Ando+Momofuku

Ando­­­ Momofuku
Category: Technologies (Ando Momofuku, holding the Space Cup Noodle) Hello people, my name is Ando Momofuku—yes, it may sound a bit weird to you but it actually has a meaning like “one hundred blessing” and my first name…oh you got me off track. Back to my self-introduction. I was born in 1910 March 5th in the city of Chiayi, Taiwan when it was occupied by Japan, in the hands of a wealthy family. But my parents died when I was still small, and I was sent to my grandparents who lived in Tainan, Taipei. In 1933, when I was 23 years old, I travelled to Osaka, Japan for buisness. I was able to talk Japanese well since the Japan taught Taiwanese people Japanese. So after the World War 2, I became a Japanese citizen and entered the university there. At the same time, I made a small merchadising firm in Osaka. My life was pretty hard as you can tell. In the time I was growing, wars happened almost everywhere, countries changed their name, some had changed their language and I had my own problem with my parents dying so fast. It wasn't a happy or a joyful life until that day..... So first, let me ask the reader a question before you know what I'm famous for. Do you know who I am? The answer is probably “no” for a lot of people, especially for people who are not Japanese. Well now I am going to tell you….The invention that I made is probably in the corners of most supermarkets in the world. I made THE FIRST INSTANT RAMEN. (as you can see, I'm holding one up on the picture!)

Why? The reason is because a few years ago, when Japan was just recovering from the deep wound of World War 2, I passed this place with a line of people—20 to 30 meters long—all of them wearing ragged clothing, shivering from the coldness of the wind, waiting patiently for what is at the and of the line…something steaming there. The person I was with said, “They’re waiting for a bowl of ramen.” Then, I realized that the people were willing to wait for such a long time just for a bowl of ramen. To make my life and the Japanese citizen's life recover from the gloom of war and pour some joy in them, I must make something. Yes, that day was the turning point, where I made the decision in my heart that I will make a food that is tasty, fast and cheap for people like this in Japan. Back then, the Prime minister of Health in Japan offered the citizen bread imported from America that is made from wheat flour. The citizen refused to eat though, because for them, bread was a new type of food and they were more used to eating noodles made from flour. The Japanese citizens took hunger instead of losing their country's traditional food that they've eaten for many many years. And I thought, "peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat," which later on became my motto for the company I own.

The making of instant noodles wasn’t easy at all. The idea didn’t just come up to my mind like a “ping!” so I had to use all of the time I had when I was in the 30's. I worked inside a very small and rusty backyard garage full with flour, big pots and pans, the noodle cutter and a fluorescent light hanging up on the ceiling. After many trials and errors—and when I was 48 I think, in 1958—I found out a method where you make the noodle moist, then dry and then flash frying them. This method made the noodle back into the soft form which is already cooked and edible when you pour hot water on the noodle. I also flavored them with Chicken Broth and there is a reason for that—there is no religion which can’t eat CHICKENS! I made the noodles, not only for the Japanese citizens, but to the world because I knew, that there are other people out there who are suffering the same as the Japanese citizens. After the invention, I changed my family running salt producing company into the “Nissin” company, where we sold out the first ramen of ours, the Chikin Ramen. At the first year things went pretty well and a lot of people bought it. Of course, back then there were no instant foods and people bought foods in a newspaper, so it was a big boom. But the thing was, the boom only happened in a small area of Japan because my company wasn’t big enough. And so, the Mitsubishi Company(Biggest company in Japan back then) helped out my company and the noodles spread wide through Japan. After 13 years or so, I made another product called the Cup Noodle®, which is probably the most popular and world wide product that I've made. In 2005, my Cup Noodle was in the Top 10 of “Japan’s best inventions ranking”. 85.7 billion packs of instant noodles were slurped in that year too. After another few years, I developed the Cup Noodle to be able to be eaten in space. media type="youtube" key="FwNEb8DCgvo?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

So, what’s my point? What did my noodles do to the world?

The point is that my instant ramen noodles have helped the evolution of people in many ways. First, ramen helped people survive from hunger and coldness. Then it made the peoples’ life easier by making part of their meal really quick to cook. After that, people started using more time on work than on making something to eat. That helped the economy of Japan grow a lot, all though it is the truth that some people did too much work and got them selves stressed. It did all these things to other countries too. Ramen has helped Japanese food culture stretch out into various countries. And right now at the moment, I made a project of sending out the noodles to people in the world that are suffering from poverty, refugee, cold wars and natural disasters. <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Without my noodles—it might sound very sarcastic—but I think that Japan wouldn’t have developed this far to a country that has the best technologies in the world. <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Also, the commercial of "Cup Noodle--NO BORDER" has our motto. "Peace will come when people have enough to eat." We can feed these people who are lost, hungry or not. People eat dinner when they need to talk something important. Have you ever had that feeling? When you eat dinner, everyone is quiet and don't fight. When you're eating with a friend you are in a fight with, you might feel like you can restore the friendship. Not only did Cup Noodle develop technologies, they can be the motivate peace between people. <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">* The Learner Profile ** <span style="background: white; margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: left;"> · Inquirer I was probably the best at inquiring than any of the other IB learner profiles because half of my life I was questioning “how?”. How can I make the instant noodles? How can I make it tastier? How can I make more people eat it? How can I make the world a better place....and so on. <span style="background: white; margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: left;"> · Thinker After all the inquiring, I started thinking a lot about how I can advance my product to help the situations now. <span style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"> · open-minded I had to be open minded at that time to invent the instant ramen because back then, ramen took a long time to make and people probably never thought of ramen that can be made in 3 minutes. I had to make the impossible in that time. <span style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"> · caring <span style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"> I am caring, and that was what made my instant ramen come to a success. The heart that cared for the people, was what made me think of making the ramen which lead to making money.

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"Inventor of the Week: Archive." //Lemelson-MIT Program//. MIT School of Engineeringq, Oct. 2007. Web. 21 Oct. 2010. <http://web.mit.edu/invent/ iow/ando.html>. Information from MIT "Instant Noodles." Editorial. //Inventor of the Week: Archive//. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oct. 2007. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/ando.html>. Hevesi, Dennis. "Momofuku Ando, 96, Dies; Invented Instant Ramen." Editorial. //Momofuku Ando, 96, Dies; Invented Instant Ramen - New York Times//. The New York Times, 9 Jan. 2007. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/01/09/business/worldbusiness/09ando.html>. Beech, Hannah. "Momofuku Ando." Editorial. //TIME Magazine ; 60 Years of Asian// //Heroes: Momofuku Ando//. TIME Magazine, 2006. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <[]>. "Ando was king of instant ramen." Editorial. //Ando was king of instant ramen ;// //The Japan Times Online//. The Japan Times, 7 Jan. 2007. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <[]> Nissin Cup Noodle. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FwNEb8DCgvo&feature=related>. Images:
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<span style="background: white; display: block; line-height: 20.4pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #636363; display: block; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Sorato Doken 8E