Nov 17, 2011

Ain’t Too Proud To Beg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX5bszW1smc&feature=related

I love food, and have always admired and enjoyed the Japanese food culture. But one thing I simply don't understand is why they display cute pics of animals with big soft eyes in the restaurant.

The other day I happened to be at a food festival and smelled something wonderful. But when I approached the stall and found this life-size cutout photo of Bambi standing there with its beautiful innocent Bambi eyes, I suddenly lost all appetite.

But when I looked around, I saw many Japanese happily chewing at pieces of Bambi, while eyeing the Bambi pic up and down, probably thinking, 'Yup, it's definitely cute enough to eat!'

It reminded me of this TV commercial I saw long time ago with 2 people dressed in black cow costumes dancing and singing, “We are delicious, so very delicious!” And they kept begging, “Please eat me eat me eat me!”

Apparently there is another TV commercial of BBQ sauce recently with the mother cow and 2 calves merrily eating BBQ beef. Brilliant, isn’t it?

It obviously doesn’t bother Japanese at all, and I wonder why, until a student told me the story about Anpanman, a famous cartoon character with a red-bean past bun for a head. It seems this character goes around and invites kids to take a bite out of his head. Hmmmm, no wonder Japanese are used to things like eating Bambi.

The funny thing is, in the States, California Raisins’ TV commercials actually make some children cry and refuse to eat any raisins. It’s time we exported Anpanman to toughen them up, don't you think?