Authenticity in products

Sencha is one of my favourite teas and I recently bought this particular variety of tea.

I don’t read Japanese but I’m willing to take a guess that this is a pretty direct translation from Japanese to English. I think this is a smart choice of using very little Latin script on the export version of their tea.

In this instance, for me, the fact that I don’t read Japanese adds something to the product. Not understanding the language actually lends authenticity to the product.

It’s a bit like opera. I don’t want to understand what the cast are singing about, I’m content just to listen to the beautiful sounds they are making. I can make out the story from the context and visual cues.

Had the manufacturer chosen to remove all of the Japanese writing from their products for sale in Europe and only use Latin scripts then I think their tea brand would appear less valuable.

Kanji pictograms sheer genius

I discovered these pictograms cards on Flickr the other day and their creator Michael Rowley has been kind enough to let me use the images for this post.

When I first saw them, I was struck at how they opened up written Japanese to someone like me who has only dabbled in spoken Japanese in the past and can say a few words. If your mother tongue is written in a latin script you usually have to make a choice about how much of an Asian language you want to learn.  Are you happy just to learn speaking and comprehension or do you want to go the whole way and learn to read and write.

Their excellent design unlock some of the building blocks of the Japanese language making it easy to take a first step in learning to read Japanese.

As a European, the further east you travel, the less likely you are to be able to communicate and find your way around. While in Europe you’ll still be able to read most of the languages and figure out place names and read numbers etc.

Once you step into the Middle East that changes and continues to change until you exit Japan heading East for the USA.

What is so great about the cards is the way that Michael has used an image to bridge the gap between the word in both languages.

If you fancy trying your hand at some Japanese you can find out more from Michael’s site at www.vizcabualry.com