Vending Machines and English Slogans

   I’m sitting here drinking a can of coffee and admiring the view, waiting for the cable guy to come and hook me up with internet.  You may have noticed that I said CAN, not CUP of coffee.  Among other things, Japan is famous for the plethora of items you can get in a vending machine on the street, and in my mind the canned coffee tops the list.  As it turns out, there is a vending machine about three doors down from my apartment building on the street.  As is typical, this machine has both hot and cold drinks.  A blue button indicates the cold drinks, and a red button indicates the cold ones.  So I could have chosen my can of “Georgia Max Coffee” cold or hot, but on a chilly day like today, I chose hot.  There are gazillion brands of canned coffee available, some black, most with cream and sugar.  There is one brand named “Boss” and the iconic marketing photo on their vending machines is of Tommy Lee Jones with head thrown back and gazing into the distance.

   Also in the machine are cans/bottles of soda, fruit juice, tea (green tea, black tea, milk tea), “sports drink”, and vitamin drink.  One of my personal favorites is “Calpis”, a tasty, refreshing drink whose taste makes you wonder about the acuity of their marketing/branding department.  In other machines I have seen on the street you can get beer, whiskey, and soup, not to mention batteries and other sundry items; (I plan to keep a running list of what I see in the machines).

   I said earlier that I’d mention something about the Japanese love for anything in English.  I’m reminded of seeing tattoos of Chinese/Japanese characters on “gaijins” and wondering, “Do they REALLY know what those characters mean?”  I have this suspicion that most of them say “Yankee go home!” or “I still wet the bed!” and that they are a constant source of amusement to the Japanese people.  Having said that, my experience is that the Japanese are fond of having items with English “slogans” on them.  It can be tee-shirts, handbags, jackets, or sweatshirts, but I always keep my eye out for them because it appears that the most important criteria is that they are in English, not that they make sense in English. 

   Recently I stopped on my bicycle waiting to cross at a light, and I noticed an attractive young lady waiting with a handbag that had one word in English repeated in a pattern all over the bag.  The word was “MILKFED”.  On the train, the guy next to me had a hoodie with the following lettering:

Active Resort

63

Blow the cobwebs away.

Have a heavenly time.

Look to the seaward.

Dash against.

   On the same train, there was an advertisement for the GAP, and the tag line was “Joy it up”.  The next week I was on a train and on a jacket back was:

Bone Soul

To produce for human being

When man makes progress

Quality makes equal progress

   I don’t know, maybe it’s “haiku meets low-ku”.  On previous trips to Japan I have seen little old ladies carrying bags with slogans that had four-letter words in them that NO little old lady should be seen carrying.

   Today I was in the 100-yen store (more about that later), and I saw a couple of brand names that caught my eye.  One was “Magic Flakes Cracker Sandwiches”, which looked like it was basically peanut butter between saltine crackers.  Then there was “Zackly”, which was “choco cream and banana cream” between unsalted saltines.  I say that with some authority, because for 100 yen I just had to try that.  It was OK, but I guess you could say that it wasn’t “Zackly” my cup of tea.  My favorite of the day was “Cratz”, which from the picture on the bag looked like pretzel chunks and almonds.  Sounds good enough until you saw the flavor:  anchovies and garlic.

   More later . . .