Anti-Oxidation bottle for the Soy-Source.

**** 鰹節：KATSUO-BUSHI;dried bonito ****

You see something dancing on the OKONOMI-YAKI.They are KATSUO-BUSI very important Japanese food material.



It takes 6 months to make dried KATSUO-BUSHI.

Bonito are cut and boiled at 90 degree, smoked 20 days and stained for months.

**** ニャー：NYA；voice of cat ****

In Japanese, we describe the voice of cats as "ニャー" or "にゃあ" while it is described as "meow" in English.

I think "meow" is wrong to describe the voice of cats because cats must close their lips to pronounce "m" and they can not.

**** 甘納豆：AMA-NATTO; sweet beans ****

"NATTO" is infamous for its smell and texture. But AMA-NATTO is far from NATTO.

In Japanese, "AMA-I" means "sweet" and AMA-NATTO is just sweet beans. I don't know why it has "NATTO" in its name.

**** 金太郎飴：KINTARO-AME;KINTARO candy ****

Japanese are often said "they all seem to be same" or "they all like to do the same".


Yes, we know it. And we have the words for that kind of situation. "it's like the KINTARO-AME"

Here is the KINTARO(the name of children helo)-AME.

**** 酒粕：SAKE-KASU ****

KASU means actually "dust" and often used to insult people by asserting them as useless.

However, "SAKE-KASU" is very useful food or food material.

SAKE-KASU is the dust which is made when they squeeze SAKE or Japanese rice wine.



SAKE-KASU is made from rice and used like as the MISO (fermented soy beans). SAKE-KASU has much more functionality to keep the health and beauty. Famous cosmetique product "SK-II" is said to involve some extract of SAKE-KASU.

Here is the link to the Wikipedia in Japanese.

**** 鳴門の渦：NARUTO NO UZU;Vortex at NARUTO ****

We have in-land-sea "SETO-NAI-KAI" in west Japan. Because of the 5 hours time delay of the high-tide and low-tide by the AWAJI-SHIMA island, many vortex are made for a while every day.



Added on 1st/march/2020

I believe the NARUTO on RAMEN was named after the vortex of NARUTO.



Also I believe vaguely the MANGA of NARUTO is named after NARUTO.

**** 日本人の名前:Names of Japanese ****
Japanese government officially stated that Japanese should describe their names as "family name first". I think it is very reasonable.

Japanese have been describing their names "individual name first" in alphabet to meet western standard. I did not like it and I usually describe Japanese names as "<family name>, <individual name>".

We have 120,000 family names in Japan (some document says 300,000). I have the list of Japanese family names which has 100,000 items.

On the other hand, the number of Japanese individual name is not known. I think the number of Japanese individual names is much less than the number of family names (I'm sure but have no evidence). Japanese family names should be the "first name" to call each other.

Therefore, it is very natural for Japanese to call their family names each other.

For some historical reason, most of Japanese Family names are related to the geographical objects. As for the individual name, it is reflection of what the parents hope for their child.

If you have japanese friends, ask them for the meaning of their family name and individual name. It will make good queque to have good relation with the friends.

**** 蒙古斑：MOUKO-HAN;Mongolian Spot ****

Japanese babies and some of Chinese babies have blue spot on the back or hip.



It will disappear usually around age of ten. but some people have it until age of 20.

This spot sometimes cause problems when the parents show the baby to the western doctor who does not know about the Mongolian Spot. The doctors regards the spot as the evidence of the Child abuse.

**** Fruits Cakes ****
Foreign girls enjoy Japanese fruits cakes.