Slightly off-topic: I had ramen a few times in Japan, and while truly delicious, it's massively expensive and rather exotic. Why is ramen a synonym for "cheap" in the US (apparently)? Or does it mean just "instant noodles" over there?
There are ramen restaurants in cities with larger Asian populations like NYC and Los Angeles. To most Americans, however, ramen refers to the $0.50/meal packs of instant noodles.
The US of A has a greater capacity to produce grains needed to produce the noodles, and can deliver them to market without having to put them on a boat. Japan has less arable land, so less grain producing land, and (probably) has to import more (which requires boats).
> The US of A has a greater capacity to produce grains needed to produce the noodles
And more importantly, a greater capacity to subsdize production of said grains.
Edit: Did this comment really get greyed out? The mechanism for that is still kind of mysterious to me. Let me clarify, I don't mean the US has more money, just a dumber system of farm subsidies.
