"Yokoso Japan!" is the slogan for the current Visit Japan campaign, which according to their Web site was designed "to promote foreign tourist traffic to Japan." I just hope the foreigners don't bring their cars.

I would like to do my part in the campaign by suggesting some fundamental changes to the country to make it more attractive to foreigners. More foreigners would come to Japan if, for example, the food were a little more international-friendly. After all, the Americans invented the California roll -- a sushi roll made more palatable to their tastes by adding avocado. Every country changes international food to fit their people's tastes. The U.S. has done the same with Tex-Mex (Texas-influenced Mexican food), and in Japan, you're likely to find raw fish among your Italian food. This is called "fusion" food, where seemingly incompatible foods are fused together, creating an explosion that people from outside of the country of the food's origin find pleasing but which the people from the country of origin find appalling. So here are some ideas to introduce fusion Japanese-Western food to make it more foreigner-friendly.

But first we must talk about eating methods. Although most Westerners can use chopsticks nowadays, there are still a good number of the "totally hopeless" (such as my meat-and-potatoes family) who can't make the change from flatware to stickware. Who came up with the idea of using two parallel twigs to pick up food, anyway? And why hasn't the concept changed over the years to something more modern -- for example, wire coat hangers that you could bend to shape according to the food you're trying to eat? Have you ever tried to pick up a boiled egg with chopsticks? How about soft tofu? With a coat hanger, you could bend it into a scoop to pick up a boiled egg, or you could make a miniature forklift to lift out pieces of soft tofu.