Did you know that Alaska was also big with spam? Alaska and Hawaii were very military during the war and that is when spam got in the door. I once went to a night club in Anchorage and the menu was all spam. There were fifty ways to have it served. nothing else on the menu but spam. LOL
I wondered why there was Spam displayed so prominently at the local Okinawan food store in Kichijoji. Garlic Spam, regular Spam... four or five different kinds. Okinawa may be part of Japan, but they have a different culture, I suspect similar to the South Pacific Islanders.
Not totally fond of the stuff myself. I’ll eat it, but it’s not something I go shopping for.
We had our fair share of it in Germany, too - but, from military sources, not civilian. They did a fairly good job of resisting that bit of Americana.