How Mad Cow Got Me On TV

One of the enduring American myths about Japan is that beef costs something like $50 a pound. "Bet you miss steak, doncha?" people will say when they find out I've been living in Japan. Of course, you can buy beef here that costs $50 a pound, or far more, just like you can buy a $100 melon or a $6 apple (and believe me, each of them is worth every single yen!). But for decades Japan has been the home of cheap beef too, and its most prominent example (the McDonald's hamburger notwithstanding) has been the Yoshinoya restaurant chain's gyudon ("beef bowl") dish of rice, beef, and onions, selling for 200 or 300 yen (i.e., for two or three dollars). But that all ended last week.

Ever since Mad Cow Disease was discovered in the U.S. on Christmas Eve 2003, Japan and the U.S. have been negotiating over the terms under which Japan will allow imports of U.S. beef into Japan to recommence. Japan's previous policy on Mad Cow was simply to pretend that it didn't exist, which meant that Japanese farmers were allowed to continue feeding cow bone meal to their cows long after every other nation had banned the practice. After this predictably led to the first case of Mad Cow Disease in Japan in September 2001, however, Japan slammed the barn door shut. Now every single cow raised in Japan is tested before its meat can be sold.

The U.S. is now demanding that Japan allow U.S. beef imports again, even though the U.S. only tests a tiny fraction of its cattle for Mad Cow. The U.S. position is arrogant in the extreme, because even though Japan now tests every single animal, the U.S. continues to maintain its blanket ban on all imports of Japanese beef, including Kobe beef and Matsuzaka beef, widely recognized as the best in the world (and which have given rise to legends of Japanese cows being given massages, fed beer and bathed in sake). At the same time, the U.S. is testing just 20,000 cows per year (out of 35 million) and expects complete access to the Japan market.

An economist on Japanese TV recently commented on this discrepancy, concluding with the remark, "It seems that the Americans are rather selfish," whereupon the anchorman responded, "Well, we've known that for a long time already."

It was in this context that I set out for the bank in the early afternoon of February 10, 2004. Because the most accessible branch of my bank is in Shibuya (the epicenter of Japanese youth culture), I took the Hanzomon subway line there from our offices near the Imperial Palace. After finishing my business at the bank, I decided to eat lunch at the nearby Yoshinoya gyudon restaurant, because I had heard on TV that Yoshinoya was finally exhausing its stocks of U.S. beef, and that the tenth would probably be the last day of gyudon sales.

In the past, I'd always ordered a "super-large" size bowl of gyudon, but because of its declining stocks, Yoshinoya had removed the super-large bowl from the menu. So instead I ordered a "large" size, and then when that was done I ordered another "large" size. "Since it's the last day," I explained to the clerk, and indeed, several other people at the crowded counter ordered extra bowls while I was there.

I walked out of the Yoshinoya restaurant and straight into a TV news crew. These news crews love to hang out in Shibuya so they can interview the trendsetting teenage girls, but today (perhaps in light of the political angle) they made room for a middle-aged American guy. You can view the resulting news report here. Not only did they ask me about my love of gyudon, but I was also allowed to state my political views. Unfortunately, like a fool I admitted that I'd ordered two "large" bowls of gyudon, and I doubt Rumi will ever let me live it down. She's still got me doing twenty sit-ups every night.

The Yoshinoya chain insists that other types of beef, such as Australian beef, are inappropriate for its signature dish (although I wonder whether an inability to negotiate appropriate futures contracts with Australian firms might have more to do with it), and accordingly it is now trying to re-cast its business around new beef-free dishes like butadon ("pork bowl"), and karedon ("curry bowl"). But the last time I walked by a Yoshinoya, they didn't seem to have many customers at all....

Comments

[d@g]

I generally agree with your argument regarding Mad Cow, but at the same time, I think it's a bit naive to take the position of the Japanese authorities without comment. It's not as though the Japanese authorities haven't been known to use onerous and excessive regulations to close or restrict access to a given market. In addition, as far as I'm aware, there haven't been any cases of vCJD linked to consumption of meat from US cattle. If public safety was the government's first concern, they should have halted all consumption of beef given the number of mad cow cases found in Japan.
I do think the U.S. needs to improve its own testing regime and accomodate reasonable requests by its trading partners, but testing every cow?! This makes sense? More people are killed every year by food poisoning, but they don't test every piece of food in your supermarket.
Anyway, nice site. I lived in Japan for about 3 years and you capture it pretty well.

[Eric Kosinski]

Cool! It was nice to see that news show you talked about earlier.
Although I have been critical of the Japanese gov in the past for its agricultural tariffs that hurt Japan’s nearby poor countries, I think the Japanese gov is justified in closing the door on American beef because it is a consumer safety measure. ヨシ牛の再登場が待ち遠しいですね。In the meantime, they should come out with some cutting edge 丼物, like a joint venture with Mr. Donut for donut-don.