantly Christian, concentrated in the
capital and employed primarily in the civil
service, security forces, mining and urban work
force. Historically Indo-Guyanese constituted
the single largest group; by 1970 for example,
t h e y r e p r e s e n t e d 5 1 . 4 p e r c e n t o f t h e
population, with Afro-Guyanese constituting
30.6 percent.2

The arrival of North Korean Mass Games in
Guyana at the dawn of the 1980s was the latest
episode in the controversial 21-year reign of
Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (1923-85),

leader of the People’s National Congress
(PNC). A London-educated Afro-Guyanese
lawyer and trade unionist, Burnham’s political
career began with the anti-colonial and labour
struggles of the early 1950s in the then
recently established People’s Progressive Party
(PPP), led by the Indo-Guyanese dentist and
fellow trade unionist, Cheddi Jagan. As the
Marxist leanings of Jagan and other PPP
leaders stoked British and American fears
about a communist takeover in the colony,
Burnham led a breakaway faction that would
become the PNC in 1957, positioning himself as
a moderate socialist who would protect private
property and welcome foreign investment, in
contrast to the supposedly Stalinist Jagan.
Guyana’s electoral arena was torn along ethnic
lines, with most Indo-Guyanese backing Jagan
and most Afro-Guyanese following Burnham,
while Washington decided the latter best
served its agenda of curbing Soviet influence in
the region. Covert intervention by the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the 1960s was
instrumental in the PNC’s ascension to power,
a dark period marred by ethnic violence,
sabotage and labour unrest.3 Burnham was
elected Premier in December 1964 in coalition
with the right-wing United Force (UF), and
became Prime Minister with Britain’s granting
of independence in May 1966. As Guyana
stepped into independent statehood, Burnham
inherited an underdeveloped plantation
economy dominated by the production of sugar,
rice and bauxite for export, and a population
deeply divided by years of communal strife.

The first indication that the honeymoon
between Burnham and his American patrons
would be short-lived came on 23 February
1970, when, having shed his cumbersome
coalition partner in a rigged 1968 election,
Burnham formally declared Guyana a “Co-
operative Republic,” and proclaimed a new
revolutionary course for the nation under an
official ideology he called “co-operative
socialism.” He vowed to “establish firmly and
irrevocably the co-operative as the means of

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3

m a k i n g t h e s m a l l m a n a r e a l m a n 4 a n d
changing, in a revolutionary fashion, the social
and economic relationships to which we have
been heir as part of pure monarchial legacy.”5

Like the Juche idea in North Korea, co-
operative socialism would be simultaneously
articulated as the brainchild of the maximum
leader and as an indigenous adaptation of
Marxism-Leninism, based in Guyanese history
and conditions.6 At its core was the principle of
self-reliance (primarily manifested in the
nationalization of all foreign-owned enterprises
a n d t h e b a n n i n g o f i m p o r t s d e e m e d
unessential), a multitude of ambitious
educational and cultural reforms designed to
create a “new man” free of colonial influences,
and a programme, never fully realized, to build
a new economic structure based on co-
operatives. In explaining this sudden shift to
the Left, the Comrade Leader (the formal title
Burnham adopted in the 1970s) maintained
that he had always been a Marxist, but had the
wisdom and tact to put ideology aside until he
had secured independence for his country.
W h i l e t h e r e w a s s o m e b l o w b a c k f r o m
Washington, the PNC regime was spared the
kind of overt American hostility received by
other Leftist states of the region in the same
period; with the staunchly pro-Soviet PPP the
only other serious contender for power,
Burnham remained the lesser evil in the eyes of
Washington throughout the Cold War.

Burnham’s foreign policy priorities were
securing aid, favorable trade agreements and
outside support in Guyana’s territorial disputes
with neighbors Venezuela and Suriname,
particularly the former, which historically
claims two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and was
threatening military action in the period. As
Burnham snubbed the Western powers which
had once backed him as Guyana’s best defence
against communism, he hoped to find an
alternate source of support in the socialist bloc
and Non-Aligned Movement. The outcome of
these efforts presents an interesting case study
of what options existed for developing

countries located in “America’s backyard”
against the politics of the Cold War and the
Sino-Soviet rivalry. Traditionally, the Soviet
Union recognized Burnham’s opposition, the
PPP, as the legitimate Marxist-Leninist party in
Guyana. With Burnham’s rise to power having
been bankrolled by the CIA, and his routine
condemnation of the “Soviet threat” during his
opposition years, the Brezhnev administration
had plenty of reason to be sceptical. Moscow’s
r e a c t i o n w a s t o r e c o g n i z e G u y a n a a s a
“socialist-oriented” (rather than socialist)
country, rejecting Burnham’s bid to have the
P N C a d m i t t e d i n t o t h e C o m m u n i s t
International (reserving that honour for the
PPP), and his request that Guyana be accepted
i n t o t h e C o u n c i l f o r M u t u a l E c o n o m i c
Assistance (COMECON), 7 the economic
organization of socialist states. At the same
time, Moscow continued its fraternal relations
with Burnham’s opposition, and offered
scholarships to Guyanese students – not
through formal government channels, but
through the PPP. By the late 1970s there was
thinly-veiled animosity between the two states,
with the PNC charging Moscow with “flip-
flopping” on commitments of aid and of
supporting a “fifth column” within Guyana.

8

Cuba was a more constructive ally, and
provided Guyana with substantial medical
personnel, scholarships and military aid.
However the Cuban Communist Party (PCC)
had also traditionally been aligned with
Burnham’s opposition, and provided guerilla
training to PPP militants. Burnham grew
frustrated with what was perceived as Fidel
Castro’s unwelcome interest in influencing the
course of Guyana’s “revolution,” and in 1978
five Cuban diplomats were expelled for
allegedly offering guerrilla training to members
of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA),
Guyana’s second major Left opposition group.

9

In June of 1972 Guyana became the first
country in the Commonwealth Caribbean to
recognize the People’s Republic of China,

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4

thereby accessing a vital market for Guyanese
sugar and bauxite and becoming the recipient
o f s u b s t a n t i a l a i d , m o s t n o t a b l y t h e
construction of a textile mill and clay brick
factory in the mid-1970s. 10 However Beijing’s
p o l i c y i n t h e r e g i o n w a s c a u t i o u s a n d
pragmatic, unwilling to back insurgencies or
shore up Leftist governments under threat, and
by the late 1970s it was drastically curtailing
aid to even its closest allies in the Third
World.11 Moreover, in the context of the Sino-
Soviet rivalry, Burnham’s overtures towards
China only exacerbated tensions with Moscow.

Burnham was a zealous champion of the Non-
Aligned Movement (NAM), hosting the 1972
Non-Aligned Foreign Ministers Conference, an
occasion he used to unveil a monument to
movement founders Nasser, Nkrumah, Nehru
and Titoin the capital. But as a coalition of
developing nations facing their own economic
difficulties, NAM could hardly be a source of
capital, nor could it be of much assistance in
the event of a military conflict with Venezuela.
And like other Third World leaders, Burnham
discovered that strident support for the “Arab
cause” in international fora – which the PNC
took active part in – was not guaranteed to be
repaid in Middle Eastern oil dollars.

However, the PNC’s foreign policy objectives
proved neatly compatible with those of another
country eagerly seeking new allies on the
international stage in the same period: North
Korea. The two states became natural allies as
their respective representatives came face to
face via the Non-Alignment Movement in which
both took an active role. Charles Armstrong
(2013) described this phase in North Korean
foreign policy thusly:

T h e 1 9 7 0 s w e r e a d e c a d e o f
unprecedented outward expansion
for North Korea. Admission to
several UN bodies, active lobbying
at the UN General Assembly, a
successful diplomatic offensive in

t h e T h i r d W o r l d , a n d n e w
economic and political ties to
advanced capitalist countries all
reflected a new global presence for
the DPRK. Long a partisan of the
socialist side in the global Cold
War, Kim Il Sung presented his
c o u n t r y i n t h i s d e c a d e a s
“nonaligned,” and a model for
postcolonial nation-building.

12

While Pyongyang had begun reaching out to
governments in Asia, the Middle East and
Africa in the 1960s, it extended this activity
into Latin America and the Caribbean with
renewed vigour by the following decade.

13

Pyongyang succeeded in building a substantial
base of support among the radical and non-
aligned governments of Africa and the Middle
East, but encountered more difficult terrain in
Latin America and the Caribbean, where in the
turbulent atmosphere of the Cold War potential
allies were few and their time in power often
short. One notable exception was Cuba, and
North Korea established diplomatic relations
with it in August 1960. However while friendly
cooperation between the two states existed,
there was a discernable distance as well,
suggesting that the Cuban leadership’s
commitment to Moscow, and North Korea’s
ambiguous position in the Sino-Soviet split,
placed certain limits on the potential of such a
partnership.

North Korea’s Third World diplomacy was in
large part an attempt to build international
support for its geo-political objectives in the
Korean peninsula, and its strategy was not
unsuccessful: votes from Third World states
made possible a number of political victories at
the United Nations in this period.14 Meanwhile
Guyana under Burnham’s leadership had
gained a reputation for its outspoken support of
radical causes worldwide – from the Palestinian
intifada to Basque separatism – and became
one of the most vocal advocates of North Korea

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5

on the world stage. Guyana consistently
defended North Korea in international fora,
hosted the first “Latin American-Caribbean
Conference for the Independent and Peaceful
Reunification of Korea” in January 1979, and
played a leading role in similar activities
worldwide.

While for the Soviets and Cubans the PNC’s
distance from orthodox Marxism-Leninism was
a flaw, diplomatic pronouncements from North
Korea praised the fact that co-operative
socialism, like Juche, was a “unique line” of a
national character, and furthermore one which
incorporated the self-reliance philosophy of
Kim Il Sung. 1 5 Relatedly, it appears that
idiosyncratic regimes like the PNC, lacking a
firm commitment to the Soviets or Chinese,
were attractive allies to Pyongyang because it
allowed them the opportunity to play the
patron-mentor role so important to their
desired domestic and international image. If
the Soviets had Cuba and the Chinese had
Albania, North Korea could boast that Guyana
was “carrying out socialist construction under
the banner of the Juche idea created by the
great leader Comrade Kim Il-Sung.”1

6

Forbes Burnham and Kim Il-Sung in
Pyongyang, late 1970s

In addition to the pragmatic need for aid and
diplomatic support, other factors drew the PNC
to North Korea. In the prevailing atmosphere of
T h i r d W o r l d i s m , a n d t h e B l a c k P o w e r
movement rocking the Caribbean of the 1970s,
Soviet socialism had limited credibility; at the
s a m e t i m e , M a o i s m w a s n o t u s e f u l t o a
thoroughly urban-based ruling party encircled
by a hostile countryside. By contrast, Juche
seemed to perfectly reinforce the Burnham
brand, notably his obsession with self-reliance,
his emotionally-tuned nationalism and his faith
in the power of education and culture to
transform concrete reality. North Korea’s self-
identification as a member of the Third World,
and Kim Il Sung’s emphasis on anti-imperialism
and the attention he paid to issues facing post-
colonial states had a special appeal to the left-
wing of the PNC, as it did to other Third World
radicals. By the 1970s North Korea had
recovered from the devastation of the Korean
War, underwent rapid industrialization and
developed a seemingly robust economy; to the
scores of Latin American and Caribbean
activists, intellectuals and artists who made the
pilgrimage, the grandeur of Pyongyang seemed
to offer proof that the so-called Third World
could in fact achieve rapid development
through a socialist path.1

7

State media coverage of the first Guyanese
Mass Games in 1980

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6

The outcome of this diplomatic junction was
roughly a decade of extensive political,
economic, military and cultural relations
b e t w e e n G u y a n a a n d N o r t h K o r e a
unprecedented in the Western hemisphere.
North Korea’s extensive aid focused on
supporting the regime’s goal of self-sufficiency
in food; this included material gifts (e.g.
tractors, harrows, boat motors), efforts to raise
the productivity of traditional food sectors such
as rice and fishing, as well as agricultural
projects designed to introduce new crops
Guyana had to otherwise import, such as
potatoes. North Korea also aided the PNC’s
desire to vastly expand its military capabilities –
particularly in the areas of artillery and naval
warfare – in preparation for a potential conflict
with Venezuela. Burnham’s former vice-
president Hamilton Green has even alleged
there were North Korean troops stationed
along the Guyana-Venezuela border, prepared
to impel any incursion,18 although such claims
have been vigorously disputed. Nevertheless,
N o r t h K o r e a n a g r o n o m i s t s , c h e m i s t s ,
engineers, doctors and military officers, as well
as contingents of English students, become
guests in the country, as Juche study groups
popped up in every major city and town, and
party members and civil servants were
implored to attend public rallies in solidarity
w i t h t h e i r c o m r a d e s i n A s i a . C u l t u r a l
collaboration flourished as well, as North
Korean and Guyanese artists, musicians and
dancers engaged in state-sponsored exchanges,
c o l l a b o r a t i n g a n d p e r f o r m i n g i n b o t h
Pyongyang and Georgetown. North Korea’s
most substantial gifts in material terms
included the construction of a glass factory at
Yarrowkabra and Guyana’s first acupuncture
clinic, staffed by North Koreans, in the capital;
h o w e v e r , s e v e r a l o t h e r p r o j e c t s w e r e
announced or initiated only to be abandoned
following Burnham’s death in 6 August 1985.
Burnham’s successor, Desmond Hoyte,
representing the “right-wing” of the PNC,
believed Guyana’s long-term interests were
better served repairing its relationship with

Washington and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), and his ascension to power began
the gradual decline of the North Korean
partnership in the 1985-92 period. The aborted
North Korean ventures included a small hydro-
electric project in the north-west, a spare parts
factory capable of producing ten to fifteen tons
annually, a gold mining operation in the
interior, a new national stadium in the capital
capable of seating 20,000, and a North Korean-
style “Students and Children’s Palace.”

Mass Games

While Mass Games in North Korea were first
observed by PNC leaders during the latter half
of the 1970s, they date back to the birth of the
Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea
following liberation from Japanese rule in
A u g u s t 1 9 4 5 . A l t h o u g h t h e h i s t o r i c a l
development of Mass Games is beyond the
scope of this article, they have their roots in the
European group-gymnastics clubs of the
nineteenth-century, whose traditions were
eventually adopted by socialist parties and
became part of the cultural sphere of the early
Soviet Union (see Nolte 2002, Stites 2009,
Burnett 2013, Frank 2013). It should be noted
however that mass spectacle and mass
mobilization were part of a broader zeitgeist of
the interwar period, appealing to ideologues
and artists of both the Left and Right, and mass
gymnastics displays made their appearance in a
number of European countries. Their most
recent incarnation in North Korea commenced
in 2002 under the formal name TheGrand Mass
Gymnastics and Artistic Performance Arirang.
(“Arirang” is the title of a traditional folk song,
which, through the metaphor of two separated
lovers, has become a kind of anthem of Korean
reunification).19 Today an Arirang performance
in North Korea involves approximately 100,000
performers, the bulk of them primary and
middle school students, and typically takes
place annually in August through September in
Pyongyang’s massive Rungnado May Day
S t a d i u m

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungnado_May_Day_Stadium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungnado_May_Day_Stadium

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7

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungnado_May_D
ay_Stadium).20 They are without comparison the
largest choreographed performance in the
world.

21

There are three central components to Mass
Games: gymnastics, music, and the panoramic
backdrop; however the gymnastics portion is
supplemented with dance, singing, drama, and
in recent years the entire performance has
been enhanced with lasers and pyrotechnics.
The gymnastics are mass group gymnastics,
whose dazzling effect is achieved through the
s h e e r n u m b e r o f b o d i e s p e r f o r m i n g i n
synchronized unity. The backdrop is created
through tens of thousands of children aligned
in one side of the stadium seats holding books
of illustrated cards positioned contigously with
each other to give the illusion of an imperforate
surface; by changing the pages of the book in
precisely coordinated unison following the
signals of a conductor, the backdrop image is
transformed throughout the performance. The
entire spectacle is coordinated to thematic
music, which according to Burnett (2013) can
bring to mind, conversely, “a four-part
Christian-style hymn, military march, operatic
quasi-recitative, folk song, classical symphony
or ballet, or Hollywood Golden Age film
score.”

22

The Guyana Committee for Solidarity and
P e a c e h o s t s a n e v e n t f o r ” M o n t h o f
Solidarity with the DPRK,” June 1980, at

the Guyana Mines Workers Union hall in
Linden. Left to right: Committee President
Edwin James, Committee Secretary Jean
Smith and Sim Sang Guk of the DPRK
embassy.

Kim Jong-il, in his April 1987 speech “On
Furthering Mass Games Gymnastics,” divides
the value of Mass Games into three areas: its
impact on the development of the children
participating as performers, its impact on the
“party members and workers” who constitute
the audience, and its contribution to North
Korea’s relations with foreign countries.

23

Firstly, Mass Games plays an important role in
turning school children into “fully developed
communist people.”24 His definition of such
people merges the intellectual with the
physical, and contains echoes of the same
language used by nineteenth century European
advocates of mass gymnastics: “one must
a c q u i r e a r e v o l u t i o n a r y i d e o l o g y , t h e
knowledge of many fields, rich cultural
a t t a i n m e n t s a n d a h e a l t h y a n d s t r o n g
physique.”25 While Mass Games are an excellent
way to “foster particularly healthy and strong
physiques,”26 they also install “a high degree of
organization, discipline and collectivism,”27 as
the performance forces them to “make every
effort to subordinate all their thoughts and
actions to the collective.”28 While participating
in Mass Games helps mold school children to
become ideal citizens, they also educate the
a d u l t a u d i e n c e , a s a f o r m o f i d e o l o g y –
reinforcing entertainment: “they are a major
means of firmly equipping the Party members
and other working people with the Juche idea
and of demonstrating the validity and vitality of
our Party’s lines and policies.”29 They remind
North Koreans of “the line and policy put
forward by our Party on the basis of the Juche
idea at each period and stage of the revolution,
as well as the history and achievements of the
struggle of our Party and people to carry them
out.”30 And lastly, Kim Jong-il explains that by
inviting foreigners to attend Mass Games, as

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungnado_May_Day_Stadium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungnado_May_Day_Stadium

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8

well as working to assist other nations in
a d a p t i n g M a s s G a m e s , N o r t h K o r e a ‘ s
international prestige is enhanced while “trust
between our country and other countries is
deepened.”31

Mass Games come to Guyana

North Korean Mass Games instructor Kim
Il Nam (far left) oversees Guyanese
students preparing the backdrop for the
first Guyanese Mass Games in 1980.

In September 1979 a seven-member team of
North Korean Mass Games instructors arrived
at Guyana’s Timehri International Airport. They
were headed by visual artist Kim Il Nam,
reported to have ten years of experience in
Mass Games training and personally selected
for the mission by Kim Il Sung himself.3 2

According to the Guyanese press, the group
spent two months familiarizing themselves with
Guyanese history and culture, touring schools,
factories, farms, historical sites, and Guyana’s
famous Kaiteur Falls.33 This was followed by
three weeks of training school teachers, and
two and half months of training student
participants.34 During this final phase, the
illustration work to create the panoramic
backdrop went on eleven hours a day in
alternating shifts at the Sophia auditorium,
while gymnasts and dancers trained five hours
a day with North Korean instructors and the
well-known Guyanese performer Dawn

Schultz.35 Burnham apparently visited often to
observe these preparations firsthand.36 Father
Andrew Morrison (1919-2004), a Jesuit,
opposition activist and tireless critic of Mass
Games, claimed that for the occasion the
government imported eight tons of decorations
from North Korea, 100,000 balloons from North
America and distributed 200,000 lapel buttons
bearing Burnham’s image.37

Initial efforts to recruit a prominent Guyanese
artist to the position of artistic director were
unsuccessful. Keith Agard, known as a devout
member of the Nichiren Buddhist Soka Gakkai
sect and for his Mandala-like paintings full of
heady cosmic-mystical themes, politely
declined the offer, as did the well-known
abstract painter and draughtsman Dudley
Charles; both were apprehensive over its highly
structured format and political orientation. The
job went to George Simon, a Lokono Arawak
painter and graphic artist who had once
studied fine art at the University of Portsmouth
in England, at the time working as a lecturer at
Guyana’s E.R. Burrowes School of Art. Today a
renowned painter (and archeologist) known for
his acrylic paintings steeped in Amerindian
folklore and spirituality, Simon may have
s e e m e d a n u n l i k e l y c a n d i d a t e , b u t h i s
background in graphic art engendered an
appreciation for the new medium.38 “I suppose I
took to it,” Simon recalls,

…because as a printmaker, one
had to restrict oneself to get an
i m a g e o n t o p r i n t . I f i t w a s a
silkscreen print that one was
preparing, one had to prepare the
drawings in a particular way to suit
that technique. If it was lithograph,
t h e n a g a i n , t h e r e i s s o m e
r e s t r i c t i o n . A n d s o i t i s w i t h
intaglio printmaking. So it didn’t
bother me. I understood that to
make this work, and to make these
drawings be dynamic, they had to

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9

be simple, yet it had to have the
p u n c h t h a t w o u l d m a k e i t a
s p e c t a c l e .

Following an apprenticeship period in which
Simon learned the new techniques from his
North Korean teachers, the 50×80 centimeter
boards that together constituted the panoramic
backdrop were painted by students from the
E . R . B u r r o w e s S c h o o l o f A r t u n d e r t h e
supervision of Simon and the North Koreans.39

As artistic director, Simon also served as the
conductor during the performances, who
directs the succession of backdrop images with
a series of coloured flags.

Appointed as musical director was Patricia
Cambridge, who had graduated from America’s
B o s t o n C o n s e r v a t o r y i n 1 9 7 5 a n d h a d
previously worked for Guyana’s Ministry of
Culture. Cambridge describes her compositions
for Mass Games as “eclectic in style to match
the choreography and the overall storyline”40

which included “some calypso-flavored
elements, folk songs, national songs, and
marching music woven into the production.”41

This music in turn was performed by the
Guyana Police Forces Band aided by the City
School’s Choir.

How much creative freedom did people like
George Simon and Patricia Cambridge have?
Both artists describe a process in which the
Ministry of Education deferred to their
judgement and vision in terms of design and
composition; however they worked under the
understanding that their output must reflect
the themes and messages presented to them.
Their preliminary work needed to be approved
by the Minister of Education, who was tasked
b y t h e P a r t y l e a d e r s h i p w i t h e n s u r i n g
ideological pedigree, and “changes could be
required if anything was deemed ideologically
incorrect.”42 Simon also recalls one year when a
mishap in the performance made the grandiose
portrait of Burnham appear to have one eye

closed, sparking a call in one local newspaper
that the artistic director be punished. 4 3

Although the threatening remarks were never
acted upon, it gives some impression of the
authoritarian atmosphere in which the artists
worked.

As the state-owned media began hyping the
event with much fanfare in the months leadings
up to Mashramani, many Guyanese were
apprehensive and somewhat confused, and
Burnham’s opposition wasted no time in
concluding that Mass Games would “serve no
educational purpose but merely to divert
attention from the general economic and social
situation of the country.” 4 4 The Working
People’s Alliance (WPA), a radical Left
opposition party led by the scholar Walter
Rodney, called for parents and teachers to
boycott the event. Nevertheless, Guyana’s first
Mass Games went ahead on 23 February 1980,
with Burnham, the PNC senior leadership and
foreign diplomats in attendance. Students from
different regions of the coastland were
organized into different chapters: West
Demerara students re-enacted Burnham’s
proclamation of the Co-operative Republic in
1970, while the five chapters handled by
Georgetown students dealt with industry,
agriculture, education, defense and the PNC’s
“Feed, Clothe and House” (FCH) campaign.45

Students from the east coast completed the
b o o k w i t h a f i n a l c h a p t e r o n G u y a n a ‘ s
international relations, the entire performance
taking ninety minutes, as is standard in North
Korea.46

Needless to say, in a country with a population
of approximately 750,000, Guyanese Mass
Games did not approach the grandeur of those
h e l d i n P y o n g y a n g : a t t h e i r p e a k t h e y
n e v e r t h e l e s s i n c l u d e d 3 , 0 0 0 s t u d e n t
performers (780 of whom held the card-books
which constituted the backdrop) drawn from
twenty-six primary and secondary schools
(although a total of 10,000 students were said
to have been involved in an entire production)

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10

a n d t h e b a c k d r o p c h a n g e d s i x t y t i m e s
( c o m p a r e d w i t h 1 8 0 i n a N o r t h K o r e a n
production). If we accept media reports that
tickets for the first Mass Games, which cost
three Guyana dollars, were completely sold out,
we can roughly gauge the attendance, as the
National Park’s open-air auditorium seats
upwards of 10,500. In addition to the main
event open to the public, there were three, free
subsequent performances for school children in
the following weeks, a practise that became
standard.

Guyanese Mass Games, 1983

Although the state-owned media was compelled
to heap praise on the event, its coverage is
useful for conveying an idea of the visual
character of the performance. The journalist
Raschid Osman, writing for the state-owned
Chronicle, offered the following description:

Mass Games came alive yesterday
f o r t h o u s a n d s o f M a s h
[ M a s h r a m a n i ] r e v e l l e r s , a
spectacular sweep of colour and
pageantry and informed by a
precision that had to be seen to be
believed. Viewed for the first time,
Mass Games with their cinema-like
tableaux and seemingly endless

possibilities, prove to be just a bit
awesome.

The giant pictures segmented into
p a g e s o f b o o k s h e l d a l o f t b y
hundreds of children, gymnastics
b y f u r t h e r h u n d r e d s i n t h e
foreground, the swirling rhythm of
gaily-coloured costumes and the
sense of pomp and circumstance
which always accompanies the
unfurling of flags, all merged to
make the performance at the
National Park a memorable one.

At a signal from a director perched
in a box up in the north stand they
turned the leaves and fashioned
pictures relevant to honouring
Prime Minister Forbes Burnham,
economic independence, the
development of agriculture, the
welfare of the people, defending
the Republic, holding high the
banner of anti-imperialism and
independence, and developing
socialist education and culture.

There is little doubt that Mass
Games has instilled the children
with discipline that would be hard
to beat. For the most part, the the
particpants moved as if they were
a l l p a r t s o f o n e b i g m a c h i n e
operated by a single operator.”47

The state-controlled press made out Mass
G a m e s t o b e a m a g n i f i c e n t s u c c e s s o f
tremendous historical importance, even while
quietly acknowledging the “many criticisms”
among the public.48 Mass Games continued
throughout the 1980s, expanding in size and
sophistication under the direction of the
M i n i s t r y o f E d u c a t i o n ‘ s M a s s G a m e s
Secretariat. The North Korean team stayed in
Guyana for nine months, training staff from the
M i n i s t r y o f E d u c a t i o n a s M a s s G a m e s

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11

instructors before departing with a lavish
farewell ceremony hosted by the PNC top brass
at the National Cultural Centre.49 In addition to
the Republic Day performance at Georgetown’s
National Park, additional annual performances
c o m p a r a b l e i n s i z e w e r e h e l d i n t h e
predominantly Indo-Guyanese region of Berbice
on the east coast, and the predominantly Afro-
Guyanese mining town of Linden, Guyana’s
second most populous town. The PNC boasted
that the former involved 2,600 student
performers from thirty-six schools and was
attended by 40,000 local residents.50 By 1982
Mass Games training was incorporated into the
public school system’s year-round physical
education curriculum.51 By the mid-1980s, the
Guyanese military (Guyana Defence Force)
w e r e i n c o r p o r a t e d i n t o t h e a n n u a l
performance, as were members of the Guyana
N a t i o n a l S e r v i c e ( G N S , a c o m p u l s o r y
paramilitary service program for youth). Local
steel bands were also included in subsequent
years, increasing the Caribbean flavour of the
production. As for the WPA’s boycott campaign,
four months after the first Mass Games, party
leader and respected scholar Walter Rodney
was killed by a bomb detonated in his car, in
what is widely accepted to have been an
assassination perpetrated by Burnham’s
security forces. It was a massive blow from
which the party never fully recovered.

Guyanese Mass Games, 1986

The content of Mass Games in Guyana reflected

a distinctly Guyanese appropriation of the
North Korean medium. The portrait of Forbes
B u r n h a m p l a y e d a c e n t r a l r o l e i n t h e
backdrops, as did the image of Kim Il Sung in
North Korea. In general the tone was highly
nationalistic and echoed common PNC themes
of patriotism, education, unity, self-reliance,
non-alignment, and international solidarity.
Inter-ethnic unity and homage to the Guyanese
peoples’ diverse points of ancestry was often
emphasized by, for example, dancers from the
r e s p e c t i v e c o m m u n i t i e s a p p e a r i n g i n
t r a d i t i o n a l d r e s s . T h e c e l e b r a t i o n a n d
encouragement of youth was also a consistent
theme, reflecting the fact that it was this group
who the event was seen as primarily serving.
The backdrops commonly depicted Guyana’s
natural beauty and wildlife, as well as typically
socialist realist-style portrayals of “reality in its
revolutionary development” populated with
happy workers, students and scientists, all
interwoven with standard political slogans such
as “Produce or Perish,” “National Unity for
Prosperity” and “Practise the Virtues of Self-
Reliance.” Another common element was the
recital and visual representation of text from
renowned Guyanese poets, such as Martin
Carter and A.J. Seymour (which was not
without irony, as the former was an opposition
supporter, beaten by PNC militants while
participating in an anti-government rally in
1978). Generally speaking, Mass Games
reflected a Guyanese aesthetic, more free in
form and more cheerful than its North Korean
progenitor. While an ideological factor was
certainly paramount, and the tragic history of
slavery and indentureship were sometimes
i n v o k e d , t h e s e w e r e b l e n d e d w i t h t h e
temperament and rhythms of the Caribbean.
The resulting performance was less bellicose,
less militaristic, more light-hearted and
internationalist; it lacked the solemnity and
hard-hitting character of North Korean Mass
G a m e s , l e a n i n g m o r e t o w a r d s a j o v i a l
patriotism. I asked Yolanda Marshall, a
Guyanese writer and poet who performed in
the 1986 Mass Games as a dancer, to watch a

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12

video recording of a contemporary North
Korean performance and share her thoughts.
She commented:

It is very similar, in terms of the
display cards and gymnastics etc.
Our Mass Games was like a well-
organized Carnival show. Bigger,
brighter costumes, Caribbean
m u s i c , d a n c e s e t c . O u r M a s s
Games resembled some type of an
African celebration from slavery
with a mixture of militancy and
blending of cultures. I personally
feel my Guyanese Mass Games was
more fun, after all, most Guyanese
love to dance to good music.52

The following brief descriptions of a few Mass
Games performances offer examples of their
general style and content. The 1985 Mass
Games, the last one before Burnham’s death in
August of that year, was entitled “Youth –
participation and development for peace.” It
was conceived as a tribute to the United
Nation’s International Youth Year (IYY), and in
addition to this overriding theme, relayed the
story of the arrival of Guyana’s six ethnic
groups through settlement, slavery and
indenture, and congratulated Burnham on the
occasion of his sixty-second birthday.53 The
1986 Mass Games was entitled “Standing up
for Guyana,” and its chapters were “in honour
o f t h e y o u t h o f G u y a n a , t h e c e n t e n a r y
celebration of the Guyana Teachers Association
and Guyana’s eighteenth independence
anniversary.”54

The 1987 Mass Games “Guyana – Oh Beautiful
Guyana” opened with a shower of praise for
Burnham’s successor, Desmond Hoyte, and a
patriotic tribute to the Co-operative Republic.
The subsequent seven chapters were a
celebration of the nation’s natural resources,
devoted in turn to flora, forestry, rivers,
mineral wealth, wildlife, Guyana’s holiday

resorts and a concluding chapter extolling “the
b e a u t y , f i r m s p i r i t , d e t e r m i n a t i o n a n d
resoluteness of the Guyanese people as they
continue to build a united and free country.”55

Mid-way through the performance time was
taken to declare Guyana’s recognition of the
United Nation’s International Year of Shelter
for the Homeless(IYSH).

The 1988 Mass Games, “Guyana – a Nation on
the Move” is particularly interesting, as it was
based on Burnham’s theory of Guyanese history
as the natural and spontaneous impulse
towards co-operative living, supressed under
colonialism but emerging triumphant under the
leadership of the PNC. The performance begins
in the colonial past with the harsh realities of
s l a v e r y a n d i n d e n t u r e d l a b o u r ( n o t ,
interestingly, with Guyana’s indigenous people,
among whom Burnham had posited Guyana’s
original co-operative spirit). In the second
chapter, emancipation has been declared and
free Africans, refusing to continue working on
the plantations as wage-labourers, pool their
resources and establish communal villages
s u s t a i n e d o n a g r i c u l t u r e a n d f i s h i n g .
Subsequent chapters portray the growth of
Caribbean unity, the struggles of sugar workers
and the development of the trade union
movement with Burnham, Jagan56 and Hubert
Critchlow57 as its guiding lights. This leads
towards the achievement of independence, the
proclamation of the Co-operative Republic in
1970, and concludes with Guyana’s march into
the future in a final chapter entitled “Guyana –
Boldly Reaching out for Progress.”58

Why did Guyana adopt Mass Games?

The period in which the Burnham regime
decided to embark on the ambitious and costly
project of bringing Mass Games to Guyana was
one of crisis and austerity. Despite its rhetoric
of self-reliance, the PNC never succeeded in
substantially diversifying the country’s narrow
export base or outgrowing its dependency on
foreign oil and other imports. Like most

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developing nations Guyana was hit hard by the
1973 oil crisis, whose effects were compounded
by mismanagement and corruption in the vastly
expanded state sector and the punitive
measures of the United States, which cut aid
and blocked loans from the Inter-American
Development Bank.5 9 In 1978, a desperate
Burnham turned to the IMF, which in return for
economic assistance demanded an end to
subsidies and massive layoffs in the state
sector, in effect forcing the PNC to punish its
base. A serious rise in crime, goods shortages,
a flourishing black market, labour unrest and
mass outward migration were among the
symptoms. The majority of Indo-Guyanese, the
country’s single largest ethnic group, remained
intransigently opposed to the regime, viewing it
as illegitimate and discriminatory, leading
Burnham to routinely rig elections in order to
remain in power.6 0 Under threat, the PNC
unleashed its security forces and gangs of party
militants on the opposition, and there were
several murders of opposition activists linked to
the government.61 Like many radical regimes
before them, the PNC leadership justified
authoritarian tactics (if not always publically)
on the grounds that “the revolution” required
discipline and steadfastness: democracy was a
luxury they could not afford.

Also like other self-appointed vanguards before
them, the PNC leadership attributed Guyana’s
economic hardships and public discontent in
large part to the low levels of “consciousness”
of the Guyanese masses, something which was,
in their analysis, the product of centuries of
colonial rule. In the worldview presented
through official organs, a citizen with “socialist
consciousness” had full faith in the Party and
was willing to work hard and sacrifice for the
betterment of the nation, exhibiting the virtues
of “self-reliance” and “self-help,” while those
still poisoned with “individualist consciousness”
complained of daily hardships, craved foreign
goods, thought only of their individual plight
and expected others to solve their problems for
t h e m . A n d w h i l e s u c h i d e a s a b o u t

consciousness may have been a Leninist import
unfamiliar in the discourse of ordinary people,
in PNC rhetoric they were closely related to the
theme of “discipline,” something, as we will
see, which was much more ubiquitous in
Guyanese society, forging an intellectual bridge
between the two. “Discipline” became a meme
that filled newspaper editorials, radio
broadcasts and official speeches in the period,
while the government’s “Self-Denial Month”
encouraged citizens to forfeit a portion of their
wages to the state, and volunteer work
brigades were mobilized to aid the sugar
harvest. Typical were New Nation headlines
throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s,
always emblazoned in capital letters: “Every
Citizen A Solider” (a variation of Leon Trotsky’s
“every worker a soldier” slogan adopted during
the Russian Civil War), “Everyone Will Have To
Work Harder,” “Treat Unruly Behaviour
Harshly,” “The Importance Of Sacrifice To The
Nation,” “Grow More Food Now,” “Women
Urged To Be Involved In Higher Productivity,”
“Limers Turned Into Productive Citizens,”62

“Let’s Talk About Indiscipline: at Work, at Play,
at Home, in School, in the Streets.”63

For Burnham, the problem of consciousness in
Guyana left the PNC with the task of creating a
“new man,” of refashioning the minds of
Guyanese with a new value system through
education and cultural revolution.6 4 This
d e c i s i o n t o r e s p o n d t o t h e c r i s i s w i t h
intensified education efforts was not an
innovation, but the natural extension of
Burnham’s long-held political thought. He had
always proclaimed that education was the
cornerstone of his plans to transform society,
and that constructing a new national culture
based on truly “Guyanese” values – which by
the 1970s were defined as one and the same as
socialist values – was central to this process.
One PNC document of the 1970s entitled
“Principles of Authority” defines the Party’s role
a s ” l e a d i n g t a s k s o f s t i m u l a t i n g a n d
implementing that learning and unlearning,
that education and re-education without which

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transition [to socialism] will be impossible.”65

The idea of implementing socialism through
education and cultural reinvention – and the
related fixation with discipline and efficiency –
has its roots in the early Soviet Union, and can
be seen, in different forms and to varying
extents, in many socialist experiments of the
twentieth century. However this tradition
reached its pinnacle in North Korea, where
Stalinist ideology merged with a Korean
philosophical tradition in which the perfection
of society depended on the perfection of the
individual. Under Kim Il Sung’s leadership
North Korea developed an all-pervasive system
for the central control and regimented
dissemination of ideas. The Great Leader called
for a never ending war against unhealthy ideas
and values, and placed special emphasis on the
indoctrination of the young, as nursery school
and kindergarten teachers were told that it was
their “honorable revolutionary duty” to begin
the process of “revolutionizing and working-
classizing” the population.66 In the 1970s when
North Korea was presenting itself as a model
for Third World development, Kim Il Sung’s
message for countries like Guyana was that
cultural development and educational reform
were of even greater importance for them, as
they faced the double burden of building the
objective conditions of socialism and freeing
themselves from the psycho-cultural legacy of
c o l o n i a l i s m . T h i s r e q u i r e d t h a t t h e
r e v o l u t i o n a r y s t a t e n o t o n l y s e i z e a n d
thoroughly revamp existing educational
institutions, but also forge a new national
culture that could install a “noble, moral and
beautiful mental character” in the masses.67

PNC leaders, as well as delegations of Juche
students, artists and journalists, were
frequently hosted in Pyongyang during the
1 9 7 4 – 8 5 p e r i o d , a n d t h e r e m a r k a b l e
achievements they observed there – widely
reported in the PNC press – vindicated the idea
that the key to the socialist society they sought
lay in education and culture. Time and time
a g a i n , P N C o f f i c i a l s m a r v e l e d a t t h e

“discipline,” “dedication” and “loyalty” of the
North Korean people – both those they
observed in Pyongyang, and the scores of
skilled workers, technicians, agronomists,
doctors and military officers who visited
Guyana in this period – and asked themselves
how they could reproduce the same ethos
among their own populace.

The PNC’s zeal for mass education also had
Caribbean and specifically Guyanese roots.
Tyrone Ferguson (1999) points out that in the
1970s the centrality of education to building
socialism was a position shared by Burnham’s
chief rivals – the pro-Soviet PPP and the radical
Left WPA.68 The idea that the people of the
Caribbean, specifically the African majority,
had been impacted intellectually, culturally and
spiritually by slavery and colonialism, and that
some process of mental emancipation was
central to their struggle for a just society, was
and remains a staple of Caribbean thought, and
ran through the currents of Caribbean Marxism
and Black Power of the 1960s and 1970s. On
the other hand, belief in the central priority of
education and discipline is something deeply
rooted in Guyanese culture, and in its vision of
an enlightened vanguard leading a backward
populace out of darkness, the PNC leadership
demonstrated certain unmistakable traits of the
Guyanese middle class.69 And while the PNC
leadership did indeed draw from a mix of the
lower- and upper-middle class, an examination
of its Central Committee in any given year
r e v e a l s t h a t t h e s i n g l e m o s t c o m m o n
occupational background of its 31 members
were teachers and headmasters trained in the
tradition of the British colonial school system.
Many more were the sons and daughters of
teachers and headmasters, including Burnham
himself. The habits, values and mentality of this
occupational group – the importance of
discipline, hierarchy and respect for authority,
the paramount role of the educator in society –
shaped their interpretation of the socialist
project. It is only by understanding these local
and regional contexts – in conjunction with

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T h i r d W o r l d i s m , t h e C o l d W a r a n d t h e
historical contradictions of socialism as a
development strategy – that we can fully
appreciate the appeal of the North Korean
model to the PNC leadership.

With North Korea as an inspiration and a
source of material support, the PNC undertook
a massive overhaul and expansion of the
education system, nationalizing all schools held
in private hands and by religious groups and
decreeing education free from nursery to
university. The total number of schools in
Guyana increased from 432 in 1970 to 1214 by
1979,70 as Burnham declared his priority of
“revolutionising the formal education system, a
process aimed at eradicating the old colonial
and capitalist values and introducing and
emphasizing new and relevant ones.” 7 1

Throughout his reign ambitious educational
a n d c u l t u r a l p r o j e c t s , m a n y b a s e d o n
institutions and practises observed in North
Korea, remained Burnham’s priority to the
point of obsession. As Guyana entered the
1980s and its economy continued to decline in
the face of global recession and a new hardline
s t a n c e f r o m W a s h i n g t o n ‘ s R e a g a n
administration, Burnham’s zeal for mass
education only intensified. In fact, an inverse
relationship existed between the two, as if
Burnham was in a race to achieve the “new
man” before the “old man” lost patience with
the hardship and deprivations of socialist
construction. Although he remained the Party’s
unquestioned leader until his passing in August
1985, Burnham was increasingly isolated
within the leadership in his fixation on costly
educational projects in a time of scarcity. In
1983, defending his decision to prioritize the
creation of a new elite boarding school for the
nation’s top seventy-two students when the
country was bankrupt, Burnham stated: “The
eventual cost will run into several millions of
dollars. This will be found. It is a small price to
pay for preparing the younger generation to
carry on the revolution to its ultimate goal and
success.”72 The President’s College, as it was

called, said to be modeled on the Mangyongdae
Revolutionary School in Pyongyang, opened its
doors a few months after Burnham’s passing.

This is the context in which the PNC leadership
adopted Mass Games as the 1970s drew to a
close. By demanding the participation of all
primary and secondary students, and its annual
occurrence involving nearly three months of
training, it stood to have a broader and deeper
impact on the lives of Guyanese than any other
of the PNC’s projects of educational and
cultural reform. On the eve of the first Mass
Games of February 1980, an editorial in the
state-owned Chronicle made its purpose clear:

W e a s a n a t i o n m u s t p u r s u e
discipline or we will certainly be
unable to maximize our productive
efforts, and also raise the level of
o u r p r o d u c t i v i t y . W e e x p e c t
discipline to be an overriding
consideration in all avenues of
society. And we expect discipline
to be inculcated in the very young
w h o a r e t h e n u c l e u s o f o u r
aspirations. Discipline of mind and
body are the prerequisites for
p o s i t i v e a c h i e v e m e n t a n d
development, not only of ourselves,
but the nation as a whole.73

However, Mass Games was about more than
discipline. It was part of Burnham’s broader
attempt to institutionalize a hegemonic master-
narrative over Guyanese society. As mentioned,
Mass Games was established as part of the
broader Mashramani celebrations, which take
place annually in February and function as
Guyana’s equivalent of the Carnival celebrated
at the same time across the Caribbean.
Originally hoping that it would come to eclipse
Christmas in importance, Burnham established
Mashramani in 1970 by elevating the annual
A f r o – G u y a n e s e c a r n i v a l o f t h e t o w n o f
Mackenzie into a national celebration,

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16

appropriating the title of a traditional Arawak
harvest festival. This project reflected
Burnham’s desire to replace the colonial legacy
with a new, pan-ethnic and “co-operative”
culture with himself as universal figurehead. By
choosing the date of 23 February – the
anniversary of Burnham’s proclamation of the
Co-operative Republic, three days after
Burnham’s birthday – it tied the national
celebration to Burnham’s individual persona
and the broader PNC nation-building project.
Even prior to Mass Games, the PNC established
the People’s Parade as an integral component
of Mashramani, where workers representing
their trades and workplaces were encouraged –
some would argue coerced – to march in a
show of solidarity with their government.
Grand theatrical productions at the National
Cultural Centre to mark the Comrade Leader’s
birthday also became customary during the
same time each year. Mass Games then was
part of a broader effort to politicize Carnival in
Guyana, to place it in service of the Burnham
personality cult, pulling it in the opposite
direction from the “ritual of inversion” that it is
commonly analyzed as constituting in the
Caribbean. By attempting to fuse these
concepts – the birth of Burnham, the birth of
the Co-operative Republic, an idyllic pre-
Columbian past, patriotism, socialism, loyalty
t o t h e S t a t e – i n t o a p r e m i e r e n a t i o n a l
celebration, the PNC were attempting to create
something fitting the description Stites gave to
the forms of mass spectacle which emerged in
the early Soviet Union: “a kinesthetic exercise
of revolution, a massive performance of
revolutionary values and myths that were to
infuse the new society-in-the-making.”74

H o w d i d G u y a n e s e r e s p o n d t o M a s s
Games?

Not all Guyanese shared the PNC’s enthusiasm
for discipline, or accepted that the kind
embodied in Mass Games stood to have any
positive impact on their children’s education or
personal development. One letter to the editor

of the Stabroek News described students
training for the 1989 Mass Games at the
Farnum Playing Field in the Subryanville
district of Georgetown thusly:

There hundreds of children, in
normal school-hours, twice a week
are put through their boring and
repetitive paces, soaked by rain,
burnt by sun, shouted at, abused,
and threatened by a loud-mouthed
instructress, day by day being
wound up to their futile task like
little, brow-beaten automatons.75

However, the discipline aspect of Mass Games
was its least controversial. While the PNC’s
preoccupation with it may appear a Leninist
import, it also reflected a widespread sentiment
within society at the time that indiscipline was
a major problem of contemporary society.
Lamentations on lack of discipline – routinely
expressed in letter columns and editorial
sections of newspapers across the partisan
divide – could refer to lazy and indifferent
public servants, or absenteeism, corruption and
theft in the workplace – things the PNC could
attribute to a lack of socialist consciousness,
and which critics of the regime could blame on
an allegedly bloated and dysfunctional state
sector created through socialism. Absent
fathers, children born out of wedlock and the
deterioration of the traditional family unit
frequently entered discussions of societal
indiscipline, as did the supposed bad influence
of Jamaican reggae music or violent films from
Hollywood and Hong Kong. It was also, of
course, a problem of the youth, exhibited in
delinquency, loitering, truancy, foul language,
loud music, immodest dress, and lack of
respect for elders. In fact, the letter quoted
above was responded to by another reader who
claimed her child was among those training for
Mass Games at Farnum Playing Field:

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Are the children to be allowed to
k i c k a n d f i g h t w i t h o u t b e i n g
disciplined? Should they pelt dogs
and cows and even pull sheep tails
without being scolded? Must they
be allowed to behave like a pack of
monkeys without being punished
after trying to spoil the overall
effect of the presentation?76

Mass Games was also commonly derided as an
exercise in “brainwashing” with questionable
educational value, and of course the debate
born of such charges unfolded predictably
along partisan lines: what was education and
c u l t u r e t o a n a d m i r e r o f B u r n h a m w a s
propaganda and indoctrination to an opposition
supporter. However this type of criticism of
Mass Games was part of a broader frustration
with a Burnham era phenomenon of mandatory
participation in Party-controlled activities,
whether forcing workers and students to attend
political rallies, or conscripting citizens into
auxiliary organizations like the People’s Militia
and the Guyana National Service (GNS). While
parents and students typically based their
views on Mass Games on the experience of
their children or students, liberal intellectuals
and journalists critical of the regime often
focused on the association with North Korea in
order to demonstrate its supposedly sinister
purpose:

It is robot-like. This, however, does
not necessarily mean that it is
without a purpose. North Korean
instructors were brought here
because they were “experts” in this
t y p e o f e x e r c i s e . W h y ? I s i t
because the political culture of
that country has gone further,
perhaps, than any other in the
d e l i b e r a t e a n d r e l e n t l e s s
d e s t r u c t i o n o f h u m a n
i n d i v i d u a l i t y ? 7 7

It is clear, however, that the greatest obstacle
to Mass Games gaining popular support was
the widespread fear of parents that their
children’s education was suffering due to the
training which occupied nearly three months of
the school year. This concern was voiced by
parents and teachers repeatedly from the
inception of Mass Games in 1980 until its
demise with the fall of the PNC in 1992. From
the beginning the government attempted to
assure parents that all lost class time would be
compensated for, but whether this was being
adequately achieved remained an unsettled
debate between supporters and critics.
Ironically, the same Guyanese cultural
disposition – especially strong within the middle
class – that places tremendous emphasis on the
importance of education both explains, at least
in part, the PNC’s great enthusiasm for projects
like Mass Games, and the difficulty they had in
getting parents to embrace it.

That notwithstanding, parents’ fears that their
children’s education was suffering as a result of
Mass Games was also symptomatic of a broader
p u b l i c a n x i e t y o v e r t h e s t a t e o f p u b l i c
education during the 1980s. The severe
economic turmoil of the decade meant that the
PNC was unable to adequately sustain the
greatly expanded system of universal free
education they had initiated in the 1970s, and
qualified teachers were among the mass exodus
of educated Guyanese taking place at the time.
Common complaints from parents and teachers
were of crumbling facilities, poor salaries,
overcrowded classrooms, unqualified teachers,
“political” appointments and dismissals, and
s h o r t a g e s o f t e x t b o o k s a n d m a t e r i a l s .
Naturally, in these circumstances it was easy
f o r G u y a n e s e t o q u e s t i o n t h e t i m e a n d
resources being devoted to Mass Games. “The
collapse of the education system” became a
major theme of the government’s opposition,
and one which it could link to the PNC’s overall
handling of the economy and its unpopular
decision to accept IMF loan programs.

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The other central obstacle to achieving public
support for Mass Games lay in the complicated
intersection of race and politics in Guyanese
society. Generally speaking, most Indo-
Guyanese loathed Burnham, and viewed PNC
rule as an illegitimate racial dictatorship in
which their community was excluded, silenced
and neglected. While Burnham’s handling of
“the race issue” in Guyana is beyond the scope
of this article, suffice it to say that the PNC had
an enthusiasm for programs which took young
Guyanese out of their neighborhood or village
and placed them in new, Party-controlled
environments where they would interact with
youth of other ethnic groups and from different
regions while being exposed to PNC ideology.
In addition to Mass Games, the central project
designed to achieve this was Guyana National
Service (GNS), in which all citizens were
required to spend one year in military-style
settlements in the hinterland engaged in basic
c o m b a t t r a i n i n g , a g r i c u l t u r e a n d
manufacturing, in order that that they might
become “truly Guyanese citizens.”78

In the 28 years of PNC rule, possibly no other
policy generated as much fear and resentment
within the Indo-Guyanese community as GNS
did. Most Indo-Guyanese parents were
mortified at the idea of their children –
particularly their daughters – being taken from
their homes and sent to remote camps where
they would have little protection or recourse
against potential abuses by Afro-Guyanese
soldiers, all in order to serve the agenda of a
regime they despised. Moreover, over time,
stories began to circulate within the Indo-
Guyanese community of daughters returning
home from GNS pregnant, giving birth to
“dugla pickney” (children of mixed Indian and
African ethnicity); graver still, reports of sexual
assaults and rapes emerged. While Mass
Games was not as threatening as GNS in this
regard, similar stories of sexual assaults of girls
during Mass Games training emerged as well.
Like so many issues in Guyanese politics, it is
impossible to draw a neat line between a very

real and serious problem (sexual violence
against young women, whose victims and
perpetrators are not limited to any ethnic
group), a traditional, patriarchal view of gender
within the Indo-Guyanese community which
denied women independence in relationships,
Guyana’s deeply partisan political culture and
anti-African racism. Regardless, what is clear is
that Guyana’s deep-rooted ethnic division, and
Indo-Guyanese mistrust of the government in
particular, was a major barrier to gaining
widespread acceptance of Mass Games.

In late 1988, simmering public discontent over
Mass Games erupted into a fiery debate carried
out through the newspapers and radio. Central
to this dialogue was Stabroek News, founded
two years earlier and the first independent
daily newspaper to arise since the PNC’s
nationalization of the country’s media industry
in the 1970s. This public discourse over Mass
Games, like the rise of Stabroek News itself,
was symptomatic of the gradual liberalization –
what was sometimes referred to as “Guyana’s
glasnost” – occurring under Burnham’s
successor, Hoyte.

O n e o f t h e f i r s t m a j o r i n i t i a t i v e s w a s
undertaken by the distinguished poet and
novelist Ian McDonald, who launched an attack
o n M a s s G a m e s o n t h e r a d i o p r o g r a m
Viewpoint. In addition to reiterating the
common complaint about the students’ loss of
class time, he argued that Mass Games was
desperately out of sync with Guyanese culture:

There may at first have been
nothing wrong in at least trying a
kind of exercise that produced
such spectacular and colorful
e x a m p l e s o f m a s s p o p u l a r
discipline in other countries.
N o t h i n g w r o n g w i t h
experimenting. But the simple
truth is that Guyana is not North
Korea and it is surely obvious by
now that the idea has not travelled

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2

19

well. It is not for us. It does not fit
our psyche. The attempt to enforce
mass discipline and call it fun does
not suit our temperament, our
t r a d i t i o n s , o r o u r d e e p e s t
inclinations. Let us admire the
massed phalanxes of North Korean
children as they wave and smile
and dip and move and gyrate in
strict unison. But let us admire
from afar.79

McDonald’s editorial set off a flurry of
responses and rebuttals in the letter sections
and op-ed columns of newspapers and on public
radio, and the North Korean embassy protested
to the management of the Guyana Broadcasting
Corporation (GBC). One of the most virulent
replies to McDonald was a front-page editorial
in the PNC party organ New Nation entitled
“Mass Games and McDonald’s Quackery.” The
anonymous piece claimed that McDonald’s
“class prejudice” and “emotionalism” prevented
him from appreciating Mass Games, and
accused him of defaming school teachers,
demanding a “gentlemanly retraction.”80 The
editorial questioned whether McDonald had
even seen a Mass Games performance, and
suggested that in choosing such negative
phrases to describe the event, he “had no
regard for meaning and was merely engaging
in an illicit sexual encounter with words.”81 It
further argued that anyone who attended a
Mass Games performance could see clearly the
“great creativity and the joyous enthusiasm
with which the children perform,”82 and that
although North Korean in origin, they had
become something thoroughly Guyanese:

It is true that we have been taught
the techniques of Mass Games by
the North Koreans. But we have
developed our own style and our
own approach to organization and
choreography. There is nothing

North Korean about the spirit of
our Games. They have a distinctive
Guyanese flavor.

…We must beware of any kind of
idiotic mind-set that prevents us
from drawing upon the cultural
heritage of the world to stimulate
a n d e n r i c h o u r o w n c u l t u r a l
d e v e l o p m e n t . ” 8 3

Moreover, New Nation attempted to counter
the image of Mass Games as something radical
and distinctly North Korean by grouping it with
other forms of mass spectacle found worldwide:

Surely, [McDonald] would have
s e e n o n h i s T V m o n i t o r t h e
marvelous exhibition put on by the
South Koreans for the Summer
Olympic Games in Seoul. And did
h e n o t s e e a s i m i l a r k i n d o f
spectacle put on by the Canadians
for the Winter Games in Calgary?
He has never seen, or read or
heard of similar kinds of shows in
t h e U S A ? T h e s e c u l t u r a l
manifestations are found in one
form or another, under one name
or another in many countries in the
w o r l d w i t h d i f f e r e n t s o c i a l
s y s t e m s . 8 4

Additional rebuttals to McDonald put forward
other arguments in support of Mass Games, for
example, that it improved children’s academic
performance, and that it was on its way to
becoming an internationally recognized sport,
on par with football or cricket, in which Guyana
stood to excel and produce world champions.85

The latter suggestion was not so far-fetched in
the Cold War 1980s, as several of North
Korea’s allies were staging Mass Games,
including Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, East
Germany, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Meanwhile as

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2

20

the exchange continued critical parents and
teachers began to coalesce around the demand
that the government produce data that proved
Mass Games had any tangible benefits for the
student participants.

Ian McDonald shot back at his critics on the
following episode of Viewpoint. He argued that
Mass Games, in its exclusion of individual
achievement, and its “mechanical, utterly
unalterable discipline”86 made it incomparable
to the great sports such as football or cricket;
there could be no Rohan Kanhai or Michael
Jordan of Mass Games, as some of his critics
had suggested. Likewise, the comparison to the
Seoul Olympics or Canadian Winter Games was
weak:

Do Canada and South Korea have
Mass Games enshrined in their
school curricula from the earliest
age? There is a difference after all
between the occasionally staged
grand military parade which
everyone can enjoy and military
marching up and down as a way of
life.87

Perhaps aiming for compromise, McDonald
toned down his earlier calls for Mass Games to
be abolished, instead proposing it be reduced
to one performance every three years, that
children under twelve participate less and the
youngest children be exempted altogether, to
make children’s’ participation dependent on
parental consent, and to ensure student class
time was not compromised.88 History, however,
would favour McDonald’s original demand,
when four years later Burnham’s successor
Desmond Hoyte allowed the first free elections
in Guyana since 1964, and the PNC was swept
out of office, bringing an abrupt end to its
twenty-eight-year reign. The new Indo-
Guyanese-based PPP administration began a
dramatic reversal of course in Guyana, Mass
Games was discontinued, and efforts were

taken to extirpate all trace of its twelve-year
legacy.

Conclusion

The PNC’s decision at the end of the 1970s, in a
time of severe economic and political crisis, to
divert considerable state resources in order to
force Mass Games on a wary public, followed
the logic of Burnham’s ideological convictions.
Burnham subscribed to a particular strain of
socialist thought which essentially inverts
M a r x ‘ s c o n c e p t o f s u b s t r u c t u r e a n d
superstructure, arguing economic development
is dependent on the proper transformation of
peoples’ ideas and values, therefore making
radical, ambitious educational and cultural
projects like Mass Games a central priority of
the regime. In this, Burnham inherited a
tendency within the Marxist-Leninist tradition
which dates back to the Russian Revolution,
but which reached its most extreme form in the
North Korea of Kim Il Sung, presenting a model
from which Burnham and other PNC leaders
took inspiration. Such a strategy of socialist
development, however, also had antecedents in
Caribbean leftist thought, particularly the idea
that the people of the Caribbean needed to
break the “mental chains” of colonialism as a
prerequisite to building the new society.
Moreover it appealed to the large number of
teaching professionals within the PNC
leadership, to a certain elitism typical of the
Guyanese middle class, and a more ubiquitous
Guyanese cultural sensibility which places
tremendous importance on formal education.
Ironically, the latter was also a chief obstacle to
Guyanese embracing Mass Games, as parents
proved unable to happily accept their children
losing class time during the nearly three
months of training each year. This, along with
Guyana’s historical ethnic divide and in
particular Indo-Guyanese intransigence
towards the government, were the primary
f a c t o r s p r e v e n t i n g w i d e s p r e a d p u b l i c
acceptance of Mass Games.

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2
21

Ian McDonald’s argument that Mass Games,
with its rigid collectivism, discipline, uniformity
and leader-worship, was simply incompatible
with Guyanese cultural sensibilities, certainly
hits upon a certain truth. To many Guyanese
living under the PNC, the array of communist-
style trappings introduced – the propaganda
billboards urging Guyanese to work harder and
produce more, the giant portraits of the
Comrade Leader, people addressing one
another as “comrade” – always seemed like an
alien import, hastily forced into a society in
which they did not belong. Even some former
PNC officials today concede that the attempt to
institutionalize a Burnham personality cult was
grossly at odds with Caribbean political
culture, in which leaders are viewed as quite
ordinary people by a cynical public, and, as
Burnham’s vice-president Hamilton Green
remarked, “we cuss them when the time
comes.”8 9 There seems an insurmountable
distance between the Kimist aesthetic of North
Korea and the uninhibited, organic character of
Caribbean art; likewise, familiar clichés about
the easy-going tempo of Caribbean life seem a
world removed from the Stakhanovite rhetoric
of discipline and efficiency introduced by the
PNC.

On the other hand, it is important to remember
that those libertine and lackadaisical elements
t h a t c o l o u r p o p u l a r s t e r e o t y p e s o f t h e
Caribbean – the wild abandon of Carnival, the
vulgar lyrics of calypso and reggae music, the
vices of rum and marijuana – mask another side
of Caribbean life, one much more conservative,
which holds firm the virtues of modesty,
etiquette, hard work, eloquence, education,
sobriety and piety. In Guyana, and throughout
the Anglo-Caribbean, these two currents co-
exist in constant tension, and the PNC were
quite in tune with the public mood in their
constant agonizing over the “indiscipline” seen
as plaguing society. It is in this way that the
PNC project of remolding people into a more
disciplined, educated, civic-minded body
resonated with many Guyanese.

While Guyanese people today remain divided
on the legacy of Mass Games, its image has
actually improved with the passage of time, as
student performers have grown up and begun
t o s h a r e t h e i r e x p e r i e n c e s . A l t h o u g h
perspectives and opinions among former
performers vary, it is fair to say that many,
quite possibly a majority, remember the
experience in a positive light. The explanations
as to why are not complex – Mass Games was
fun, and it offered relief from the standard
routine of the classroom. A kind of nostalgia
market within the Guyanese diaspora has
emerged, with people sharing their stories of
participating in Mass Games via online forums
a n d s o c i a l m e d i a . D r . P r i n c e I n n i s s , a
sociologist at Saint Leo University in Florida,
has shared her childhood recollections as a
Mass Games participant for the blog Everyday
Sociology. Yolanda Marshall, a poet and writer
based in Toronto, has written an in-depth
account of her experience as a dancer in the
1986 Mass Games, an event that remains for
her a cherished piece of her childhood.
Interestingly, rarely do former participants
remember the experience as indoctrination or
“brainwashing,” and many are unaware that
there was any political or ideological purpose
to the event at all. What they remember is a
celebration, a performance; the physicality and
emotion, bodies, sounds, images, colours,
anticipation, excitement. This, coupled with the
fact that among former performers a positive
memory of Mass Games does not necessarily
correlate to positive sentiment towards
Burnham or the PNC, suggests that Burnham
may have vastly overestimated what his project
would achieve. It also, however, lends credence
to the arguments sometimes put forward by the
PNC that Mass Games was not something
r a d i c a l o r e x t r e m e , t h a t i t w a s n o l e s s
authoritarian or propagandistic than other
forms of mass spectacle seen in the Western
democracies, and that it was generally enjoyed
by the young performers.

Can it be said that the seven-member team of

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2
22

North Korean artists who spent a year in
Guyana imparting the artistic techniques of
Mass Games have had a lasting influence on
the world of Guyanese art? It is a worthy
question. George Simon went on to become one
of Guyana’s most prominent artists, his acrylic
paintings on canvas, paper andtwill fabric
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twill) gaining him
international recognition, including the
Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for
Excellence in 2012. Citing Mass Games as a
pivotal chapter in his development as an artist,
he continues to use the method of painting
while sitting cross-legged on the floor, as his
N o r t h K o r e a n s t e a c h e r s d i d , a n d t h e
techniques of large-scale painting allowed him
to later transition into the medium of mural art,
which today includes some of his best known
work.90 Today these skills have been passed on
to a new generation, as Simon has continued in
his role as teacher and dedicated himself to
fostering young talent, particularly within the
Amerindian community, an effort that has given
birth to a virtual renaissance of indigenous
peoples’ art in Guyana. Critically acclaimed
murals by Simon and his students now adorn a
number of prominent public sites, including the
National Cultural Centre (Universal Woman,
2 0 0 8 ) t h e U m a n a Y a n a ( T h e S p i r i t u a l
Connection Between Man and Nature, 2008)
and the University of Guyana (Palace of the
Peacock: Homage to Wilson Harris, 2009).

To North Korea watchers, on the other hand,
the story of Guyana’s adoption of Mass Games
remains a lens into the shifting perspective
with which the secretive regime views the
outside world, and its own place within it. The
decade in which Mass Games was a major facet
of Guyanese cultural and political life was
possibly the greatest success of North Korea’s
experiment in exporting its culture and
ideology to the rest of the world, particularly
the developing world. More broadly, it leaves
us with a fascinating case study of the kind of
artistic innovation and trans-national cultural
collaboration borne of the post-colonial era

under the pressures of the Cold Warms1, and the
way in which socialist ideas and the promises
they embodied were received and reinterpreted
by Third World intellectuals and politicos
struggling with the challenges of the post-
colonial terrain.

Moe Taylor is a writer and documentary
filmmaker living in Toronto. He holds an MA in
Latin American and Caribbean studies from
Columbia University.

Recommended citation: Moe Taylor, ‘Only a
disciplined people can build a nation’: North
Korean Mass Games and Third Worldism in
Guyana, 1980-1992, The Asia-Pacific Journal
Vol 13, Issue 4, No.2, January 26, 2015.

Related articles

•Rudiger Frank, The Arirang Mass Games
o f N o r t h K o r e a
(http://apjjf.org/-R__diger-Frank/4048)

Notes

1 “Mass Games will be stupendous affair,” New
Nation, 27 January 1980.

2 George K. Danns, Domination and Power in
Guyana: A Study of the Police in a Third World
Context (New Brunswick, USA and London:
Transaction Books, 1982) 108.

3 Ralph R. Premdas, “Guyana: socialism and
destabilization in the Western hemisphere,”
Caribbean Quarterly Vol. 25, No. 3, Social
Change (September 1979): 25-43.

4 Italics in the original.

5 Forbes Burnham, A Destiny to Mould:
Selected Discourses by the Prime Minister of
Guyana, C.A. Nascimento and R.A. Burrows, ed.
(Trinidad and Jamaica: Longman Caribbean,
1970) 70.

6 Forbes Burnham, Declaration of Sophia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twill

http://apjjf.org/-R__diger-Frank/4048

http://apjjf.org/-R__diger-Frank/4048

http://apjjf.org/-R__diger-Frank/4048

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2
23

(Georgetown, Guyana, 1974), PNC Collection,
National Archives, Georgetown, Guyana.

7 Timothy Ashby, The Bear in the Back Yard:
Moscow’s Caribbean Strategy (Massachusetts:
Lexington Books, 1987) 143-145.

8 Tyrone Ferguson, To Survive Sensibly or to
Court Heroic Death: Management of Guyana’s
Political Economy, 1966 -1985 (Georgetown,
Guyana: Public Affairs Consulting Enterprise,
1999), 251-255.

9 Ashby, 145-146.

10 Gail A. Eadie and Denise M. Grizzell, “China’s
Foreign Aid, 1975-78” The China Quarterly, No.
77 (March 1979), pp. 217-234.

11 Ibid.

12 Charles K. Armstrong, Tyranny of the Weak:
North Korea and the World, 1950-1992 (Ithaca
and London: Cornell University Press, 2013)
168.

13 John Chay, “North Korea: Relations with the
Third World,” in Jae Kyu Park and Jung Gun
Kim, eds., The Politics of North Korea (Seoul:
Institute for Far Eastern Studies, 1979), pp.
263-276.

14 Chay, p. 268-269, 273-274.

15 “After 34 years the struggle continues,” New
Nation (Georgetown, Guyana) 1 July 1984.

1 6 “Pak Song-Chol Speaks at Banquet for
Guyanese Vice President,” Pyongyang Domestic
Service in Korean, reprinted in Korean Affairs
R e p o r t ( U S D e p a r t m e n t o f C o m m e r c e ,
Springfield, VA) 21 May 1982.

17 Ibid.

18 Hamilton Green, interview with the author,
11 December 2010.

19 Rudiger Frank, “The Arirang Mass Games of

North Korea,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11,
Issue 46, No. 2 (December 2013) .

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

2 2 Lisa Burnett, “Let Morning Shine over
Pyongyang: The Future-Oriented Nationalism
of North Korea’s Arirang Mass Games,” Asian
Music, Vol 44, No 1 (Winter/Spring 2013): 3-32.

2 3 Kim Jong-il, On Furthering Mass Games
G y m n a s t i c s : T a l k t o M a s s G y m n a s t i c s
Producers, April 11, 1987 (Pyongyang: Foreign
languages Publishing House, 2006), 1.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., 1-2.

30 Ibid., 2.

31 Ibid., 2-3.

32 New Nation, 27 January 1980.

3 3 ” T h e P e o p l e W h o M a d e M a s s G a m e s
Possible,” New Nation, 16 March 1980.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Fr Andrew Morrison, SJ, Justice: The struggle
for democracy in Guyana, 1952-1992 (Guyana:
self-published, 1998), 106.

38 George Simon, interview with the author, 30

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2

24

April 2012.

39 New Nation, 27 January 1980.

4 0 Patricia Cambridge, interview with the
author, 29 July 2013.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Simon, 30 April 2012.

44 Ibid.

45 This was the title of one of the PNC’s earliest
and most central development goals: national
self-sufficiency in food, clothing and housing
production. The original target date was 1976,
but as this proved overly ambitious FCH
morphed into an open-ended campaign
throughout the Burnham era.

46 New Nation, 16 March 1980.

47 Raschid Osman, “Mass Games a resounding
success…and spectacular,” The Chronicle, 29
February 1980.

4 8 ” T h e P e o p l e W h o M a d e M a s s G a m e s
P o s s i b l e , ” N e w N a t i o n , 1 3 A p r i l 1 9 8 0 .

49 Ibid.

50 “Mass Games at Albion: a truly spectacular
affair,” New Nation, 17 June 1984.

5 1 “MASH – our biggest mass participation
event,” New Nation, 12 January 1986.

52 Yolanda Marshall, interview with the author,
2 November 2010.

5 3 ” T h o u s a n d s T h r i l l e d A t M a s s G a m e s
Spectacle,” Guyana Chronicle, 24 February
1985.

5 4 MASH – our biggest mass participation
event,” New Nation, 12 January 1986.

5 5 “Mass Games ’87 to highlight Guyana’s
beauty,” New Nation, 17 August 1986.

5 6 Such a tribute to Jagan, leader of the
opposition, would have been unthinkable in
Burnham’s time, and reflected the new
direction being initiated by Hoyte.

57 Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow(1884–1958),
dock worker who founded the British Guiana
Labour Union (BGLU) in 1917, the first trade
union in the Caribbean.

5 8 ” P r e p a r a t i o n s f o r M a s s G a m e s ‘ 8 8
underway,” New Nation, 20 December 1987.

59 On Guyana’s economic challenges during the
Burnham era, see Hope (1985), Jeffery & Baber
(1986).

6 0 Clive Y. Thomas, “State Capitalism in
Guyana: an Assessment of Burnham’s Co-
operative Socialist Republic,” in Crisis in the
Caribbean, Fitzroy Ambursley and Robin
Cohen, ed. (New York: Monthly Review Press,
1983): 32-36.

61 Percy Hintzen, The Cost of Regime Survival:
Racial mobilization, elite domination and
control of the state in Guyana and Trinidad
(Cambridge: University Press, 1989), 93-94.

6 2 In Burnham-era Guyanese parlance, a
slacker.

63 Taken from various issues of New Nation
during 1979-81.

64 Burnham (1970), 61-62.

65 Ferguson, 158.

6 6 Kim Il Sung, Works, Vol 20 (Pyongyang:
Foreign Language Publishing House, 1984),
451-452.

67 “National Cultural Construction is an urgent
question in the independent development of

APJ | JF 13 | 4 | 2

25

newly emerging countries,” Kulloja, No. 12,
(December 1983): 55-60.

68 Ferguson, 158.

6 9 A number of scholars have discussed a
historic tendency of the middle-class leadership
of the Caribbean Left to gravitate towards a
particularly elitist variety of vanguardism. See
James 1962, Wilson 1986, Mars 1998.

70 Ferguson, 189.

71 Burnham (1974), 26.

72 Ferguson, 332.

73 “A Mass Games Perspective,” New Nation, 2
February 1980.

7 4 Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams:
Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the
Russian Revolution (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989), 94.

75 Paraphrased by McDonald on the Guyana
Broadcasting Corporation radio program
Viewpoint, 22 November 1988. The author
thanks Ian McDonald for sharing the written
transcript of the broadcast.

76 Jenny Persaud, letter to the editor, Stabroek
News 30 November 1988.

77 Janet Forte, letter to the editor, Stabroek
News, 16 Nov 1988.

78 “Where national service beckons we follow,”
government advertisement, 1980, PNC
Collection, National Archives, Georgetown,
Guyana.

7 9 R a d i o p r o g r a m V i e w p o i n t , G u y a n a
Broadcasting Corporation, 22 November 1988.
The author thanks Ian McDonald for sharing
the written transcript of the broadcast.

80 “Mass Games and McDonald’s Quackery,”
New Nation, 27 November 1988.
81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid.

8 5 R a d i o p r o g r a m V i e w p o i n t , G u y a n a
Broadcasting Corporation, 6 December 1988.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 Green, 11 December 2010.

90 Simon, 30 April 2012.

Sushi Reverses Course: Consuming American Sushi
in Tokyo

Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto (2011)

Global cuisine/Culinary culture
Tues. 2/6: Sidney W. Mintz, “Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine,” japanfocus.org (2009)
 
Today: Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto, “Sushi reverses course: consuming American sushi in Tokyo.” japanfocus.org (2011)

Wed. Feb. 14 Recitation
Upload Chap. 2 response paper to Sakai Assignments
Deadline: Tues. Feb. 13, 10:oo PM

Clicker quizzes 1 pt.
Scoring is based on:
(1) participation
(2) correct answers

Globalization in history
Steger Chap. 2 “Globalization in history: is globalization a new phenomenon?”
Sidney W. Mintz, “Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine,” japanfocus.org (2009)
Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto, “Sushi reverses course: consuming American sushi in Tokyo.” japanfocus.org (2011)

Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Prehistoric: divergence

Globalization dynamic
Prehistoric: multidimensional divergence

Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Contemporary: convergence (global-local nexus)

Globalization dynamic
Contemporary: multidimensional convergence

Globalization dynamic (Steger & Mintz)
Multidimensional/Present superimposed on past

Allen & Sakamoto
How do they theorize the contemporary globalization dynamic?

Electronic devices OFF

Sushi’s global reach
Estimated 20,000 sushi restaurants outside Japan
45,000 in Japan

Sushi mystique: murasaki (soy sauce)–agari (green tea)

Conveyor belt sushi 回転寿司

“How to make sushi rolls”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKUSI8ElgRc (3:30)

“How to make sushi rolls”
Sushi is a “Japanese” dinner or appetizer (finger food)
“Classic” sushi rolls: California roll (with avocado); Philly role (with cream cheese)
Or, invent your own combination
Sushi is as “creative” as it is delicious

Sushi as “glocal” product
http://www.foodiggity.com/tag/sushi/page/2/ Foodiggity website
Bullet Train (conveyer-belt) sushi
Sushi Tacos
Star Wars soy sauce dishes
Kit-Kat sushi (=kitto-katsu “surely win”)

Culinary globalization
“Sushi reverses course: consuming American sushi in Tokyo”
“Reverse import” (gyaku yunyū) 逆輸入

American sushi in Tokyo
Rainbow Roll Sushi (Azabujūban)
Industrial chic décor, high prices, emphasis on fun
Genji Sushi New York (Roppongi Hills)
Signs in English, modest prices, emphasis on health (using organic brown rice and etc.)

“Otherness” (Difference)
American sushi is exotic in Japan, and this inspires Japanese young people to consume it.

“Fetish”
The marketability and desirability of American sushi in Japan is primarily from its symbolic (fetishized) value.

Example: French pastry in Japan
Symbol of sophisticated taste
Eating French pastry shows the consumer’s appreciation of high culinary standards

How to make Mille feuille (Napoleon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnyEzaPbdAQ (4:07)

Mille feuille (Napoleon) Japan

Hybrid sushi “Napoleon”

Two kinds of culinary symbolic value (in Japan)
Fetishized “other” (French pastry)
Fetishized “self/other” (American sushi, hybrid sushi Napoleon))

2 types of culinary hybridization
McDonalds-type
Non-McDonalds-type

“McDonaldization” (Ritzer 1993)
McDonaldization meets consumer’s needs or desires in forms that are:
Efficient
Standardized
Tightly controlled

Big Mac
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=Big+Mac&backchip=g_6:australia&chips=q:big+mac&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKor270JbZAhUMtlkKHc9vA18Q3VYIJigA&biw=1280&bih=615&dpr=2

1. McDonalds-type
McDonalds-type culinary hybridization leads to such products as the teriyaki chicken burger

Teriyaki chicken burger
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=teriyaki+chicken+burger&backchip=g_6:japanese&chips=q:teriyaki+chicken+burger&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSxKbJ0ZbZAhVQwlkKHZOXATMQ3VYIJigA&biw=1280&bih=615&dpr=2

2. Non-McDonalds-type
Production and consumption of American sushi in Tokyo represents a different type of culinary hybridization:
Creative (not efficient)
Unpredictable (not standardized)
Playful (not tightly controlled)

2 kinds of culinary hybridization
Standardized, predictable (“McDonaldization”)
Creative, unpredictable (“Sushification,” from the verb: sushify something)

Origin/destination binary collapses
When Philly sushi roll with cream cheese and California roll with avocado is served as “Japanese” in the US, and “American” in Japan, where is the origin, and where is the destination?
Localities cannot be defined as simply the “origin” and/or “destination” of a cultural artifact or practice.
Rather, localities contribute to the production of something that supersedes both (or multiple) localities, with the product even returning to the point of origin in refreshing new forms.

Globalization processes
Cultural globalization is not a uni-lineal (in one direction) process of hybridization, often through localization, but involves back-and-forth movement in cultural flows.

Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Contemporary: convergence (global-local nexus)

Globalization dynamic
Contemporary: multidimensional convergence

Globalization dynamic (Steger & Mintz)
Multidimensional/Present superimposed on past

Globalization dynamic (Allen & Sakamoto “back-and-forth movement”)
Divergence/convergence, multidimensional/superimposed

Jerome Charles White, Jr. (b. 1981)
Stage name: Jero (ジェロ)
African-American, Japanese grandmother
First black enka singer in Japan
Enka is often viewed by the music industry as commercially obsolete, but Jero revitalized the genre by blending it with hip hop
Many enka singers wear kimono in their performances; Jero’s hip hop image (later, 1930s Harlem Rennaissance style) is one of the many factors that contributes to his popularity

Jero “Umiyuki” (Ocean of Snow) 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9c9oSlmOOs (4.26)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUt18XwGyWg (2:47)

Origin/destination binary
Allen & Sakamoto: Localities and even people cannot be defined as simply the “origin” and/or “destination” of a cultural artifact or practice.
Rather, localities and people contribute to the production of something that supersedes both (or multiple) localities, with the product or person even returning to the point of origin in refreshing new forms.
But in case of Jero, he seems to be locally isolated in his new origin/destination, not globally connected.

Jero’s websites (Japanese market)
http://www.jero.jp/pc/ (official website in Japanese)
http://www.jvcmusic.co.jp/-/Artist/A021548.html Victor Entertainment (not available in US)

Globalization in history: is globalization a new phenomenon?

Manfred B. Steger, Globalization, chap. 2

Chap. 2 “Globalization in history: is globalization a new phenomenon?”
Our focus: Understanding globalization through the foods we eat

World cuisine/Culinary culture
Tues. 2/6 Sidney W. Mintz, “Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine,” japanfocus.org (2009)
 
Thurs. 2/8 Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto, “Sushi reverses course: consuming American sushi in Tokyo.” japanfocus.org (2011)

Chap. 2 Recitation on Wed. Feb. 14
Response paper due Tues. Feb. 13 at 10:00 pm

Chap. 1 Recitation: “Globalization: a contested concept”
Steger’s theory of globalization: Global-local nexus
Beijing Olympics 2008 in East Asian context
North Korean Mass Games and Third Worldism in Guyana 1980-92

Global-local nexus

Global
International
“West”

Local
National
“Rest”

Tools for analysis
Globalization is defined by the links between dichotomies
Binaries (global/local) are not exclusive but work together
Global-Local Nexus is a Horizontal relationship, not Vertical
Globalization is multi-dimensional
“Parable of the elephant”
Globality (social condition) is uneven
Global imaginary (consciousness of ourselves and others) is product of our existence & participation on the global stage

Electronic devices OFF

Chap 2 Globalization in history
Is globalization a new phenomenon?

“Where do we begin?”
Post-1989? Some scholars limit globalization to post-1989 to focus on the recent quantum leap in the pace of change.
19th century? Other scholars look to the Industrial Revolution and other developments in the 19th c.
16th century? Others look to 16th c. and the emergence of modernity, when trade routes first connected Eurasia, Africa, and America.
Prehistory? Finally, a few say these processes have been unfolding for thousands of years.
“Parable of the elephant”: each perspective contains important insights.

Globalization unfolds over time
There are deep, historical roots for the current increase in economic & social interdependence and rise in the global imaginary.
New technologies stand upon earlier innovations from earlier centuries.

Globalization unfolds over time
The dynamic (or direction) of globalization processes changes over time

Clickers ON

Question
What term does Steger use to describe the “dynamic” (or direction) of globalization in the pre-historic period?
Divergence
Convergence
Homogenous
Civilized

Steger
“Perhaps the best way to characterize the dynamic of this earliest phase of globalization would be to call it ‘the great divergence’—people and social connections stemming from a single origin but moving and diversifying greatly over time and space.” (p. 24)

Question
What term does Steger use to describe the “dynamic” (or direction) of globalization in the contemporary period?
Divergence
Convergence
Homogenous
Civilized

Steger
“The best way of characterizing this latest globalization wave would be to call it ‘the great convergence’—different and widely spaced people and social connections coming together more rapidly than ever before.”
(p. 36)

Globalization dynamic:
Prehistoric period: divergence

Out of Africa 6-8 million years ago

Globalization dynamic
Contemporary period: convergence

“Is globalization a new phenomenon?”
Steger’s answer:
“[In the following chapters], we will limit the application of the term ‘globalization’ to the contemporary period while keeping in mind that the dynamic driving these processes actually started thousands of years ago.”

Steger’s thesis
Humanity’s progress toward globality is marked by crossing through important technological thresholds
Personal computers, internet, cell phones, digital cameras, high-definition TV, satellites, jets, space travel, supertankers
What is a threshold?

Threshold (from carpenter’s handbook)

Tamara D. Kontrimas watercolor “Sacred Threshold”

Technological thresholds
Steger identifies 5 separate periods when humanity crossed certain distinct technological thresholds.
Each period is distinguished by accelerations in social exchanges and expansion in geographic scope.

Chronology of globalization
Steger claims that his chronology is not linear:
“Full of unanticipated surprises, violent twists, sudden punctuations, and dramatic reversals….” (p. 21)

Chronology of globalization
Steger identifies five periods in the history of globalization:
1. Prehistoric (10,000-3500 BCE)
2. Premodern: Age of Empires (3500 BCE-1500 CE)
3. Early modern (1500-1750)
4. Modern (1750-1980s)
5. Contemporary (from 1980s)

3. Early Modern (1500-1750)
European powers were able to expand outward by sea for several inter-related reasons:
New technologies:
advanced navigation techniques
Political changes:
Reduced power of Roman Catholic Church due to Protestant Reformation

3. Early Modern (1500-1750)
New technologies & political changes led to the rise of the merchant class
Origin of modern capitalist economies

4. Modern (1750-1980)
The Industrial Revolution was a product of new technologies
Carbon-based energy sources fueled manufacturing and trade.
coal, petroleum (oil)
electricity
Positive and negative aspects

4. Critique of European led Modernity
Europe saw itself as leading the world to civilization and enlightenment, but it often exploited other countries and treated them unfairly.
Global interconnections existed primarily to enrich Western capitalist enterprises.
[In East Asia, strategic Chinese ports were divided among European powers]
[Japan took over from European powers and expanded into Korea, Northeast China (Manchukuo), Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific.]

4. Modern population growth
Waves of immigration transformed societies and social dynamics.
Modern period also witnessed a huge population explosion.
From 760 million in 1750, to 3.7 billion in 1970 (now over 7.4 billion).

4. Modern growth in trade
By World War I (1914), trade equaled 12% of GNP for industrialized countries.
This level not reached again until 1970.

Clickers ON

Question
Why did global trade shrink as percentage of GNP between 1914-1970?
Fewer technological innovations in this period.
Emergence of economic nationalism in this period.
Reduced level of consumerism in this period.

Economic nationalism
Economic nationalism led to two devastating World Wars.
A new world order emerged from the ashes of World War II, dominated by USSR and USA, and characterized by division into their separate spheres of influence in the Cold War.

5. Contemporary (from 1980s)
Collapse of USSR in 1991 accelerated emergence of a single global market and the processes driving globalization.
The contemporary period is the focus of Steger’s chapters 3-7

1. Prehistoric (10,000-3500 BCE)
Around 12,000 years ago, the human species achieved true global dispersal over the whole earth when hunter/gatherers finally reached the southern tip of South America. [map on p. 23]

10,000 BCE complete coverage

For most of human history up to 12,000 years ago:
Interaction among bands of hunters/gatherers was limited and unsystematic.

1. Prehistoric (10,000-3500 BCE)
Around 12,000 years ago, some hunter/gatherers began to cultivate crops and domesticate animals.
Farming and herding represent new technologies

Specialization in farmer/herder communities
Craftsmen: iron tools, jewelry, canals, pottery, baskets, buildings.
Bureaucrats: kept accounts of supplies, extended control of rulers.
Soldiers: explored and acquired new land, extended control of rulers.

Clickers ON

Question
What allowed specialized occupations to develop in farmer/herder communities?
Fire and iron tools
Writing and the wheel
Food surpluses

Agriculture & animal husbandry
Due to food surpluses, farmer/herder communities could support specialized groups of people not directly involved in farming.

2. Premodern 3500BCE-1500CE
By 3500 BCE, Steger claims that two new technologies allowed farmer/herder communities to reach a new level in the process of globalization and enter the Premodern Era.

Question
Identify the two new technologies that allowed farmer/herder communities to reach the next level in the process of globalization and enter the Premodern Era:
Fire and iron tools
Writing and the wheel
Dams and irrigation canals

2. Premodern 3500BCE-1500CE
Two new technologies allowed farmer/herder communities to reach a new level in the process of globalization and enter the Premodern Era:

Writing in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and central China (between 3500-2000 BCE ).
The Wheel in South-West Asia (3000 BCE).

Invention of writing
Writing spread rapidly throughout the Eurasian continent within a few centuries and spurred globalization processes
Spread ideas & allowed long-distance communication
Made it possible to coordinate complex social activities
Allowed administration of larger states

Invention of the wheel
Use of wheeled carts or vehicles spread rapidly throughout Eurasian continent within a few centuries and spurred globalization processes
Animal-drawn carts helped speed transport
Permanent roads and infrastructure connected distant places
Faster transportation of people & goods increased regional commerce and interaction

Invention of the wheel
Steger: Wheel invented “around 3000 BCE in Southwest Asia”
Wikipedia: “Wheel invented in the mid-4th millennium BCE, near-simultaneously in Mesopotamia (Sumeria), Indus Valley, the Northern Caucasus, and Central Europe”
The question of the origins of wheeled vehicles remains unresolved

Ancient scripts 3500-2000 BCE
Mesopotamia
Egypt
China

Ancient scripts
Mesopotamia
Cuneiform script
Egypt
Heiroglyphic script
China
漢字　Hanzi script (Chinese characters)

Cuneiform script (extinct)

Hieroglyphic script (survives in altered form as alphabet)

Hanzi (the only surviving ancient script)

2. Premodern 3500BCE-1500CE
Due in large part to writing and the wheel, the premodern period was the Age of Empires.
Egyptian; Persian; Macedonian; Aztecs and Incas (America), Roman; Indian; Byzantine; Islamic Caliphates; Holy Roman Empire; Ghana, Mali, Songhay (Africa); Ottoman

2. Premodern 3500BCE-1500CE
All of these empires were characterized by long-distance communication and exchange of:
Culture
[Culinary culture: foods, cooking methods]
Technology
Goods
Disease

Clickers ON

Question
Of all the world’s great pre-modern empires, which empire does Steger identify as the most enduring and technologically advanced?
Egyptian
Roman
Ottoman
Byzantine
Chinese

China’s advanced technologies
Redesigned plowshares
Hydraulic engineering
Gunpowder
Tapping of natural gas
The compass
Mechanical clocks
Paper
Printing
Silk and metalworking

Question
In the mid-14th century the bubonic plague, or Black Death, killed about what percentage of the population of China, the Middle East, and Europe?
10-15%
30-35%
50-55%
90-95%

2. Premodern trade networks
The negative side of trade networks was the spread of infectious disease.
The bubonic plague killed 1/3 of the population of China, Middle East, and Europe in mid-14th c.

2. Premodern trade networks
The positive side of trade networks was that they led to population growth, urban growth, and cultural and religious encounters.
These encounters turned local religions into major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

2. Premodern trade networks
Premodern trade networks did not extend across the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans.

Steger p. 28

“Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine”

Sidney W. Mintz (2009)

1

Global cuisine/Culinary culture
Today: Sidney W. Mintz, “Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine,” japanfocus.org (2009)
 
Thurs. Feb. 8: Matthew Allen & Rumi Sakamoto, “Sushi reverses course: consuming American sushi in Tokyo.” japanfocus.org (2011)

Wed. Feb. 14 Recitation
Upload response paper to Sakai Assignments
Deadline: Tues. Feb. 13, 10:oo PM

Review:
Steger Chap. 2 “Globalization in history: is globalization a new phenomenon?”
Stages of globalization defined by humanity crossing through technological “thresholds”

Stages of globalization
What technological breakthrough does Steger identify that allowed humanity to cross into each new stage of globalization?
1. Prehistoric (10,000-3500 BCE)
2. Premodern: Age of Empires (3500 BCE-1500 CE)
3. Early modern (1500-1750)
4. Modern (1750-1980s)
5. Contemporary (from 1980s)

Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Prehistoric: divergence

Globalization dynamic
Prehistoric: multidimensional divergence

Steger: Pre-Modern Era (Age of Empires) 3500 BCE-1500 CE
The Chinese Empire was the most enduring and technologically advanced of the world’s empires
The most extensive trade route in the world was the “Silk Road,” which Steger calls a land route.

What is the Silk Road?
A combined overland & overseas trade route that crossed the Eurasian landmass and linked its ports

Shosoin 正倉院　Imperial storage house 701-760, Nara, Japan

Close-up of log structure

Shosoin History: “time capsule”
Holds items donated by Empress Komyo between 756-760 in memory of her late husband, Emperor Shomu.
Located on the grounds of Todai-ji Temple in Nara, where the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) is located.
Some items originated in India, Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Korea, and Tang Dynasty China; others were manufactured domestically.

Shosoin crystal bowl (Roman) 8th c.

Atlantic Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Steger: Early modern period (1500-1750)
“During these two centuries, Europe and its social practices emerged as the primary catalyst for globalization after a long period of Asian predominance.” (p. 28)

3. Early Modern (1500-1750)
European powers could not spread overland into Africa or Asia due to Muslim powers that blocked their way.
Instead, they turned westward by sea to find a new trade route to India.
Objective: Trade in spices

During these 250 years, Europe was the leader in globalization.

Why wasn’t China the leader of globalization?
Steger, p. 26: “By the 15th century CE [1405-1433], enormous Chinese fleets consisting of hundreds of 400-foot-long ocean-going ships were crossing the Indian Ocean and establishing short-lived trade outposts on the east coast of Africa.
“However, a few decades later, the rulers of the Chinese Empire’s series of fateful political decisions to turn inward halted overseas navigation and mandated a retreat from further technological development.

Map of Zheng He’s Seven Voyages

Zheng He’s fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Indonesia and Thailand. The extend of Zheng He’s voyages are hard to determine but it is reasonable to assume that with China’s invention of the compass, it allowed him to reach parts of Africa, Australia and many areas around the Pacific.

Image of Giraffe Being Lead Into the Ming Zoo

Cont.
“Thus, the rulers cut short their empire’s incipient industrial revolution, a development that allowed much smaller European states to emerge as the primary historical agents behind the intensification of globalization.”

Alternate explanation
Starting in the early 15th century, Ming dynasty China experienced increasing pressure from Mongolian tribes to the north.
In recognition of this threat, in 1421 the Ming Emperor Yongle moved the capital north from Nanjing to present-day Beijing.
From the new capital he sent military expeditions to defend the northern borders.
The expenditures necessary for these land campaigns directly competed with the funds necessary to continue naval expeditions.

Treasure Ship (bao-chuan)

The Ming treasure ship are the type of ships that Zheng He voyaged in. His fleet included probably an overall of 62 treasure ships. The measurements noted above for the Ming Treasure ship liken its size to a football field. The treasure ships supposedly can carry as much as 1,500 tons.

West: Zheng He’s 1405-1434

Zheng He’s fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Indonesia and Thailand. The extend of Zheng He’s voyages are hard to determine but it is reasonable to assume that with China’s invention of the compass, it allowed him to reach parts of Africa, Australia and many areas around the Pacific.

East: Vasco Da Gama’s route 1497-99

Electronic devices OFF

Sidney W. Mintz
“Asia’s Contributions to World Cuisine,” japanfocus.org (2009)

Mintz’s thesis (echoes Steger’s)
World cuisine, or global cuisine, is a dynamic process (not a stable system)
The process is continuous, ongoing, and surprisingly ancient

World food history (1)
Gradual and uneven spread of:
plants and animals
foods and food ingredients
cooking methods and traditions

World food history (2)
Interpenetration of local food systems now takes place with great speed on a world-wide scale, but it has its roots in the past

World food history (3)
“The current vogue for global analysis ought not to blind us to the ancient history of this phenomenon.”

Wheat-based culinary culture
Stretches from northern China to southern Europe
Developed several millennia ago

Steger, premodern period 3500 BCE-1500 CE (p. 24)
“Thanks to the auspicious east-west orientation of Eurasia’s major continental axis—a geographical feature that had already facilitated the rapid spread of crops and animals suitable for food production along the same latitudes—the diffusion of these new technologies to distant parts of the continent occurred in only a few centuries.”

Eurasian landmass from space

(Anderson: The Food of China)
Asia and Europe are not separate entities, but a patchwork of neighboring peoples
Through migration or invasion
they took and gave
what they grew & what they cooked
over long centuries

Innovation in food culture
“Whether we have in mind an ingredient, a plant, an animal, a cooking method, or some other concrete culinary borrowing, when such things spread and they come into the hands of receiving farmers, processors, or cooks, they have been detached from some particular cultural system; and when they are taken up, they become integrated into another, usually different one.”

Is global cuisine becoming the same?
No: There is a continuous, creative culinary process that always makes cooking new and different and defies standardization

Is global cuisine becoming the same?
Possibly: Standardization of food habits may come from large-scale economic changes that move masses of people around, shift the rural-urban balance, or create big migrant labor forces

The Columbian Exchange
Completely remade the world diet
Sweet potato crossed the Pacific westward from the new world in the 16th c., probably entering China via the Philippines
Corn & peanuts soon followed

The Columbian Exchange (1492)

European market for spices
Mintz: Trade in Eastern spices to Europe was cut by rise of Ottoman Empire in 1453
Cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, ginger
(Columbus’s voyages were inspired by a desire to find a sea route to obtain these Eastern spices)

Columbian Exchange: Steger
World diet was transformed during Steger’s Early Modern Period (1500-1750), when trans-oceanic travel began
Led to population explosion in Modern Period (1750-1980)
From 760 million in 1750, to 3.7 billion in 1970 (now over 7.4 billion).

Steger: Premodern trade networks
The negative side of trade networks was the spread of infectious disease.
The bubonic plague killed 1/3 of the population of China, Middle East, and Europe in mid-14th c.

Steger: Modern immigration
Waves of immigration transformed societies and social dynamics.
Mintz: bringing their foods, flavors, cooking methods

Small group discussion
In the history of globalization, do you think that the crossing of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans around 1500 is most consistent with:
the early dynamic of divergence,
the contemporary dynamic of convergence
a turning point in the dynamic from divergence to convergence?

Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Prehistoric: divergence

Globalization dynamic
Prehistoric: multidimensional divergence

Globalization dynamic (Steger)
Contemporary: convergence (global-local nexus)

Globalization dynamic
Contemporary: multidimensional convergence

Mintz: Complexity of culinary exchange (1)
Interchanges of culinary culture in the premodern era (corn, potatoes) were being superimposed upon those of the remote past (wheat, spices)

Mintz: Present superimposed on past
Dynamic of Convergence (Steger)

Globalization dynamic (Steger & Mintz)
Multidimensional/Present superimposed on past

Mintz: Complexity of culinary exchange (2)
Speed of diffusion of culinary culture may be fast or it may be slow

Mintz: Asia’s gifts to the West
Tea
Rice
Soy

Rice: one of Asia’s greatest gifts
Introduced to Europe after 711 when the Moors invaded Spain
Rice has displaced other grains in many societies as main source of starch (carbohydrate)

Tea
Introduced at English court in the 17th c. by Queen Catherine of the Portuguese noble house of Braganza, in the reign of King Charles II
One of the first true commodities, along with sugar

Soy
Soybeans have made an enormous contribution to Western diet, in form of cooking oil and protein-rich animal food, very different from their use in Asia
chickens, pigs, cows are fed soybeans
their meat is then fried in soybean oil
humans benefit from soy indirectly

World soy production 2008

Drawbacks of Western use of soy
Enables people to eat less healthily at the top of the food chain, rather than more healthily near the bottom
Brazil and Argentina are major exporters of soy to China, where it is used as animal feed (following Western model of soy use)
Negative results:
Increase in animal protein consumption in Asia
Destruction of rainforests in the Amazon