My mother bought an electric rice cooker around when I started primary school. Although this represented a rather large expense for our family, her excitement justified it. She used the device nearly every single day, and replaced the original one without hesitation when it finally deteriorated around a decade later. For my mother, the rice cooker was a means of unburdening some of the reproductive labor she was responsible for in our household. Meals could largely cook themselves, and they could be prepared the night before, freeing time in the mornings. Rice was one of the first foods my brother and I were taught to prepare for ourselves—it was so easy, with the machine. This technology served as a vector of convenience: it supplied our family with an improved quality of life while saving time and effort.

Electric rice cookers were first developed in Japan in 1955, and exported to the west via Hong Kong’s trade barrier-free trade ports. (Nakano 2006) Initially, the machines were mainly exported to other Asian countries such as the Philippines and India, where rice also commonly features in meals. During the late 1980s, electric rice cookers were also being exported to Canada and Australia to a market largely composed of recent Asian immigrants. The designs for Japanese electric rice cookers were influenced by Cantonese cooking culture and imported electronic appliances from countries typically considered “Western”: Britain, America, Germany, Italy, and France. At the time, the electric rice cooker was a purchasable symbol of economic comfort. It supported a middle-class lifestyle for households that could afford one, acting as a powerful, time and effort-saving convenience.

As the international market for electric rice cookers grew, engineers conducted ethnographic research pertaining to each region’s culture around rice. (Nakano 2006) By understanding the local preferences for rice cooking and consumption, designers could adapt the machines with new settings and cooking options, far beyond what had been imagined by the original developers, who were a Japanese team. Nakano summarizes her overview of the globalization of the electric rice cooker by remarking that “what many consumers cook in their machines tonight is thus neither Japanese, nor Chinese, nor Western rice, but what they want for dinner”. The globalized electric rice cooker, which is only partly Japanese in design, has nonetheless been marketed in the West as a “Japanese gadget” of convenience. This snapshot from website AmericanHeritage.ph (A.H. 2024) serves as a particularly interesting zone of cultural interconnectedness. It is a product feature for an electric rice cooker, marketed to a Philippine audience via a company called “American Heritage” whose tagline is “convenience every day”. The image contains the product, a bowl of white rice, a sushi platter, and some steamed vegetables alongside technical specifications that highlight its technological value. The product description continues: “​​efficient, time-saving and easy to use!” (A.H. 2024)

Convenience is experienced at the intersection between efficiency and personal satisfaction. (Oka 2021) It is a variable that can be understood and experienced differently across individuals and cultures, which positions it as a valuable vector to examine across boundaries. Oka seeks to examine convenience from an anthropological perspective, and in doing so offers an economic definition: “a process that seeks to maximize utility and/or satisfaction from a commodity or service, subject to the constraints of time and effort/energy” (Oka 2021). From this, the pursuit of convenience appears aligned with the principles that drive capitalism and in turn globalism—especially as it was becoming broadly conceptualized in the 1990s (Rosenberg 2005). During this period, globalization theory proclaimed that increasing the interconnectedness of human cultures would result in a world-wide culture that would be more egalitarian and complex. In some respects, globalization theory posits that we will seek to obtain the same items and ideals, and that we could maximize human potential and happiness by sharing the most desirable elements from each culture.Japanese rice cookers are a powerful example of the premium associations Western purchasers associate with Asian vectors of convenience. (Cang 2022) Many modern rice cookers epitomize the pursuit of convenience, being designed with computerized elements that can make life easier for its users. These devices will prepare not only rice but virtually any other boileable food on a timer, keep it fresh and warm, and function autonomously once programmed. Within Japan and Asia more broadly, rice exists both as a dietary staple and as an indicator of luxury based on preferred brand and grain type. (Franks 2007) Francks argues that despite the prevalent view that “consumerism was something exported by the modernizing West”, the creation of consumers in Asia was actually a “change in the relation of people to goods across the range of ordinary consumption” as influenced by the rise and aftermath of industrialization, particularly post-WWII. (Franks 2007)

Vectors of convenience such as the electric rice cooker have a relatively low barrier of entry, being an affordable technology today that is commonly used by people across many economic and social barriers. They are simple to use and maintain, and require only an outlet, some water, and foodstuff. The electric rice cooker has its place in the college student’s dorm as much as it does the rich suburban family home. On the other hand, certain vectors of convenience have a higher barrier of entry—they are more expensive or difficult to obtain. An example of this is the physical, intellectual, and emotional labor performed by hired help. These services, which include housekeeping labor and childcare, are a great convenience to its users, who are able to pursue careers and hobbies by displacing forms of routine labor onto a hired body. This phenomenon is recorded and explored in Meerman’s Chain of Love. (Meerman 2002) The film follows several Phillipina women and their host families in Western countries. The labor performed by these women is a huge convenience to their host families, but is performed at the social and emotional detriment of the workers. Several of these women must leave their children and families to care for other peoples’ children and families. They express their labor as a personal sacrifice made for the benefit of their childrens’ futures. In this scenario, the conveniences experienced by families hiring Phillipina women are extracted from the hired workers’ bodies and lives. Certain vectors of convenience can be exploitative, particularly those that rely on the labor of another body.