Names in the Wild: Japantown

It's easy to forget I'm in the Bay Area—or, indeed, in North America—when I visit San Francisco's Japantown. For one thing, it's big: the largest Japantown in the United States. It also draws a lot of Japanese tourists who do things like pose for photos next to a scale model of Osaka Palace (not unlike American tourists who go to Las Vegas to see New York, New York).

Then there are the shops.

I spent a happily bemused hour recently in the Najiya supermarket, which was crammed with Japanese-speaking shoppers of all ages. The store is tiny by U.S. supermarket standards but well stocked with spectacular produce (including the most massive daikon I've ever seen), a near-infinite selection of tofu, and gratifyingly weird packaged goods.

I gazed for several minutes at this display . . .

 

. . . marveling at the sheer oxymoronism of "Vermont Curry" (a hitherto unknown-to-me native delicacy). And why "Vermont" at all? Did the marketing department confuse honey with maple syrup? 

The personal-care aisles yield more treasures:

Because when you need Kare for your Crack, nothing smoothens like a moisturizing patch.

Gatsby products occupy a large share of the shelf space devoted to men's grooming.

 

I'm not certain what this stuff is, but I deduce that in Japan, "Gatsby" connotes glamour and hipness rather than doom and required reading. Gatsby appears to be a huge brand in Japan; I found many more Gatsby products online, such as the Mandom Gatsby Moving Rubber Wild Shake, which seems to be hair goop. What a name! Mandom! Is that a man-word for "random"?

The ladies get their own odd brand name:

Moving along to housewares, I discovered this festive instrument of death:

There is so much to love about this package, is there not? The imperative name. The pointy-handed conversation bubbles. The "special Foot Mat." The bug-eyed betrapped bug. And how about "Hoy Hoy"? I'm not sure what it means in Japanese*, but in English it's very close to the way Mr. Burns answers the phone—"Ahoy-hoy!"—on "The Simpsons." (It was, after all, the telephone greeting that Thomas Edison preferred.) The whole package looks like it serves double duty as a game board.

I finished my tour in a gift shop in the Kinokuniya Building, where I espied a table heaped with products bearing the enigmatic features of "Bonao."

Three questions: One, Who is Bonao? Two, How had I managed to miss this phenomenon? And three, Is America ready for a banana-shaped Hello Kitty? 

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* UPDATE: In a tweet, Rochelle Kopp of Japan Intercultural Consulting explains that "HoyHoy" is the Japanese term for "roach motel." It's not in the dictionary, she adds, "but when I first learned it I was told it means 'beckon'."

Comments

[John Seal]

Great stuff. You're probably also familiar with 99 Ranch Supermarket, who also carry a huge selection of wacky Asian products. Next time you go there, buy some candle-nuts...but pay strict attention. If you EAT the candle-nuts, you will be advised to 'induce furging'.

[John Russell]

Amazingly the genuine curry, as served in India, is not that appetizing for Westerners. However during the 1950's and 60's the large influx of Indians into the UK developed new versions of curries to appeal to Western tastes. Many new dishes were invented, such as the now-famous 'Chicken Tikka Masala' which by 1990 had officially become Britain's favourite dish. By then, so developed had the 'takeaway Indian' industry become that top restaurants in India were sending their chefs to the UK to train. Indeed, many newly UK-invented dishes were finding their way back to India.

So, though 'Vermont Curry' might sound oxymoronic, an equally strange 'Birmingham Curry' might not be as wacky as its name suggests.

[TB]

I think the connection to "Vermont" with some Japanese-style curries relates to apples (note the inset photo on the packaging). Saveur magazine had a nice write-up (and recipe) a few years back about wafuu curry, which notes: "… the dish was born during Japan's Meiji period (1868-1912) and started out as an adaptation of the Anglicized Indian curries brought by the British." There are a couple unusual twists to the recipe, one of which is the addition of a peeled, cored and coarsely grated apple.

[panavia999]

http://www.tokyotales.com/blog/japlish/index.php
Japlish, Janglish, Engrish. It's a weird world of using english words on japanese products. Often it's the sound of the word that appeals to Japanese ears, nothing to do with it's actual meaning. There is also Spanglish, Chinglish, etc.
"Naive" is actually a good name for a moisturizer - daily use will impart that super smooothened youthful innocent complexion. In the USA it would be considered sexist and ageist, but the truth is, a really youthful complexion is found on the young and naive.

[mdr]

I'm not familiar with Spanglish branding, but I remember one of my mother's friends, decades back, complaining about being assaulted by "holduperos." My dad called these "pochismos," a word he told us not to use when we visited my mom's people in Mexico.