Gimme an…
This guy‘s brother, who comments on Gay Orbit sometimes, sent me a link to an ad campaign that’s apparently appearing on some McDonald’s tray inserts in Kyoto, where his wife’s visiting. He wonders WTF (ahem) is going on.
I doubt there’s any subliminal message there, despite the artfully revealing shots of women’s underclothes–that’s what they’re mostly selling, after all. The people who devised the campaign were thinking in Japanese, for a Japanese audience, and it probably didn’t occur to them to consider that they might be using an expression that’s considered coarse in English. That kind of thing happens all the time. A buddy of mine works for a company that once linked to one of its web products with the come-on “Let’s Flash!” The accompanying image was…well, it wasn’t a schlumpy guy in sunglasses and a trench coat, but it wasn’t as far off as one might like. Foreign staff here and people from overseas offices tried to tell management that this was a problem. No one listened. Sometimes Japlish is harmlessly silly; sometimes it wanders into not-so-harmlessly silly. That’s just the way it is.
Added on 14 October: Interesting how straight-boy commenters who haven’t shown up for weeks will suddenly materialize to opine on a post about Japanese women’s underwear.
Yes, those models are indeed f*ing hot.
F* me. Japlish strikes again.
But check out Hanzismatter for the flip side.
So you think that there is no desensitizing to children when they go to Mc D’s and see a stocking ad with f*ing written on it? I teach in Korea and I hear kids in elementary school saying fuck you and flippin’ the bird and Korean teachers laugh because they don’t think it means anything. Then you hear about Koreans gettin the shit kicked out of them in Canada or the US…probably saying Fuck you to the wrong person…I don’t care too much about the japlish stuff, but it is like seeing a elementary kid wearing a t-shirt here that says Fuck me hard…it is the venue…I don’t think this kind of ad is appropriate for a McD’s.
You might be just too immersed in the Japanese language, or too grown up, to notice that the company name is “Fukusuke”, which is really funny if you pronounce it wrong.
Oh, my mistake, they spell it “Fukuske” in the url, it’s still funny though.
To Zak:
Is that the medical term?
To John:
Oh, I know it goes the other direction, too—but thanks for pointing it out again. Have you seen the site that’s devoted exclusively to illiterate kanji tattoos? I don’t remember the URL, but it’s hilarious.
Greg:
“So you think that there is no desensitizing to children when they go to Mc D’s and see a stocking ad with f*ing written on it? I teach in Korea and I hear kids in elementary school saying fuck you and flippin’ the bird and Korean teachers laugh because they don’t think it means anything.”
I agree with you in general, but I think the issue is somewhat different in this specific case. The company name in question starts with f when transliterated, and I think even kids can get that that’s supposed to be the marketing hook. If anything, extending it to fuku*ing to make the company connection clearer would make things worse, not? I don’t think that, in the ad, it reads as a word in the general vocabulary.
In the case of your students, though, what you refer to sounds like a problem. There are a lot more Koreans than Japanese who grow up going back and forth between home and an English-speaking country, and learning through T-shirts and casual usage that the f-word is something you toss around indiscriminately is a set-up for serious trouble.
To Cedar:
I don’t think anyone’s too grown up to appreciate playground humor like that sometimes. And yeah, I noticed.
You talking to me, or Zak? 😉
Hanzismatter is also the site that keeps track of the tats. There were a bunch of pictures of tats with the characters “Stop, Woman Flow” that mystified Easterners and led to many crude jokes about menstruation until someone discovered an “alphabet” of characters meant to be used when someone wanted initials. A lot of tat shops bought the font that included this “alphabet”, leading to lots of confusion and gibberish. I just never understood the appeal of writing something indellible on yourself that you personally don’t understand.
“You talking to me, or Zak? ;-)”
The plural is useful because it’s inclusive, dear.
Hey, looking at pictures of Asian womens’ underwear is safer than many alternative passtimes. At least you can’t buy the used Japanese version from vending machines anymore.
I have two object lessons in the dangers of looking at the real thing sleeping down the hall right now.
Interesting how straight-boy commenters who haven’t shown up for weeks will suddenly materialize to opine on a post about Japanese women’s underwear.
Hey! Hey! Is that a shot?
::grin::
M
“Hey! Hey! Is that a shot?”
It’s an observation, sweetie–nothing more.