When Cultures Do Not Properly Translate And Maybe…It’s Okay

I was in a new favorite food shop yesterday looking for Bertolli’s Italian sauce and some Capellini pasta for dinner. I came across this display and was at first taken aback and then I looked at the products and then I remembered I was in Japan.

Today, such a display might not fly in the U.S. Or, under Trump, maybe it would. But still, the display took me back to my childhood and my favorite breakfast foods and the characters American food companies used to pitch their products.

In the U.S. today some folks would be in an uproar and demand the display to be taken down. Here, the display is hardly noticed. It’s a Chef in a restaurant chef suit, holding a fresh serving of what looks like an omelette-rice.  The love of food translates, the server being a Chef translates but the…un-intended racism is lost on probably all but Americans and maybe a few Europeans.

Should the display be taken down? I don’t think so. Should we be offended? Why? With so many problems we face in the world this does not even hit my radar. Nor should it.