Today, we’re going to look at the second half of the list of Japanese influences in Brazilian culture, since this year is the centennial of the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants in Brazil. There are now 1.3 million people of Japanese descent all over the country, with the largest concentration in São Paulo.

Let’s take a look at some of the things the Japanese brought to Brazil:

• Pastel de feira, a type of meat or cheese pastry popular all over Brazil, invented by the Chinese and popularized by the Japanese
• Radish
• Ramen noodles (known as miojo in Portuguese)
• Rock, paper, scissors game, which is called jan-ken-pon in Japanese
• Soy, which was used by small farmers in Brazil until the Japanese introduced large-scale production and consumption; soy is now a major Brazilian export
• Soy sauce, known as shoyu in Brazil, used with both sushi and Brazilian foods
• Sushi, which is considered to be a “food of the elite,” like French food in the U.S.
• Sweet caqui (persimmon), since before Brazilians only ate a bitter type of the fruit
• Yakult, a type of yogurt popular in Brazil, invented by a Japanese doctor
• Yakisoba, a fried noodle dish eaten all over Brazil, created by the Chinese and popularized by the Japanese
• Zen, a word used by Buddhists to describe calm, it has become a Portuguese word (Você está muito zen — you’re very chill/relaxed)