Illusion of the Week: Japanese Food-Chain Breaks the Curse of OCHOBO!
Horking down a huge honking burger--American style--is considered unladylike in Japan. So Freshness Burger uses an unconventional approach to maintaining Ochobo--the Japanese cultural practice of maintaining small delicate mouth features in women.
You may be surprised to learn that scarfing down a huge honking burger--American style--is considered unladylike in Japan. Rather, the concept of OCHOBO--a small shapely mouth--dominates cultural assessments of female beauty. So much so that a main burger chain in Japan has employed methods from illusion science to combat the scourge of anti-ochobo burger-scarfing. Freshness Burger developed a cleverly decorated burger wrapper that partially hides the offending burger-eating-woman's face and replaces it with a paragon of Japanese female beauty. Finally, you can eat like a pig while achieving the highest level of ochobo! See Freshness Burger's promotional video below.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Stephen L. Macknik is a professor of opthalmology, neurology, and physiology and pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Along with Susana Martinez-Conde and Sandra Blakeslee, he is author of the Prisma Prize-winning Sleights of Mind. Their forthcoming book, Champions of Illusion, will be published by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Follow Stephen L. Macknik on Twitter Credit: Sean McCabe
You may be surprised to learn that scarfing down a huge honking burger--American style--is considered unladylike in Japan. Rather, the concept of OCHOBO--a small shapely mouth--dominates cultural assessments of female beauty. So much so that a main burger chain in Japan has employed methods from illusion science to combat the scourge of anti-ochobo burger-scarfing. Freshness Burger developed a cleverly decorated burger wrapper that partially hides the offending burger-eating-woman's face and replaces it with a paragon of Japanese female beauty. Finally, you can eat like a pig while achieving the highest level of ochobo! See Freshness Burger's promotional video below.
