is assistant professor at the Molecular Neuroscience Research Center of Shiga University of Medical Science in Otsu, Japan. Each day, Japan’s high-speed Shinkansen rail network carries roughly half a million passengers between Osaka and Tokyo. Passengers begin their journey by boarding the train and, after finding their assigned seat, settling in.
But, once the doors on the express trains close, there’s no stepping off again until they have reached their final stop – whether that’s two hours away or five. Within this mobile confinement, ‘pork bun terrorism’ periodically erupts. The ‘attack’ begins innocently: a passenger purchases a steaming-hot pork bun at Shin-Osaka station, for example, anticipating the modest pleasure of consuming it during the journey.
Yet, once the package is opened and the passenger begins to eat, the smell of steamed dough, onion and hot pork fat spreads through the surrounding rows. A swift – and sometimes vociferous – rebuke from a nearby passenger may follow. Sometimes, the exchange may escalate into a heated altercation.
The controversy first drew widespread attention online in 2018 and has resurfaced periodically ever since. Despite being asked to adjudicate on the matter, the railway companies that operate Japan’s Shinkansen trains have largely avoided a blanket ban on strong-smelling food, relying instead on passengers’ discretion and consideration for others. But the issue keeps flaring up.
The question of whether pork buns should be eaten aboard Shinkansen trains has sharply polarised opinion into two seemingly irreconcilable camps. On one side are the passengers who feel entitled to eat what they like on board (especially when it involves food they see as harmless), and on the other side are those who consider the unwanted smell of pork buns to be an inescapable imposition. What makes the dispute unusually combustible is that both sides regard their own experience as self-evident.
Each interprets the other’s reaction as rude or unreasonable. I find myself siding with those who oppose eating pork buns on the Shinkansen. The smell causes me intense, visceral discomfort.
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