Random Memories #13

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I'm not sure, but outside of die-hard hoarders, I'm probably the only person on the planet with 24-year-old flyers from fast food places. It is a testimonial to my sense in 1987 that anything with Japanese writing on it was "neat" and therefore worth keeping. Well, it's also a reflection of the fact that anything my future husband sent me was something to be treasured and added to my enormous scrapbooks.

This Pizza Hut flyer lists a host of cities on the left to make it clear what an international business Pizza Hut is. I'm sure that they meant it as a reflection of their sophistication, much as major department stores list their branches in London, Paris, New York, and, of course, Tokyo. It comes across as a bit strange because it's not like fast food outlets aren't located in every major city. McDonald's could do a bang-up ad listing all of the major cities it appears in. Actually, they'd have to publish one the size of a phone book to cover all of their bases.

It seems clear from this flyer that Pizza Hut was positioning itself as a more elegant pizza option as compared to the other dregs like Pizza-la, Domino's, and Shakey's. The stalks and grains of wheat in the picture also seem to be saying, "natural" or "wholesome". This marketing was done well before KFC bought out Pizza Hut and the look and feel of the place was rather different than it is now.

I've read that Pizza Hut started in Japan in 1973, but when my boyfriend sent me this flyer, it was not a common eatery in Tokyo. He was delighted to find one, but I don't think he ate there more than once because it was rather expensive. At present, the situation for Pizza Hut has changed because there are no sit-down restaurants for it in Tokyo. In 1987, there must have been at least one that you could go to and eat in as the flyer mentions a salad bar. I'm not sure at what point they vanished, but all of the Pizza Huts in Tokyo are now delivery or pick-up only. I guess that means their attempt to establish themselves as an elegant international eatery must have failed.

Random Memories #9

The filter through which we interpret things changes as time goes by. One of the reasons that older folks tell us snot-nosed kids that we'll learn one day is that they remember when they were just as naive as we were and thought they knew it all and now realize they knew far less than they thought. One of the reasons that I lost patience with people who were newbies in Japan was that they resisted the notion that their perspective, while absolutely valid and understandable, was viewed through a filter with very limited capabilities to interpret their experiences. Of course, the only thing worse than a noob was a jaded vet. Clearly, no one can win with me. ;-)

When I look back on my old memory albums, I have a sense of almost missing how I interpreted the things I saw at that time. There is something appealing about being baffled, amused, or misunderstanding something based on ones naivete. Life related to Japan was more fun before I understood so many things. I guess that's why it is great to be a child much of the time and sometimes so depressing and mundane being an adult. Experience brings wisdom and knowledge, but it also takes away some of the magic, whimsy, and fun that come along with blissful ignorance.

One of the things that I did not know when I was first sent this flyer was that the reason it was called a "flesh basket" was because there is no way for Japanese people to determine whether a letter is an "l" or an "r" when reading from Japanese (katakana) to English. That's because the l/r sounds as we conceptualize them don't exist in Japanese. It's a somewhat different sound that falls a bit between them.Thinking of this as a basket designed to fill with skin was a lot funnier than knowing that it's a problem with translation. Of course, even calling it a "fresh basket" would be a bit goofy, but not nearly as strange as thinking the guy making the dress in "Silence of the Lambs" would have one of these around for his material gathering.