is a Japanese noodle dish. It consists of served in a broth; common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including , nori (dried seaweed), menma (bamboo shoots), and scallions. Ramen has its roots in Chinese noodle dishes. Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, such as the tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen of Kyushu and the miso ramen of Hokkaido. History Etymology The word ramen is a Japanese borrowing of the Mandarin Chinese lāmiàn (, 'pulled noodles'). However, historian Barak Kushner argues that this borrowing occurred retroactively and that various independent Japanese corruptions of Chinese words had already led to Japanese people calling this Chinese noodle dish "ramen". One theory suggests that the Japanese mistook the Chinese particles () or (, a contraction of ) for a "ra" sound when Chinese cooks would announce () to communicate that a dish was complete. The Japanese then appended the word (, meaning 'noodle') to the "ra" to create the word ramen. Early ramen or ramen-like dishes went by different names, such as (, literally 'Nanjing soba', named after the city which was the then capital of China), Shina soba (, literally 'Chinese soba'), or (, also meaning 'Chinese soba'). Until the 1950s, ramen was most commonly called , but today or just () are more common, as the word (, meaning 'China') has acquired a pejorative connotation through its association with Japanese imperialism. Origin Ramen is a Japanese adaptation of Chinese wheat noodle soups. It is first recorded to have appeared in Yokohama Chinatown in the early 20th century. Although the ramen takes its name from lāmiàn, it does not actually evolve from the northern Chinese dish of lamian. The noodles used in ramen known as are cut rather than hand-pulled. The ramen is derived from southern Chinese noodle dishes such as the char siu tangmian of Guangdong and the rousi tangmian of Jiangnan. This is reflective of Yokohama Chinatown's demographics, as most Chinese settlers in the district came from the cities of Guangzhou and Shanghai. One theory says that ramen was introduced to Japan during the 1660s by the Chinese neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Shunsui who served as an advisor to Tokugawa Mitsukuni after he became a refugee in Japan to escape Manchu rule and Mitsukuni became the first Japanese person to eat ramen. Most historians reject this theory as a myth created by the