Cultural Studies Film Review: The Ramen Girl

Film Review: The Ramen Girl
By: Zack Menchel

Released in 2008 in joint by Media 8 Entertainment and Digital Site Corporation, The Ramen Girl is a quirky, but rather charming film that details the struggles and ultimate success of “Abby” (Brittany Murphy), a young American woman accompanying her boyfriend, Ethan on a business trip to Japan. When Ethan is summoned to Osaka for work, he very awkwardly decides to leave Abby flat, claiming he never requested her presence on the excursion in the first place. Depressed and alone, Abby wanders down the street from her apartment and into a well lit little ramen noodle shop. The shop’s sullen owner, Maezumi shouts at her in Japanese that the restaurant is closed but realizing Abby probably does not speak his language and is clearly in some sort of emotional distress, decides to serve her a steaming hot bowl of his famous ramen noodles anyways. The noodles instantly cheer her up and amazed by their mystical mood-altering abilities, Abby, using the convenience of her English to Japanese handbook requests that Maezumi be her “sensei” or teacher and pass along the skill and ability needed to cook her own ramen. Maezumi reluctantly agrees but puts Abby through the gauntlet of an assortment of housekeeping tasks and chores in order to prove her worth and improve her character.

The long process in which Abby ultimately earns Maezumi’s respect in order to learn how to cook ramen is both hilarious and entertaining. When her noodles are finally cooked to perfection and her broth is so delicious that it brings tears to the eyes of restaurant patrons, Maezumi knows that Abby is ready to be named his successor and allow him to retire. In order for this to happen, her Americanized ramen (featuring corn, tomatoes etc.) must receive the blessing of the grandmaster. Although Abby never receives his blessing, she does become a top-notch ramen noodle chef and opens up her own American-Japanese fusion restaurant in New York City with her Japanese boyfriend Toshi. Maezumi retires with his wife and son and both parties live happily ever after.

Throughout The Ramen Girl, various intercultural communication concepts that we discussed in class and read about in the class text such as nonverbal communication, individualistic/collectivistic cultures, and high/low context cultures are covered in the film. With this paper I hope to convey the variety of concepts covered in this film and explain their significance in the contexts provided by the film.
The difference in communication styles between that of the Japanese people and that of Americans is something we pondered numerous times in lecture. Our class text also uses these two cultures in compare and contrast scenarios quite frequently. One of my favorite course concepts that is depicted in The Ramen Girl is the overall struggle between Abby and Maezumi as they attempt to communicate with each other both verbally and non-verbally. According to the textbook, “nonverbal elements of cultural communication are highly dynamic and play an important role in understanding intercultural communication. Both verbal and nonverbal communication are symbolic, communicate meaning, and are patterned, or governed by contextually determined rules,” (Martin & Nakayama, pp. 273-74).

 Maezumi and Abby’s trials in miscommunication are frustrating but provide for some memorable movie moments. One particular scene deals with their differences in how they view non-verbal communication. After much whining and begging about her desire to learn his craft, Abby is told by Maezumi to go home to bed but to return at five o’clock in the morning if she wishes to work. Because he could not convey this message easily in English, Maezumi held up his hand, extending all five fingers in an attempt to get his point across. Abby immediately slapped his hand, thinking he was offering her a ‘high-five’ for a job well done. Seeing as how Abby wasn’t leaving, Maezumi repeated his message with the accompanying hand-gesture. Yet again, Abby slapped his hand thinking he was congratulating her on the completion of a business deal, as might be the case if this scenario were to occur in Abby’s home in the United States. Maezumi grew angry and exclaimed, “Why are you slapping my hand, lunatic girl?” This scene set the tone on just how difficult it was going to be for Abby to function among a culture so different from her own and provided an accurate, yet humorous portrayal about how misunderstandings between different cultures often times will originate with non-verbal behaviors such as in this case with hand gestures.

Another intercultural communication concept covered in The Ramen Girl through the differences between American and Japanese is individualistic versus collectivistic cultures. The text defines individualistic views as “the tendency to emphasize individual identities, beliefs, needs, goals, and views rather than those of the group” and collectivistic views as focusing on the “goals, needs, and views of the in-group rather than individuals’ own goals, needs, and views,” (Martin & Nakayama, p. 55). Abby’s interactions with her Japanese boyfriend Toshi provided the best examples of this concept. As an individualistic American, Abby tended to be much more direct in asking questions upon meeting Toshi as an acquaintance. On the other side of the spectrum was Toshi who as a Japanese man was much more indirect with how he conducted his conversations and often waited to be addressed before speaking. A specific example of the clash of these two cultures occurred during a scene where Abby and Toshi enjoyed a beer together on Abby’s apartment balcony. They are still getting to know each other and speak of their life goals, dreams, and aspirations for their careers. Toshi perfectly represents the collectivistic perspective of the Japanese culture by telling Abby he dreamt of being a musician among other things in college but must do what his parents and family want him to do. His entire life from work to romance is basically pre-planned for him and fits in with the hard-working Japanese businessman outlook of working one’s way up through a big company, getting married, having children, becoming a grandparent, and then death. He does exactly what he is expected from him by his loved ones because it is the norm of his culture. Toshi even tries to have the best of both worlds by leaving the city in which Abby leaves in for business but asks her to accompany him. Abby on the other hand is still trying to find herself and doesn’t have much going for her career wise. Not even unsure of what she aspires to be, it is here where she gets the strange idea of working to become a ramen noodle chef.

The Ramen Girl also displays the difference between the two contextual views of culture, high and low. The text says emphasizes that high-context culture is “a style of communication in which much of the information is contained in the contexts and nonverbal cues rather than expressed explicitly in words” while low-context communication refers to “a communication style with information conveyed in words than in nonverbal cues and contexts, (Martin & Nakayama, p. 233). When Abby first comes to work at the noodle shop she is expected to clean the entire restaurant to specification without any guidelines or instruction aside from Maezumi shouting “Clean!” at her. I wasn’t certain but I saw this as an example of the Japanese high-context culture because as a woman, a Japanese man might expect her to know how to clean well without any guidance. Abby understandably struggles with the tasks and wishes to be taught verbally because Americans live in a low-context culture.

Another example is brought into the picture when Abby is scolded after attempting to follow Maezumi up a large raised step into what she perceives to just be another room. What she didn’t know is that Maezumi and his wife lived in the same building as the restaurant in which they worked but as many homes in Japan are, each area just flowed into the next without any rooms or separate spaces. Not only did Abby just barge right into his home without being invited in but she wore her shoes in as well, a sign of disrespect that can be chalked up to the misunderstandings of each other’s culture and a lack of communication as a whole. The Japanese view on homes is that “rooms” are often multi-functional and there is no real distinction between private and public areas like Americans choose to differentiate between. This also reminded me of how Mexicans viewed their home and living situations throughout “Mexicans and Americans: A Different Sense of Space” in our class reading packet.

In conclusion, I found the The Ramen Girl to be a surprisingly interesting film that also was conveniently chock full of intercultural communication concepts such as nonverbal communication, individualistic/collectivistic cultures, and high/low context cultures. The premise of the film and how the story plays out is pretty silly but I was still able to enjoy it for what it was despite my initial skepticism. As somebody that hopes to visit Japan some day, the clash of cultures both positively and negatively is something I am already fully aware of. I thought the film did a good job of keeping with the realism of the situations I discussed in this paper and this course really helped me to comprehend a lot more of what was going on culturally. I recommend this film to others that enjoy movies with culture, comedy, drama, and some romance. Prepare to entertain an intense craving for ramen noodles as soon as the closing credits hit the screen.