Love Turned to Hate: a Saga of Cheetos

I have a bone to pick with Japan. How is it that the most high-tech country in the world, a nation full of tiny gadgets whose use I can barely begin to dream of (not to mention their toilets!) can have such a major failing as the one I am about to disclose? The art of easy opening, peoples! BAGS.

I myself am an avid opposer of Americanization, but I`ve come to the conclusion that there is one, no make that two, things Japan could do with importing from America:

1. The easy open bag (EOB)
2. Wall insulation (but that might be a subject for a different post)

There are many more things that America would do well to import from Japan, but for now I've got to talk about bags.

Before I rant about how hard it is to get Japanese bagged products open, lets talk about the fact that Japan is obsessed with packaging all together. If you aren`t packaged, you just aren`t cool here. Take a bag of candy. In most countries, individual pieces of candy or individual cookies tend to just hang loose in their larger packaging, unless they are sticky. Not so in Japan. Inside the package, each item has to be individually wrapped or else they don`t trust it enough to eat. I bought a box of saltines the other week. I opened the box to find 2 stacked packages of crackers. Ok. Then I open a package of crackers... to find that all the crackers inside the package are packaged into groups of 4 crackers. Even jello, people! You buy jello by the MOUTHFUL here. Little one bite servings that come in a plastic pouch with a pull off lid. You buy big bags of prepackaged mouthfuls of Jello.

It`s not just prepackaged things either. At the grocery store they insist on bagging your groceries with twice as many bags as you might actually need. Did you buy a carton of eggs? It will get its own bag, and then be put inside another bag with fellow groceries. Did you buy some tofu? Not only does the fresh tofu already come in its own bag, they will put it in another bag, tie a knot in it, then put it in a third bag. Anything that is a different temperature will also get its own bag before it gets put in the bigger bag, like frozen vegetables. As if this hasn't already made it practically impossible to get to at your food, they either tie or tape shut every single grocery bag. Their plastic bags have these little plastic tails special for tying your groceries up hostage.

I`ve gotten off my main point though, which was the EOB. I think you can`t appreciate the EOB until you live somewhere where it doesn`t. I, for one, never even knew that America had such a glorious glorious tradition until I lived in Germany and then Japan. America probably pays scientists loads of our tax money to sit around all day inventing ways to make plastic and paper and metals easily openable for our lazy asses. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Imagine a bag of chips, crackers, or cookies. In America, if you want these succulent treats to be in your mouth, all you need do is place a hand on either side of the bag and gently tug... presto! It opens. It`s magic. In Japan, they clearly pay scientists to sit around and scheme up ways to keep the sides of the bag firmly stuck together when you pull. This may be the secret as to why Japan has fewer obesity problems than America: people simply can`t access junk food.

There is a little known fact that I will share with you: Japanese Cheetos are the best thing in the entire world. You have not tasted GOODNESS until you`ve had a Japanese Cheeto. The package looks the same! The same company produces them! But Japanese Cheetos are indescribably better than everyone elses. For the first 6 months that I lived here I was obsessed with J-Cheetos. I ate a bag of them every single day. The one thing that ruined the experience for me was the pain and suffering I had to go through to access my glorious goodies. Even worse, chips in Japan come in only one of 2 sizes: teeny-tiny and small. So if you want more than 2 handfuls of chips, you must brave multiple non-EOBs. Who would think that such a small bag could spawn such frustration and fury? In order to help you understand, I will explain the process I am forced to endure to open a bag of Cheetos:

I first make sure that I am sitting down with my elbows well braced on either my knees or the table. I roll up my sleeves, get a good grip on both sides of the bag, take a deep breath. Then with all my willpower concentrated on the bag, I flex my arm muscles, let out my breath in a strangled half-screech and wrench at the bag with all my strength. It doesn't budge, but I don't stop pulling! Sweat breaks on my brow, my screech turns to a groan of effort. The bag is sapping me of all my Life Force! Then, the packaging begins to give way ever so slightly. I redouble my efforts! This time, it is not the thought of my scrumptious Cheetos that keeps me going. No, instead I am filled with fury that anyone would make a bag so difficult to open. It is wrath that powers my straining muscles; unadulterated rage at the ridiculous nature of these Cheetos' packaging (and at my inability as an illiterate foreigner to write a scathing letter of complaint to the Cheeto bag manufacturers). Yes, that is what finally makes the plastic lining give way. Hate, not love:-( It's a sad story, especially for someone who went to Friends School.

But life goes on. After a few months, I game up all attempts to show up the Japanese packaging industry through personal domination of the Cheeto bag, and began to simply hack my Cheetos open with scissors or slash at them with kitchen knives. Somehow it wasn't the same. I gradually lost my infatuation with J-Cheetos, and today I barely touch them. Their beauty is tainted by their evil packaging.