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Tokyo- Akimasa Matsushima is a well-educated man. he considers himself polite. And when he eats his noodles, at home or in a restaurant, he does it with a hearty SHLLURRPP.

Slurping, loud and long, is what Matsushima and most Japanese over 40 were taught was the polite way to eat hot noodles and just about anything else slurp-able.

Now, it's almost a declaration of war.

"It used to be normal to make noises while eating," Matsushima, a 56-year-old lawyer, said self-consciously over dinner recently at a Tokyo noodle shop where he and a few other slurpers broke the quiet ambiance.

The battle is between generations, and genders.

Many middle-aged and older japanese believe noodles taaste better if slurped quickly while they're hot and drenched in broth. A loud slurp is also a way of showing you are enjoying the meal.

but younger japanese are more concerned not to dribble the soup onto their silk ties and Gucci dresses. Reared on Western manners and a more Western diet, they are likely to be offended when those around them slurp.

"Surping is for old men," said Riki Kishida, a 31-year-old accountant eating at the same restaurant as Matsushima. "Slurping has nothing to do with whether it tastes good or not."

Japan's ubiquitous noodle restaurants have yet to set up no-slurping sections. But the simmering skirmish has not been lost on Japanese social commentators and editorial writers.

Clearly siding with the older generation, an editorial on the front-page of the Asahi, a major newspaper, lamented the silence of the noodles.

"It'll be a truly lonely feeling when nonbody makes any slurping noises at all," it said.

Many factors have been cited.

One is that Japanese eating habits have changed, said Tamami Kondo, principal of the privately owned Seishikai Etiquette Academy in Tokyo.

Kondo said kids, under the watch of younger, non-slurping mothers or teachers, are as likely to eat pasta or a burger as noodles. When they do eat noodles, she said, they may well wrap them around their chopsticks spaghetti-style.

Either way, they learn from an early age that slurping is a no-no.

"Younger people are following American and European manners," she said.

But some also see the battle as part of a larger social issue-the breakdown of traditional male authority.

Older women do slurp, but it is mostly seen as a guy thing, particularly 40-plus middle-class guys. They are still the center of social power in Japan but their aura has faded somewhat, especially since the economy they were credited with building has hit the skids.

One extreme of that trend is "oyaji-gari," or dad-hunting, a phenomenon that emerged a few years ago in which youth gangs ambush and rob older men, sometimes using pretty young women.

Perhaps more tellingly, however, are the depictions in magazines and on television shows directed at young women. These increasingly parody middle-aged and older men as the epitome of uncouthness, portraying them not as father figures but as drunken white-collar louts.

"They're seen as unsophisticated," said Tamotsu Sengoku, director of the Japan Youth Research institute, a Tokyo-based think tank.

but slurpers may take heart from the fact that their ranks include no less than Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's popular new prime minister.

According to his spokesman, Kazuhiko Koshikawa, the 59-year-old leader is a dedicated slurper of noodles.

"It's Japanese food," Koshikawa said, "so it's normal to slurp it."

Updated: Thursday, September 6, 2007.