8/6/2023 0 Comments Totemo kawaii“Mina Totemo Kawaii Kedo / Dakara Totemo Kawaisou Nanda Keredo!” The word goes back to The Tale of Genji, a novel written in the 11th Century by a lady who used it to mean pitiable, though these days it means “ it makes me want to protect it.” I’ve heard fresh bread described as kawaii and I’ve heard the word “kawaii” described as “the most widely used, widely loved, habitual word in modern living Japanese.” It describes Hello Kitty, pink cakes and mops with faces, but also inept foreigners, fireworks and the Shinkansen (with or without a face). She is part of a broader embrace of cuteness in Japan called kawaii (rhymes with “ Hawaii”). Since then she’s been a motorcycle, an airplane, a bus, a coffee saucer, several ice cream bars (where you bite her cute little face off) and even kimono. I learned that Hello Kitty’s last name is “White” and her first name is “Kitty.” She’s as tall as five apples and weighs as much as three. The package encourages you to put them on your refrigerator.Ī Hello Kitty memorabilia collection rolled into the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum last month. You can even buy enormous plastic eyes with batteries that blink occasionally. There are slippers with faces on the packages. Mops have faces – decidedly malevolent faces, perhaps to inspire confidence in their dust-fighting abilities. My grocery store’s fish market has a cartoon fish looking concerned. My city’s tallest skyscraper has a mascot: it’s the skyscraper with a face. “Battle not with Hello Kitty lest ye become Hello Kitty and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you with huge eyes and a helpless disposition.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
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