On Feb. 20, John Sugimura, a professionally trained sushi chef and a graduate of the prestigious Sushi Institute of America in Little Tokyo, brought his talents to SPA. He prepared what appeared to be Boba tea for the students and faculty to enjoy. Sugimura and a few student volunteers spent parts of their lunch making and passing out boba.
The poster that announced the event labeled boba as Japanese street food. However, boba is actually Tawainese and the drink felt very Americanized. Many students thought that the event was inauthentic and a cultural misrepresentation. Junior Ethan He was one of John Sugimura’s helpers during lunch. He had one of the drinks during lunch and thought it was “alright but was Americanized,” he said. Despite the adapted flavor of the drink, the boba was still a hit among the community, with almost every person drinking it at lunch.
Ethan He found the school’s efforts to incorporate and include other cultures at our school through food to be lackadaisical. He thought the format for these special lunches should be tweaked.
He said, “ [The chefs shouldn’t make] just one lunch, maybe two or three [lunches] within one month, there’s like a category.”
Ethan believed that rather than having the chefs only serve one lunch or drink from their cuisine, they should prepare multiple lunches from various cultures for the school. He also thought having one culture serve its food each month and then rotate might be better.
Overall, John Sugimura’s boba was popular and one of the most student-involved lunch activities Taher Catering has hosted. Even though there are a couple of cultural inconsistencies, these sponsored lunches provide the school with more exposure to other cultures. The miscategorization of boba tea as Japanese and not Taiwanese sets a bad example for these attempts to incorporate other cultures. Still, with time, effort, and consideration, the lunch staff should be able to host events that authentically share different cultures.
