The Ramen King and I: How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life by Andy Raskin

Author:Andy Raskin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Autobiography, Ando, Man-woman relationships, Travel, Editors, Asia, Literary, Interpersonal relations, Andy, Man-woman relationships - United States, Noodles - Japan, Publishers, American Journalism, Journalists, 21st Century, Sex Roles (Sociological Aspects), Editors - United States, Authors, Momofuku, American - 21st century, Journalists - United States, Andy - Relations with women, United States, Family & Relationships, American, Japan - Description and travel, General, Literary Criticism, Personal Memoirs, Raskin, Biography & Autobiography, Japan, Noodles, Biography
ISBN: 9781592404445
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2009-05-12T07:00:00+00:00

The building was around fifteen stories high, its exterior covered in smooth olive-green tiles. It was probably constructed in the 1970s. Apart from the kanji characters for “Nissin Food Products” and Nissin’s bowl-shaped logo near the top, the structure could just as easily have housed an insurance company. At street level, a gray slate walkway led to two red marble steps.

As I walked up the steps, the glass doors in front of me parted automatically.

The lobby stretched the full dimensions of the building, its floor comprised of the same red marble as the steps. The wall opposite the entrance was all glass; through it, I could see a rock garden and small koi pond. In the center of the lobby, two Greek-style sculptures, chiseled from what appeared to be white marble, stood on three-foot-high pedestals. I approached the sculptures and, for a minute or so, lingered between them. The one on my left depicted a naked man (Dionysus?) with his arms around two naked women whose joyful expressions hinted at the planning of, or winding down from, a ménage à trois. The sculpture on my right showed two men. One was curled up in agony, while the other hovered above, twisting the first man’s arm.

It’s hard to believe this now, but I stood between the sculptures completely oblivious to the symbolism.

“Can I help you?”

The voice belonged to an old man sitting behind a reception desk. He wore an armband with the kanji for security guard, which made me think again of Go Forth. Security personnel were always foiling the hosts’ plans. During the taping of “I wanna be a street vendor and serve yakitori to the mayor of Tokyo!” a member of the production crew was taken into police custody outside City Hall.

“I would like to meet Momofuku Ando,” I said calmly.

The security guard picked up a telephone and dialed a number. There was a long pause.

“There’s a foreigner at the front desk who says he wants to meet the chairman.”

Another pause.

“Hai hai.”

The security guard hung up the phone.

“Please proceed to the twelfth floor.”

I couldn’t believe it had gone so smoothly! Maybe people showed up all the time wanting to meet Momofuku Ando, and it was someone’s job to greet them. The security guard even wrote out a name tag with my name in katakana—the second Japanese syllabary. Katakana symbols are like hiragana ones, except that they’re used mostly for spelling onomatopoeia expressions and transliterating foreign words.

I affixed the name tag to my shirt and walked past the guard’s desk. When I got to the bank of elevators, there was another sculpture, this one a bronze of Ando himself. It depicted the noodle inventor in a graduation-style cap and gown that, according to a plaque, commemorated an honorary PhD that he had received, in 1996, from Ritsumeikan University. Entering an open elevator, I pressed the button for the twelfth floor. The elevator doors closed, and when they opened again, a young woman was standing in front of me. She wore a gray skirt and a white blouse.

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