Nothing says “Japan” like donuts and coffee

There’s something about being abroad that, despite its many novelties, also spurs the expatriate to find that “piece of home” where he can be temporarily back inside a zone of familiarity and comfort. For me, this involves regular pilgrimages to none other than the venerable American institution of Mister Donut.

Now, there are probably many of you who haven’t heard of Mister Donut (as I had not until I came to Japan). To make a long story short, Mister Donut was a rival and erstwhile sibling to the now-ubiquitous Dunkin’ Donuts juggernaut: both franchises were founded in Massachusetts, in the mid-Fifties, by brothers-in-law who went their separate ways (probably in a heated argument over what kind goes the best with coffee). Though both prospered for a while and expanded greatly, in the end, the mustachioed “Mister Donut” chef was unable to compete with the “It’s time to make the donuts” guy, and the chain was bought outright by Dunkin’ in the early 1990s. Most former Mister Donut locations in the US are now either Dunkin’ Donuts or simply gone (only nine now-independent shops, scattered across the Eastern Seaboard and Midwest, retain the name). But here in Japan, this is plainly not the case. Mister Donut is to Japan what Dunkin’ Donuts is back home: it’s everywhere, and nobody (not Krispy Kreme, and most certainly not Dunkin’) can touch it. It’s especially commonplace in front of train stations, where there is always a plentiful market of hungry commuters ready for a bite to eat. For almost any other fast food megafranchise, I would see this as lamentable, but even I can’t begrudge donuts and coffee at one of the few places in Japan that realizes curry was never intended by nature as a potential filling. To that alone, I must tip my proverbial hat.

What makes Mister Donut in Japan even more interesting is the extent to which it emphasizes its American roots. They have every right to do so, of course, but considering the franchise’s situation back in its home country, it smacks of foreign branding. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the term, you’ve doubtless come across it: it exists in everything from the ersatz-Scandinavian ice cream Häagen-Dazs — straight from the fjords of New Jersey — to beer companies’ use of famous European brewing-regions’ names in their domestic brands. (In just one outstanding display of incomprehensibility, the Budweis, Czech Republic-based Budvar brewery isn’t even allowed to call its product “Budweiser” in the US, thanks to a lawsuit from St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch). In England, some electronics companies even went so far as to give themselves Japanese names, in order to compete in the market. Why they do it, of course, comes down to getting the product to sell, based on the perceived qualities of the place they are impersonating. But whether the company is legitimately non-domestic or just wants to sound that way, there’s no denying that our unconscious associations of certain places with particular desirable (or undesirable) attributes helps color our buying habits.

And that helps explain why foreign branding is so big in Japan. Among Japanese, so the reasoning goes, Japan tends to get linked with things like tradition and familiarity, so to get a product to stand out, companies will invariably use something foreign to give it appeal. This doesn’t really hit home until you’re standing on a train, looking up at the ads, and it suddenly occurs to you that most of the products have English(-ish) names, and over half the models are Westerners. In Japan, foreign branding has practically become just branding, period. This puts Mister Donut into an interesting position, since they can legitimately claim American origins, and they certainly don’t ignore this opportunity. Shops advertise prominently, “Founded 1955, Boston, Massachusetts,” and (somewhat more ambitiously), “world’s best coffee and fresh donuts.” Both slogans are, of course, in English. Using the English language in advertising isn’t new in itself, but here, it’s only a start: One potentially baffling (to foreigners) aspect of Mister Donut’s American branding is how it can justify serving Chinese food alongside its donuts in some stores. The chain gets around this, however, by referring to these sub-stores as “Mister Yumcha – San Francisco Chinatown”, linking it back to the franchise’s American roots in truly inspired fashion. (You’d think Japanese customers would be more comfortable with slightly more “authentic” Chinese food, but I guess “America” trumps that notion when it comes to foreign appeal.)

The “American” motif continues inside, where English-language songs from the Sixties to the present, but none in Japanese, can be heard over the speakers. A few may even be so new that I hadn’t heard them before coming to Japan; I can tell this because I can usually comfortably ignore them without that twinge of annoyance that develops from hearing something on the radio a few (thousand) too many times. But the real clincher in terms of “American-ness” is that Mister Donut is the only place I’ve encountered in Japan thus far that offers free coffee refills. This fact alone makes it an ideal place for me to sit and read a book or study Japanese, without feeling obligated to order something else or vacate my spot for another customer. Pair this with one of those “old-fashioned” donuts that soaks up the coffee like a sponge, and it’s just about perfect. It may not always be the best thing for me to be putting such massive amounts of caffeine into my body at what is typically already a late hour, but it helps make this time my most productive of the day, providing inspiration for (among other things) the column you are reading now. (I am also deeply indebted to Bill Bryson and his book I’m a Stranger Here Myself, which I read mostly at Mister Donut.)

What really gets me, though, is that there’s really no need for all the “American” posturing. In spite of all that, it ends up feeling like it just belongs, as a sort of “friendly corner store” down the street. It’s a piece of home-away-from-home, but it doesn’t feel away from anywhere. That’s comforting to me, somehow… but maybe that’s just the American in me talking.