Have you eaten ramen in Japan in, say, a restaurant? How do you like it? Lovely? Or are you bothered by fellow ramen chompers who are constantly producing the annoying slurping sound? I am not going to lie. I am, always. But we can’t blame them, it is a cultural thing. By slurping the noodles, it is supposed to make the noodles tastier and also as a way of expressing that it is really that damn good. Gosh. I never figure out how those reasons are any rational.
Apparently, it is a practice that is perceived to be an annoyance to anyone outside of Japan. So much so that it is officially referred to as “noo-hara,” or “noodle harassment” in Japan and it might very be because, words cannot express how I loathe that noise. Sorry, but not sorry. A single person is OK, but when you have a horde of people slurping, now that’s getting on my nerve. I would be like Mt. Fuji ready to erupt and scream out loud for everyone to stop. That’s just me. So, it is a good thing a restaurant is noisy with chatters. At least I won’t be tormented by the slurping noises.
But what if there isn’t any other noise to cancel out that annoying noise? Well, fret not, because there’s the Otohiko Fork. Created by the granddaddy of instant noodles, Nissin Foods, Otohiko Fork is a revolutionary, high-tech utensil that is designed to cancel out slurping. Apparently, with Tokyo 2020 coming up, Nissin felt the urgent need to address this long-standing fiction between Japan and the outside world because, for Japanese, they won’t, for their lives, stop slurping.
But how does it really works? Well, if you have been to Japan and use the bathrooms there, you will notice some toilets are equipped with sound device (such as the TOTO Otohime) that could cancel out those inevitable offensive sound as one does the business in the stall. Yeah, Otohiko Fork shares the same principle. But this one here needs no manual activation; it is automatic. As you can see, the fork has a rather fat handle and within the obviously not very handy handle is has microphone and circuitry that, when slurp is detected, will trigger an app on your smartphone to playback a neutralizing sound to drown out the slurping noise.
And presto! Problem solved, but that is only provided that you are not annoy by the swoosh sound too. If you are checking the date at this point and wondering if it is April 1st already, well, no. It is not. Not only Nissin Otohiko Fork is as real as it can get, but it available for everyday people. The caveat? (Yes, there is one) Nissin will sell those living in Japan one for 14,800 Yen (about US$131), but only if it receive at least 5,000 pre-orders. If you want one and live in Japan, you have until December 15, 2017 to pre-order it. Skip ahead a fun pitch video.
Images: Nissin.
via Oddity Central.
