ONLY IN JAPAN: Blackface Bakery

Posted by Greg Narvasa On Sunday, August 29, 2010 0 comments


I work in the area of Tokyo called Kichijoji and i love this area! It has a great mix of food, shopping and fun. There are many great shops for coffee and cake to go to after a dinner from one of the hundreds of restaurants in the area. One shop that stands out for sure, at least in the eyes of a foreigner is this shop known as Lemon Drop http://www.lemondrop.jp/index.html. The name has nothing offensive as far as i know, but its the character that is used for the logo. Whoever decided to design this was not very worldly, for those who know about the time in America where white people posed as black people for entertainment you would know the term "black face". This logo clearly is a black face character, more specifically its probably Al Jolson, the famous jazz musician. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jolson


Aside from the major culture ignorance, this cake shop has some really good cake and coffee. If you do get a chance to pop in here this berry cheese cake was delicious!



Performance of Al Jolson sining the famous "mammy im comin' home" bit.




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