TsukuBlog
A Local Perspective on Life in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
Chinese Cabbage (Hakusai, 白菜) Dominates the Early Winter Landscape in Some Parts of Tsukuba ( and the surprising history of that vegetable in Japan)
16 December, 2020
By Avi Landau
Sprawling (and beautiful) HAKUSAI fields in Hakke, Tsukuba
Found in stews (NABE MONO), in miso soup, and especially in the form of pickles served as a side dish to a meal, HAKUSAI ( 白菜) is such a usual everyday part of the Japanese diet that most have come to believe that it has been grown in Japan since ancient times. My friends and students are always taken aback (and a bit uncomfortable) when I tell them that the English word for this indispensable vegetable is CHINESE CABBAGE and not WHITE CABBAGE, which would be a direct translation of the Kanji characters used to write it.