Thursday 30 October 2014

Everyday Cuteness in Japan

I think most crafters are familiar with the word 'kawaii' as a genre of cutesy japanese craft like amigurumi crochet and hello kitty. It is a japanese word that basically means "cute" and is used extensively by young women. Before I came here I used to pronounce it 'kai-why' but it should be pronounced 'ka-why-ee'. One of the things westerners notice as soon as they arrive is no matter the seriousness of the situation, there is always an opportunity to advertise or warn against it using a cute character.

Don't get caught in the train doors:
Cute warning
Watch out for trains when you are texting or drunk on a platform:
Tokyo Walking Tour
Stop! A police sign.
Japan Characters - Policemen

There are even more examples in everyday life. Labels:
Kawaii cans
Traffic cones:
pink rabbit traffic cones
Clothes:
Tokyo Crazy Kawaii 2013 - NNO-45

But, despite being bombarded daily with cuteness (even the spam porn pop-ups I get when downloading things are kawaii manga style), I was still taken aback by the kawaii nature of the bag of salt I bought for dyeing with.
Kawaii Salt Packaging
So cute! And only about 70p/$1 so not even an expensive bag of salt. Of course I shouldn't be surprised considering that below is the first salt I bought when we moved here and I've been refilling it ever since.
Panda Salt
Kawaii Panda! Because of course you cannot use the word 'kawaii' without using at least one exclamation mark. You should try to work that into any pronunciation of the word too, otherwise you risk sounding like a tourist.


2 comments:

Carla said...

Very cute...lol Now that you mention it.

cucki said...

Sweet x