By Emily Connor
I couldn't help myself from laughing out loud and seeming more insane than I usually do the other day when I saw a convenience store advertising ''KRUNKY CHICKEN'' for 50 yen a piece. The word KRUNKY is one of those words that just happens to pop up every so often in Japan, and it took me almost four years to finally figure out that it's supposed to mean 'crunchy'. KRUNKY shows up occasionally on poorly translated restaurant menus and also on chocolate snacks (although they spell it Crunky on the chocolates) and I must say, I am a very big fan of the KRUNKY. In fact, if I were not appalled by fried chicken you can bet I'd be in line to pick up some value KRUNKY chicken at the convenience store. Sounds like a great time to me.
Another thing that gets me every time is the constant misuse of the letter W to stand for 'double'. I guess W first began being misused when some Japanese advertising company read the letter out loud-- DABURUYUU. 'Oh, how cute! 'They must have thought. 'It sounds like the word double! Which means two! Let's just stick it on anything that has to do with two!' And that's how the W burger, as well as the W many-other-things was born. For some reason the misuse of the letter W makes me a bit sad. I understand that maybe the word 'double' is a bit tedious to spell, but seriously-- W? At first I thought they were using it to stand for the Japanese abbreviation for LOL, which would have made even less sense-- but for some reason it just stands for double. And sometimes they even use WW for a double double burger, whatever that means. Am I being too strict? Probably. But if I don't throw it out there, no one will, and I cannot allow the letter W to be misused for much longer. It's a travesty.
I've been in Japan for too long now, and I sometimes feel my brain melting in such a way where I can no longer differentiate between what's actually funny and what's not. Japanese humor is bizarre; they don't understand sarcasm (which is unfortunate, because my favorite thing in the entire world besides dried figs and EMO cinema is most-definitely sarcasm) and they don't appreciate belittling others for the sake of amusement. The other day I saw a construction truck go by with the letters KKK painted on the side (probably stood for Konnichiwa Krunky Koujyou or something) and although it was terribly horrifying it was equally as hilarious. But because this is Japan and an absurd and wonderful place in a much different way than the USA, even if I were to point out the KKK cement truck to a Japanese person I'm sure no one would have laughed. So I held in my crude comments to myself and just snapped a picture for the scrapbook I'm sure I'll compile in 20 years when I'm old and weathered and have 20 cats in my Manhattan apartment.
There are so many more things that I could rant about, but if I did all of the ranting today then I would have even less material for blogging than I already do. Keep in mind as you read all of my complaining that I do love Japan-- dearly, in fact-- so consider that my disclaimer and please don't flood the email boxes which I make sure never to check with your catty little comments like ''If all you do is complain, then you don't even deserve to live to Japan!''. Save yourself a bit of energy typing and just laugh at the absurdities and wonders of the land of the rising-and-ridiculously-hot-thanks-to-global-warming sun. Adieu.
I couldn't help myself from laughing out loud and seeming more insane than I usually do the other day when I saw a convenience store advertising ''KRUNKY CHICKEN'' for 50 yen a piece. The word KRUNKY is one of those words that just happens to pop up every so often in Japan, and it took me almost four years to finally figure out that it's supposed to mean 'crunchy'. KRUNKY shows up occasionally on poorly translated restaurant menus and also on chocolate snacks (although they spell it Crunky on the chocolates) and I must say, I am a very big fan of the KRUNKY. In fact, if I were not appalled by fried chicken you can bet I'd be in line to pick up some value KRUNKY chicken at the convenience store. Sounds like a great time to me.
Another thing that gets me every time is the constant misuse of the letter W to stand for 'double'. I guess W first began being misused when some Japanese advertising company read the letter out loud-- DABURUYUU. 'Oh, how cute! 'They must have thought. 'It sounds like the word double! Which means two! Let's just stick it on anything that has to do with two!' And that's how the W burger, as well as the W many-other-things was born. For some reason the misuse of the letter W makes me a bit sad. I understand that maybe the word 'double' is a bit tedious to spell, but seriously-- W? At first I thought they were using it to stand for the Japanese abbreviation for LOL, which would have made even less sense-- but for some reason it just stands for double. And sometimes they even use WW for a double double burger, whatever that means. Am I being too strict? Probably. But if I don't throw it out there, no one will, and I cannot allow the letter W to be misused for much longer. It's a travesty.
I've been in Japan for too long now, and I sometimes feel my brain melting in such a way where I can no longer differentiate between what's actually funny and what's not. Japanese humor is bizarre; they don't understand sarcasm (which is unfortunate, because my favorite thing in the entire world besides dried figs and EMO cinema is most-definitely sarcasm) and they don't appreciate belittling others for the sake of amusement. The other day I saw a construction truck go by with the letters KKK painted on the side (probably stood for Konnichiwa Krunky Koujyou or something) and although it was terribly horrifying it was equally as hilarious. But because this is Japan and an absurd and wonderful place in a much different way than the USA, even if I were to point out the KKK cement truck to a Japanese person I'm sure no one would have laughed. So I held in my crude comments to myself and just snapped a picture for the scrapbook I'm sure I'll compile in 20 years when I'm old and weathered and have 20 cats in my Manhattan apartment.
There are so many more things that I could rant about, but if I did all of the ranting today then I would have even less material for blogging than I already do. Keep in mind as you read all of my complaining that I do love Japan-- dearly, in fact-- so consider that my disclaimer and please don't flood the email boxes which I make sure never to check with your catty little comments like ''If all you do is complain, then you don't even deserve to live to Japan!''. Save yourself a bit of energy typing and just laugh at the absurdities and wonders of the land of the rising-and-ridiculously-hot-thanks-to-global-warming sun. Adieu.
I was searching "why do Japanese use W for double" on google and I found
your article and I could not agree more with you on the misuse of the
letter W. W this and W that, and so many other things like grammatical
and spelling errors (although im not the best when it comes to spelling myself). It's just an eye sore. Not to mention the Japanese Engrish that they put on T-shirts and many other things.
I saw a kid with a T-shirt that said "Shame of Nation", I was just
simply thinking... Why. But I think it's funny that Japanese think
that anything with English writing on it is cool no matter how bad the
grammar is or what it's saying. I guess if I were to wear a plain
black shirt with the words "if you can read this then your're too close"
in simple writting I would be considered unfashionable (not to say
it's fashionable in the US) but I guess it's rather considered "cool" to have
grammatically incorrect English in big bright colors. I even saw a cafe
in Kyoto, I believe the place was called "fag". I don't even know what
to say to that, unfortunatly I couldn't take a picture cause I was
driving.
Another incident, this time surprisingly in Spanish, was when I was in
Tokyo, I was in a hat store when I saw a hat that said "mucho
trabajando no dinero" which means works hard but no money, if that was
my case I surely wouldn't be able to afford such a hat that pretty
much states I'm poor. I ended up not buying that hat because it didn't go well with my rolex watch, haha.
And the Japanese English that they create, such words like skinship,
salary man, and many others, and then they expect English speakers to
understand such words, just because it's in "English". Technically
wouldn't anyone working in Japan be a "salary man".
Anyway these are
just the few examples of how English is misused hear in Japan, and I really like how you point out these things, you said in this article "Am I being too strict?" I for one definitely do not think so.
Someone has to take a stand against this artocity, and as an English speaker it's just painfully to see and hear. I sometimes wonder how one comes up with such ridiculous ideas and then say, maybe I should
wear a shirt that has random Japanese hiragana written on it, and
maybe then they will understand the crimes they have committed against the English language.
Here's an idea for a shirt せ界一俺かなる万ザイ/World number one
I will be banzai, I don't know but I think that just might sell.
Despite my ranting I still love Japan it's such a wounderfull and
bizarre place.
Great/informative article by the way!
Thanks