Funny story time: in my late and unlamented career as a translator, I was attached to a pair of US artists visiting Gifu's international arts and crafts fair.

Funny story time: in my late and unlamented career as a translator, I was attached to a pair of US artists visiting Gifu's international arts and crafts fair. Both were vegans and expressed a desire to have vegan ramen. I explained this to the ramen shop proprietor. He came out with a bowl of ramen with chashu (pork) on top of it. When I pointed out that pork does in fact count as a meat product, he plucked it off with chopsticks. I then said "Excuse me, I don't mean to be a bother about this, but I can't help but notice that you poured the broth from a pan marked Pig. Is there, I don't know, pork in the broth?" "Oh you read Japanese!" "Yep, literacy is a handy quality in a translator." "Do your guests read Japanese?" "No." "Then as far as they know it's hearty vegetable broth now isn't it!"