• tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    The word for ice cream in Japanese is aisu (ice) because if they had to say aisu kuriimu all the time it would be too long and they use a native Japanese word for ice (kōri). Also they love shortening loanwords especially (like how Starbucks (sutaabakusu) becomes sutaba or First Kitchen becomes fakkin lol).

    The “University of potato ice” is a real thing, or at least it’s natural when separated from ice cream. A university potato is fried sweet potatoes covered with a syrup. Wikipedia says the origin of the name is unclear, and maybe it was invented at one university or maybe just students of a certain university really liked it.

    However, the “boobs ice (cream)” is translated correctly and I don’t think it means anything else. Seems especially odd given the message at the bottom about the ¥150 discount for women.

    • alapakala@quokk.au
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      3 days ago

      they love shortening loanwords

      when I do this, I get xenoglossophobic downranked.
      When tourists do this, “it’s cute, adorable, hahaha they can’t say ‘sherbet’🍧”

      odd given the message at the bottom about the ¥150 discount for women.
      Sexism is ingrained there😔

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Sexism is ingrained there😔

        Yeah to a certain extent, but at least this seems on the level of “ladies’ night” or “first drink free for ladies” type thing

        • alapakala@quokk.au
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          3 days ago

          still a sexist thing to do. I rather make it an promotional challenge or something to get them to come back with more customers. e.g.
          “Wearing sherbet hats get 150¥ discount!” “Parties of 6+ get discounts!” “Catering orders are 15% off!”
          The couples things is a big turn off too.

          • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            I haven’t been to too many love hotels so I’m not sure how common that is. I know in Korea they let me get a room with a friend I was traveling with before we both realized it was a love ho.

            I know it’s sexist for sure but I was just trying to point out that it’s not much different than the sexism of eg the US, rather than closer to like places in the middle east. Feels like a lot of times people get their impressions of Japan from internet sensations like wacky vending machines rather than from more nuanced sources

          • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            still a sexist thing to do.

            it’s an incentive to make an underrepresented demographic integrate into the locale.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Yeah almost. OmnipotentEntity posted a link below, it’s just a company that packages their ice cream in a dome shape container that looks like a boob. I don’t eat ice cream very much so I’ve never run across it but I’ll check next time I go to the grocery store

  • ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca
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    3 days ago

    That’s the literal translation, yes.

    oppai aisu = boobs ice (oppai is boobs)

    meron shaabetto = Mellon sherbet

    daigaku imo aisu = university potato ice (daigaku is university, imo is potato. The kanjis literally translate to that, but it really means baked sweet potato.)

    And approx $1.50 for ice cream is a hell of a good deal.

    • hdzki@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      For the 3rd, usually you flip the order (same as skipping the の). So 大学芋アイス could read as “University’s Potato Ice(cream)” while 芋大学アイス reads (Potato University’s Ice(cream)"

  • fireweed@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    While you’re all mulling over boobs ice, I’m wondering where the hell in Japan they list their prices without the tax included.

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      That is the tax included price. If there’s only one number it has to be the tax included one by law. Most restaurants don’t list both prices on the menu. You usually see both prices in places like supermarkets, department stores, and convenience stores.

        • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          Oh yeah haha, I hadn’t even rechecked the photo and missed that. I really don’t know, I’ve never seen it before. Maybe there’s some exception if you’re a really small business or something? But even food stalls at festivals only have the one tax-included price. You’d think if it were possible to just write “without tax” they’d do it pretty much everywhere. Japan likes capitalism as much as anywhere else after all.

        • Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          If you don’t have the taxes included in the price then it must say “taxes excluded”

          So everything on the menu that has taxes included would just have the price anything excluded must have the notation.