For all the Russians out there, they've upgraded the whole babushka thing to a whole new level. Bath babushka. Your complete set of sponges and soaps.
Weird. I believed that my Russian could somehow come in use in Japan as it is a bordering country. After talking with a local Russian guy that I met, it turns out that I was very wrong. There is no interest or business going on with Russia in Japan. No one speaks Russian here. But there is a slight cultural influence from the Russians. Seriously. I'm not talking about Vodka.
Now most of you probably have no idea who these characters are but every Russian in the world would know. For some reason
these Russian characters were chosen as the mascots of a Japanese private rail system called the JR. The adds talk about respect and whatnot in the train and not to forget your stuff in the trains. 
The main character is called Cheburashka. He sings songs and much like Barney tells stories about this best friends. He's from 1960's Russian culture and he's all the rage here. You can buy Chebourashka anything. I'll come back to that when I get some good pictures.
Weird. I believed that my Russian could somehow come in use in Japan as it is a bordering country. After talking with a local Russian guy that I met, it turns out that I was very wrong. There is no interest or business going on with Russia in Japan. No one speaks Russian here. But there is a slight cultural influence from the Russians. Seriously. I'm not talking about Vodka.
Now most of you probably have no idea who these characters are but every Russian in the world would know. For some reason
these Russian characters were chosen as the mascots of a Japanese private rail system called the JR. The adds talk about respect and whatnot in the train and not to forget your stuff in the trains. 
The main character is called Cheburashka. He sings songs and much like Barney tells stories about this best friends. He's from 1960's Russian culture and he's all the rage here. You can buy Chebourashka anything. I'll come back to that when I get some good pictures.
This was on the side of restaurant. Honestly, its like Where's Waldo with Chebourashka stuff. I'm not sure if the samurai dude is suppose to me defending the Chebourashka but it sure looks like it.
Do you know that Russia use Cheburashka as a simbol of there Olympic team for the Olympic games in China. Chinese were fell very ofended, because they did not know about TV cartoon but definetly know about Japanise rail way company. They consider the russian idea with Cheburashka insulting, because of sertain tension between communist China and Japan(if you interested I can tell all about it) This is a good example of cultural misundestanding. love Mom
ReplyDeleteWHAT? Cheburashka is from Japan? How the heck did this come abouts? How did Japanese adopt a Cheburashka. ..
ReplyDeleteAh..I must now listen to Gena's song: A ya igrau, na garmoshki, ...u prahoshih, na vidu, ...ahww...good old days!
-KarL!