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| by suhakri_hsu via Flickr |
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Tuesday January 17, 10:02 p.m.
It's nice to have that connection with Japan via NHK over here in Toronto. The news related on that annual custom involving thousands of third-year high school students all throughout the country: Examination Hell. Yup, they are studying, cramming, burning the midnight oil....and eating their way to pass the much dreaded exams for university.
Katsudon and Kit Kat are the big ticket items right now this month. Tonkatsu restaurants are probably seeing higher-than-average numbers of teens tracking through their doors while convenience stores are double-stocking their supply of one of America's famous chocolate bars. And why is that?
Well, it all has to do with puns. Over here, deep-fried pork cutlets on rice and Kit Kats would probably evoke emergency runs to a heart specialist eventually, but over there, they all have to do with WINNING (maybe Charlie Sheen could use them in his next tour of America). Katsu also happens to mean "to win"in Japanese, hence the superstitious value in katsudon. And Kit Kat pronounced in katakana sounds like kitto katsu :"surely win". Good luck food as well as comfort food. Not necessarily healthy food, but when these items could possibly warp probability fields in favour of Taro or Akiko to get to their desired institute of higher learning, why not?
