The Latest from Japan: A Slurp-canceling Noodle Fork

I am speechless but perhaps not entirely surprised. Different problems for different cultures ... it's also possible that people enjoy setting problems and solving them, just for the practice.

I agree. Just like when the laser was invented it was dubbed "a solution looking for a problem", this appears to be PhDs with signal processing expertise looking for a problem to solve. Just my take...

I could take that personal, but I am feeling magnanimous today. Other than that, my back feels a bit out.

Glad I have no noodles in my future today.

There was one a few years ago. It seems that there was one cell phone already sold in Japan for every man, woman and child and the problem was to find new ways to sell cell phones.

The answer proposed was a pet cell phone, specifically a dog collar with built in cell phone, so that during the day you could call and talk to your pet. I saw it as a way to have a lot of really confused pets. However, they sold.

I can eat my Ramen with or without slurping using a plain old spoon.

In some cultures it is considered proper to slurp loudly.

Novelty gag gift.

Really?

It's the 21st Century. Where's the Jetson type flying car I was promised?!

if it was the Jetsons,... the noodles would come in a pill form.

I really can only process this from the position of "it's a gag".

I mean the size of the thing, that can't be an actual product suggestion someone took seriously.

I Hope.

When working in Japan, I understood that some slurping was considered polite and that silent soup snorfling was considered to be somewhat rude. As quickly as styles and fads pass through, I wouldn't be surprised if the norms have changed.

On a related subject, I did see an article about a bathroom sound masking device, as the sounds of #2 were considered quite embarrassing.

I suspect it's real. We had Japanese visitors at my place of work for several weeks. One day the cafeteria had a Chinese food bar with a lot of choices. The Japanese fellow I went to lunch with couldn't find anything he wanted to eat.

Sounds like you're flushing a toilet, the Japanese really are obsessed with going to the bathroom, and in some cases the results(eecch)...I like to burp, but I refrain from doing so in public,, this is common courtesy, like refraining from talking loudly on a bluetooth headset while looking at other people who then think you are talking to them and respond with ,"What's that?" only to get a blank stare with continued ghost talking...I say if you have to eat like a pig, do so in your own company only, or take it outside where the ambient noise overwhelms the sounds of your piggish slurping....then again if everybody at the table is slurping with abandon, then well it's almost your duty to chime in isn't it....One can usually tell from the other guests at the table if one has committed a social faux pas by the expressions on their faces and the speed with which they appear.... the gravity of the offence is measured by the time that this suspended animation remains frozen in time...

Now Eagle, you need to remember that these poor folks don't know what utensils are. This is a new concept. The traditional way to eat is as shown, hold bowl under mouth, push food into mouth with pieces of wood aka chopsticks. Not a quiet or particularly neat way to eat, and definitely burp generating as you tend to gulp air when eating this way resulting in the requisite "thank you" belch at the end of the meal.

I hole this doesn't come off as defensive, my intentions are instructive (and I hope slightly satirical).

The traditional way of eating (China and in the past I believe Japan too) was to have the food (meat and vegetables, not noodles) cut into bite sized portions during prep. Eating was to be peaceful (KungFu movies notwithstanding) and no stabbing or cutting was allowed. Therefore, only chopsticks were used , of course, do not have a sharp point. Warring periods were fairly common and they didn't want eating to resemble or remind them of fighting.

Even today in nicer restaurants in China where few foreigners go, slurping is still heard. The bowl is OK to pick up if it is soup, or the last of the rice. In restaurants, the bowl is likely to be left devoid of food; whereas with family, especially a celebratory dinner, it is very possible you will be given more food until some is left in your bowl. Only at that point you are considered by others to be truly full.

A full-fledged burp is (at least nowadays) considered rude in a public setting. Although elders can get by with it and everyone pretends to not notice. Burps happen and while some may be a little louder than normal in the US, most times they are trying to be discrete. Such as looking down and burping or turning the head and covering with a hand aka a fake cough.

Too much info, I know.

I worked with an engineer who grew up in China. Instead of spending two years in the Chinese army, he spend two years working on a tea farm.

During a week long trip with an English engineer who had been raised in India and him to Toronto Canada, he took us to an authentic Chinese restaurant and he confirmed what you have said. We had authentic curry on that trip too.

He also scared the crap out of us when it was his day to drive.

HA! I agree with that. During one particularly harrowing drive through rush hour traffic in southern China I told the English speaking driver that Chinese drivers are some of the best in the world. He laughed and told me it's like fish swimming upstream. A very good analogy. A three lane road can fairly easily fit five cars across, and not only at stoplights!

What this does is cause a linked smartphone to generate a masking sound. I would be really impressed if there were a speaker in the fork handle that produced a sound that exactly canceled the slurping sound, sort of like noise-canceling headphones.

It would be funnier if it played tiny voices yelling help....

Just another day in Tokyo...

Kinda like what a radio does in a car that's making a strange sound coming from the engine.

Let me see if I understand.

They waste thousands of dollars and tons-o-time developing a fork to silence slurping so as to not offend anyone?

Then they all eat the noodles WITH THE SAME FORK???????????????????

Might that not present a problem when dining in a large group?

I'll slurp with my own fork, thank you!

Don't listen to him....no man could have so many forks

Just see the movie "Tampopo"!

Superlatively rewarding.

So the noise from the the phone is not annoying?