Dad’s In the Bag: “Gruesome” Photo Makes Japan Twitter Laugh

We all have lapses in memory. But for one Japanese Twitter user, a lapse in memory turned into a moment of comic gold – and a hit tweet. It also reveals an interesting factoid about the Japanese food service industry to boot!

“Fa-father??”

The tweet comes from Twitter user Kabocha (@DOTS_PUMPKIN), who works in the food service industry. Pictured is a sizable bag of sliced meat. Kabocha tweeted it with the caption “‘Stop it, you’re scaring me,’ he said.”

It’s what’s written on the bag, though, that grabbed everyone’s attention: お父さん (otousan) – one of the Japanese words for “father”.

Users had fun with their reactions to the horrifying bag of meat that implied the poster had just finished disassembling one of his parents. “Father!”, several replies cried. Perhaps the funniest, however, was someone posting this iconic shot from Spirited Away, where Chihiro/Sen is standing next to her parents, who’ve been turned into pigs.

Other users just thanked Kabocha for the unexpected laugh. Apparently, the post struck a chord: at publication time, it had over 2 million likes and 480,000 retweets.

Why “Father”?

So why the funny label? Was it an intentional joke meant to scare his co-workers?

One exchange with the author provides a hint. In response to someone saying “dad meat, lol” (父肉; chichiniku), Kabocha replies, “I couldn’t remember ‘big brother’ [兄貴; aniki].”

Indeed, in an interview with BuzzFeed Japan, Kabocha confirms this was a simple mistake related to a custom in Japanese food service.

According to bizSPA!, it’s customary in the food service world to label bags of fresh ingredients like meat with one of two words: 兄貴 (aniki, older brother) or 弟 (otouto, younger brother). Bags labeled “aniki” are older and staff should use them first. The labeling is a euphemism to prevent customers from overhearing staff say things like “use the older one first”.

Kabocha says the bag was a pile of beef tendon cut from a chunk of roast beef. The reaction in the tweet comes from their manager. They confirmed to BuzzFeed that the label was a “brain fart” (度忘れ; dowasure) moment and that they wrote the first thing that came to mind.

According to bizSPA!, this is just one of several colorful words specific to the food service industry in Japan. A few others include:

ショッカー (shokkaa): A representative from corporate headquarters in a chain performing a “secret shopper” style of unannounced inspection.

バッシング (basshingu): Clearing a table quickly so you can seat the next customer.

It’s good to know that, even though Twitter is slowly dying, it can still provide a few moments of brevity.

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Sources

「びっくりするからやめろって言われました」→お肉に書かれた衝撃の4文字にネット戦慄、実は意外な背景が. BuzzFeed Japan

レストランで「兄貴・弟」と聞こえたら要注意？飲食業界のウラ用語. bizSPA!