Viral “F***in’ Sale” Sign Credit Claimed- By New York Chef, Are You Surprised?


You may have seen a hilarious image pop up on Facebook or Tumblr in the past few days from Japan- department store style in-store signage from a Japanese shop, in which it loudly and proudly trumpets a big “Fuckin’ Sale” for Christmas.

The image is a funny one not only for the incongruous profanity, but also because it plays into some of our stereotypes of how people in Asia perceive American culture. (One that is subverted in the joke of the college kid with the Asian character tattoo that they think means “courage” or “strength” but really means “pork fried rice.”) The image of the confused representation of another culture is one that resonates strongly, which is probably part of the reason why the pic has been catapulted across the internet in the past few days.

Gawker has spoken to American chef Ron Silver, who owns the comfort food restaurant Bubby’s in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Silver- who has pulled off a great coup if he is correct- claims credit for making the f-word a point of emphasis in Japanese pop culture right now, saying that it comes from his propensity for using the intensity descriptor as a way to explain to staff that the food he serves is fresher than that which most Japanese residents are accustomed. (In Japan, fresh produce is really f*cking expensive, it seems.) New Yorker Silver hilariously explains:

“I trained these guys and trained these guys, and they called me up and said, ‘By fresh do you mean frozen?’ And I was like, ‘I mean fucking fresh, man. Do not fuck around with this thing. The very next day they were like, ‘By fresh do you mean canned?’ And I was like, ‘What do you not understand about fucking fresh?'”

It seems Silver’s Japanese staff took the phrase to heart, but the story even has a kind of f*cking touching ending- the chef explains how it came to be a marketing buzzword for his Japanese ventures:

Silver’s employees may have been fucking with him the whole time. They later surprised Silver by plastering Bubby’s with the slogan “Fuckin Fresh,” adopting it as their motto.

“It was like, alright you won my heart over,” Silver said.

So that’s (ostensibly) how the “Fuckin’ Sale” pic came about. Do you find the tale hysterical or offensive?

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