In 1910, two Chinese cooks at Tokyo's Rairaiken restaurant introduced a dish with salty belt and noodles. They called it Shina soba. It was believed that Shina Soba became very popular for what it represented: as Katarzyna Joanne Cwiertka wrote, "by physically interacting with China through the ingestion of Chinese food and drink, the Japanese masses were brought closer to the idea of empire." On a deeper level, the Japanese understood that to eat Shina Soba was to gobble up their enemies. It was after Japan's defeat in World War II that the word 'Shina' (China) was considered an embarrassing racial slur, which is why we now know this dish as Ramen. 

 

Shina-Soba I (2014)

&
Shina-Soba II (2014)
Digital illustration 
11 x 17"