Q: What is the nature of the Matsuyama establishment which has posted this menu outside on the sidewalk?
Here are transliterations of the pronunciations of the items on the menu:
1. Paama
2. Headai
3. Katto
4. Burō
5. Shampū
6. Setto
Remember, you can click through to see a larger image.
Okay, is it cheating if I know Katakana and am very familiar with how it is used to render non-Japanese words?
ReplyDelete@Dan: I haven't real thought through the rules very well. Given the readership of this blog, it may be impossible for everyone not to cheat. How about this: give it 24 hours.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, the answer (I am pretty sure) is in tiny kanji to the left!
ReplyDeleteI don't know any Japanese or Japanese writing at all, so I'm not "cheating." It's a salon. It offers the following services: perm, hair dye, cut, blow, shampoo, set. The "Shampū" was the clue.
ReplyDeleteThe transliteration was also the clue to me...clearly a beauty salon as Josh knew right away.
ReplyDelete@Tina: Sharp eyes! I hadn't noticed that. Otherwise I would have Photoshopped it out!
ReplyDelete@Josh: Indeed, shampū is the giveaway.
@Dan: I assume you had the answer right away as well?
Incidentally, prices (though faint) are visible on the right; divide by 100 to get a rough idea of the amount in US dollars.
Oh sure, I figured it out as soon as I saw "perm".
ReplyDeleteNice to know that the rough penny-yen conversion is still accurate.
Interesting that all the terms are English borrowings, including "cut." Are there really no native terms for hairstyling, or is it just very strongly associated with English (and, interestingly, not French)?
ReplyDeleteJosh,
ReplyDeleteEnglish vocabulary has so thoroughly infiltrated Japanese that it's no surprise to find them in use here. My sense is that it's not that hairstyling per se is associated with English. You find similar sets of English vocabulary (often when Japanese has perfectly good words of its own) in many spheres of life. For example, English "left" and "right" were used in the context of directing our car into position at a gas station.
It does seem to be true that English borrowings are more commonly used in spheres that aren't traditionally Japanese. Rather than being associated with English, beauty salons may have been associated with the West (at least when they first came into common use here). But this is really a historical question; I think in the context of modern Japan society it's very hard to tease these things apart.