チャーシュ
This stands for roasted pork in Japanese. It usually goes hand in hand with ラーメン. I believe that it is in katakana because it is a foreign food imported from China. According to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama, Ramen restaurants started in the China Town in Yokohama about the time of Meiji Restoration (1872). It is therefore likely that チャーシュ was imported around the same time.
Growing up in Hong Kong, I believe that チャーシュ is originated in Hong Kong/Canton province in China. The pronunciation of チャーシュ also happens to be very similar in cantonese, more so than in Mandarin Chinese
チャーシュ は おぼえます！ わたし は ハワイ から きました。 ハワイ に らめん と チャーシュ を たべました。 でも、 I liked the pink fish cake better than the charsiu, haha.
ReplyDeleteあ。 はじめまして。 アルコンセル です。 ノートル ダム 大学 の にねんせい です。 せんこう は design です。 どうぞ よろしく！
I thought that ラーメン was written in katakana because it's imported from China, but I didn't know about チャーシュー. When I heard the pronunciation in Cantonese, I was surprised how it sounds similar to チャーシュー. But, why does it have to katakana? Can that be ちゃあしゅう？
ReplyDeleteFood is an interesting place to find katakana because so many foods are imported, isn't it? It's great you can give a perspective about words of Chinese origin to us who grew up in America- I don't know any Chinese, so it's a great resource to have people who do. I wonder why ramen got popular at the time of the Meiji Restoration- was that a time that isolationism relaxed? Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteCantonese actually have a lot of similar pronouncication to Japanese. For example, "yes" is also pronounced as "hai" in Cantonese.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Laurie about how interesting it is to find katakana on so many imported foods. I wonder if they chose to keep the foreign name of each food and write it in katakana because of how similar its pronunciation is. Otherwise, I would think they would just come up with another name for it in Japanese, and then write that name in hiragana.
ReplyDelete