Ramen Store Research Paper

It is in early April, Boston is still covered by snow. A crowd of people is lining up on the street, bearing the cold. They keep raising themselves on tiptoe in order to peak into a small store in front of them. They could only see five people, sitting in a row, facing back to the crowd, bending over to the table, each concentrating on a bowl of ramen in front of them as if finishing it is the goal of their lives. A shop sign hangs on the wall. It says “Yume Wo Katare”, which means speak out your dreams. The owner and chef of this ramen store is a 36-year-old Japanese man called Tsuyoshi Nishioka. He is a short guy with big dreams. He sold five stores of “Yume Wo Katare” in Japan and gathered enough money to open a store here in Boston. In every corner of his ramen store, he wants to make clear that customers are not just finishing a bowl of ramen, they are realizing their dreams. The store’s philosophy is that people have abilities to achieve anything—if you can

A dream wall with dreams written in the frames is set on the right side of the store. “What’s your purpose in Life?”, in the center, the largest frame says. The ramen store doesn’t accept any tips or any forms of donation, but they accept customers donating for their dreams. Customers can write down their dreams and place them in frames and hang on the dream wall. They have to pay 10 dollars per month (or 50 dollars per half year/100 dollars per year) for the dreams to stay on the wall. If the customers accomplish their dream, a bowl of ramen will be served as a reward (or a bowl of ramen served in a ramen bowl that has your dreams printed on there). “Make 200 friends in Boston”, a man called Ichiro Kobayashi writes in Japanese. “In one year, my dream is to pass the Japanese and Math exam, and get the Monbukagakusyo scholarship to start school in Japan!”, another one