[steven]

I asked the 5 kids in my 掃除時間 team today (at school) if they've ever had shoyu kake gohan, and one of the kids said she has it some times. The other 4 have never heard of it. That's kind of how it seems around here. I want to ask more people to get a better feel for it... but it seems like most people have no idea it even exists, some people do know and look down on it, and some people know about it and eat it some times.

The girl that said she eats it said that when she eats sashimi or something like that, she might pour a little shoyu on her rice just because it's there and it gives it a little flavor. She did seem a little embarassed about it. None of the other kids really expressed disgust with the practice. A couple of them were, however, surprised that it existed and said they've heard of putting raw eggs on rice, but not putting soy sauce on it.

It could be just that, though. People eat a lot of sashimi around here because it's so readily available (and really good)... so by taking a wild guess, I'd imagine a lot of people that put soy sauce on rice do it when they're eating sashimi or something like that. It could be much more prevelant here than in tokyo or osaka (although not a frequent thing in any places in Japan).