Now, condoms are packaged to look like food products thus if the buyer wishes to purchase the item, they only have to ask for a certain 'snack'. Different 'snacks' refer to different types of condoms thus one will have to be careful what 'snack' they choose because it may be an entirely different product altogether.
Japan is an Asian country and most Asian countries have soft-spoken cultures thus Japan, like other Asian countries, have high context cultures. Sex may no longer be a conversational taboo like 10 years ago but buying a condom in a provison shop still is. When buying such an item, it is best to be subtle because the explicit communication style is deem to be coarse and vulgar in such a scenario. The asking party (source) uses restricted codes and contextual cues to put across the message and the receptionist (receiver) is equally subtle about it.
Actually such an intriging idea has been exising for quite a while, it is just that no one really put the idea down to work. Here are some 'drafts'. Enjoy. =D
Using tasteful snack slogans to create flavourful condoms
5 comments:
OMG! Sarah Lua Koh Sin, I hope the captions on the final photo was not by you. LOL
Actually I don't think it is bashfulness that made the Japanese come up with such an idea. I think it is more likely that the Japanese are whacked up people with whacked up ideas for whacked up people like us.
Maybe for some, it is indeed the saving-face factor that comes into play.
interesting. i have never heard of condoms being packaged into snacks.
i cant imagine if Singapore has such condoms. It would be interesting to see if some of our older population bought them accidentally.
oh well. food for thought: what other kinds of packaging can condoms be made into?
I heard of funny condoms packaging before bu never heard of it being called 'snacks'. A very interesting way indeed. However, the 'if condoms were sponsored' pics are really funny. Wonder what would they inculde in it? lol
Japan, with the remnants of its samurai culture, might seem a country trapped in an Asian Victorian England, which in this post explains the introduction of condoms in discreet packages.
I disagree with this argument for a few reasons: 1) while the old samurai culture HAS fossilized social interation into an elaborate game of chess (gift giving, for example, is more like a game of espionage than a sign of goodwill: one cannot let the opponent know where one got it, how much it cost, and so on, because it's a social faux pas.) part of the old culture also includes Ukiyo, that is, the "floating world", centered around the licensed redlight district of Yoshiwara (modern Tokyo). In "floating world" paintings, the Sybaritic lifestyle is celebrated. This is also part of Japan's heritage. In Ukiyo paintings, the genitals are not exposed; the Japanese are fine with the idea of sex, even promiscuity; what they cannot abide is extravagance, as evidenced in the de riguer simplicity of their poetry and landscaping.
2)Japan's sex tourism industry is highly developed: cosplay brothels, the standard massage parlors and health clubs doubling as love-shacks, brothels called soaplands to mask their nature after the antiprostitution law of 1956 was passed. According to one census, in one redlight district, 0.34 sq km in area, there are 3500 sex industry related businesses. Japan is the country with the world's highest export of Hentai (cartoon and comic book) porn, and (until the police caught on) vending machines selling stolen female undergarments. In this modern Babylon, the idea that condoms are repackaged as instant noodles because people were ASHAMED of being seen BUYING THEM seems a little tame to me. Much more plausable that such packagings are more for novelty: America came up with Atari, Japan leaped in with Sega and Nintendo. American Gladiators, Knights and Warriors? Japan answered with Takeshi's Castle. The Price is Right, a gameshow for the masses, with a spectrum of interesting mini-games? Kasou Taishou, where every contestant has to come up with... something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Rk6NoJVuU&feature=related. As a racial stereotype, the Japanese just seem to have a knack for IMPROVING original concepts (goodness knows what they've come up up with to answer Hiroshima and Nagasaki by now...). Condom packaging... only a matter of time, really.
Although there is something to be said about shame (i read an article that they invented musical toilet bowl so that people (women) need not hear themselves make biological sounds), the Japanese have exploited EVEN THAT: sex/rape tapes in subways, in open windows, the use of a vibrator then making the woman walk down a busy street- shame is as no shame.
Am I right? Or am I right? (yes, I'm a smug little twat, but you gotta say I'm right.)
-H
Sarah u naughty sia u....I also thought the last pic was done by you....anyway its indeed a shy thing when you buy condom from 7 eleven. Of course you wouldnt want the aunty ath cashier to know that you are sexually active...
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