This is an excellent post into the variety of Japan and it's intricacies. I was just in Kobe for our gem and mineral show and an old guy came up to me at the show. He was going in depth about minerals using Kansai-ben. I couldn't understand a fucking word he was saying lol. Even normal Japanese would have been difficult because the mineral world uses a lot of words I am not familiar with yet. Same thing happens when I go North to my wife's hometown in Akita, Akita-ben = ???. I know "nndat' which means soudesu ne? but that's about it.
As for the food and culture of each little town, it's impressive how each place took something and tweeked it for their own. My wife's hometown is known for kiritanpo and yama yasai. Neither of which I am fond of, but it shows the creativity of the people. It's a fascinating, difficult country that always keeps me on my toes or several glasses of beer into my woes.
I watched a video on how a lot of this diversity and what foreigners perceive as weirdness multiplied and spread as a result of the bubble era campaign where the national government threw money at local governments to get them to try and attract tourists or residents in any way they saw fit. That’s why the hometown of many fiction writers end up cashing in on their work. Shibamata for “Otoko ha tsurai” or I know there is a ton with tons of Ultraman statues and another that cashes in on Doraemon etc. but I imagine a lot of local governments tried to push local food in the same way to increase the profits to their local regions.
I think if it was done and done this obviously in America, we’d probably scoff at it as being too opportunistic and not particularly interesting
…but then there is obviously the fact that most Americans aren’t nearly as detail oriented and don’t care about describing the subtle differences of two restaurants as much as they just choose a favorite and leave it at that.
I am sure there are a few crystal people like that everywhere but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Japanese guy went an extra layer into it. Like maybe a non Japanese would know which region something comes from while a Japanese expert would know the exact city or exact mine
Man. I would love to see some of your gem world. Theres a gem store in town closing soon. Half off. You should come visit