Lid 02
Comments: 6
Another box lid I found during our bout of end-of-year cleaning.
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Posted to Photographs • 2003.01.03 (Fri) • 14:26
Comments
Posted by Mark 2003.01.03, 20:08
What does it say?
Posted by mike g 2003.01.05, 01:12
Jeremy, what were the contents of this box?
I remember boxes like this from my high school years, when I worked summers in a salmon cannery in Alaska. My mother worked at the same cannery one summer, packing roe bound for Japan. Only women were allowed to pack the salmon eggs, under the watchful eyes of their male, Japanese bosses. She enjoyed the work, as far as what’s available in a cannery, and was able to bring a few wooden packing boxes home.
Posted by jh 2003.01.05, 01:32
Mark — The 3 large characters say “Mei Cha” — or at least I think that’s how you pronounce it. The third one is “cha” which means “tea.” The 3 tiny characters below those say “Nihonbashi” which is the location of the store or company whose name appears at the bottom of the label — Yamamoto-yama.
Mike — I guess that answers your question: it was tea. Apparently very good tea, too, although I can’t recall drinking it.
Why were only women allowed to pack the salmon roe?
Posted by Kris 2003.01.05, 01:59
Put a lid on it! :P
Posted by mike g 2003.01.11, 23:56
As to why only women were allowed to pack the roe…
I’m remembering it as something a bit chauvinistic — like only women were patient enough and had delicate enough hands to do the job right. I’ll have to ask my mom when she gets back from her current travels.
Posted by elusivepotato 2003.02.08, 00:23
For your information, folks ^_^ It’s probably more natural to say ‘Yamamoto-san’ rather than ‘Yamamoto-yama’ since ‘yama’ is the on-yomi of the character for mountain. ‘Fuji-san’, for example, does not mean ‘Mr.Fuji’ (of course, ‘Mr’ is a rough equivalent of ‘-san’). The ‘-san’ in ‘Fuji-san’ is the character ‘yama’ (‘yama’ is the kun-yomi). Almost all mountains are named in this way, so I’m told.
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