4 ms·
Fun historical fact: one of the Japanese daily newspapers, during the Occupation, was prevented from publishing an editorial (accurately) describing the Constit
by patio11 6y ago
Fun historical fact: one of the Japanese daily newspapers, during the Occupation, was prevented from publishing an editorial (accurately) describing the Constitution as being written by the occupying powers. They instead described the new Constitution as "smelling of butter", which the censors missed due to lack of familiarity with the idiom.
(I once had call to describe a client's request to micromanage which engineers were working on their account as "The client believes my work product might smell of butter" because my coworkers were dancing around the obvious issue so delicately that a Japanese colleague didn't understand what they weren't saying. That got some stares. "What can I say; I learned nuance from the best.")
- perakojotgenije 6y agoDo you have a reference for this newspaper trivia? I've just mentioned this "butter smell" to a friend of mine who lives in Japan and got told that it's not a thing and that it doesn't exist.
- amelius 6y agoLives in Japan, or was born and raised in Japan?
- perakojotgenije 6y agoLives in Japan since 2 years ago
- tantalor 6y agoSounds like you are the one lacking credible references.
- VRay 6y agoFWIW I never heard of that either, despite living in Japan on and off for a couple of years, marrying a Japanese woman, and being decent at Japanese My guess is that it's just a 1960s meme that's fallen out of use Actually, I've never seen or heard of any of the butter-related stuff.. Maybe those butter tools are a regional thing, or they're relatively unknown. I've never seen them on TV, and I couldn't find any butter dishes for sale when I was looking for one in Tokyo, so I ended up having to use a plastic box from the dollar store. My in-laws were furious when I kept hiding butter in a tray outside of the fridge so it'd stay soft, and all their friends agreed with them that I was being a crazy foreign fool
- ddellacosta 6y agoYeah, I was told it's "pretty 昭和" fwiw. EDIT: also omg the butter-outside-the-fridge fight is totally a thing
- Mandatum 6y agoWas it salted or unsalted butter? From experience it's mostly unsalted in Japan which shouldn't be left outside of the fridge.. Unless it's a big house and you go through it in a few days.
- ddellacosta 6y agoWhat does your friend not believe exists? It's easy to find references to the term online: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC#%E8%B1%A1%E5%BE%B4 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC#%E... 日本では、「バター」が西洋風の象徴として扱われ、西洋の物や西洋かぶれに対して「バタ臭い」と形容することがある。 "In Japan, butter is used as a symbol of the west, and the term 'batah-kusai' is used to represent western objects or the slavish imitation of western approaches." (half-assed mediocre translation by me, there's probably a better way to translate 西洋かぶれ in particular) Kotobank simply has 西洋風である。また、西洋かぶれしている。 https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E8%87%AD%E3%81%84-601710 https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E8%87%AD%E3%81%8... Etc. etc. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E8%87%AD%E3%81%84&atb=v158-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC...
- ddellacosta 6y agolol and I just realized now that I even wrote it wrong in my search https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E8%87%AD%E3%81%84&t=ffab&atb=v158-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%E3%83%90%E3%82%BF%E8%87%AD%E3%81%...
- patio11 6y agoShould be in Partners for Democracy: Crafting the New Japanese State under MacArthur.
- needle0 6y agoFWIW, the word “batakusai” has become so ingrained in the language that one might not think of butter, the food topping, when you mention the word. (much like how you don’t always directly think of Jesus Christ specifically when you casually blurt out “Oh my god!”)