Comes from the Japanese word, “班長” (hancho), meaning “squad leader.” The origins of “head honcho” allegedly come from World War 2 when Americans heard Japanese soldiers refer to their superiors. After the war, the soldiers brought the word back with them and it somehow caught on. Honcho is a hard word to link back to Japanese because the American pronunciation hijacked the spelling.
I was surprised to find that there was actually a website documenting the history of pogs. Usually I have to look up and piece together trivial history myself. The idea of striking down colorful cards and trying to flip them over has origins in the Japanese game, menko. In menko, the images on the cards would be of historical figures or sports players. Pogs are actually a American/Japanese creation that was born in Hawaii. POG juice (passion fruit, orange, and guava) was a drink made in Hawaii in around 1920. The workers started to play a game like menko using the bottle caps of the juice bottles. The bottle caps were decorated and colorful, so that it was more fun to play with them. This game eventually gets picked up by a businessman and becomes POG.
Have no clue what the game POG is? I pity you.
An original POG bottle cap from Halekala Dairy
Okay, so maybe not all forward time travel is inspired by this Japanese folktale, but “Urashima Taro” is the earliest known fictional story featuring it (apparently dating back to the 8th century). In the story, Urashima Taro helps out a beached turtle, to be rewarded to a fantastic journey under the sea, to the Dragon God’s palace. Turns out that the turtle was a beautiful princess named “Otohime,” and because she wants to thank Urashima, she invites him to party at the palace for several days. After partying himself out, he decides it is time to go back home…but when he does, he soon realizes that 300 odd years have passed. I’m not telling you the whole story because there are places you can read it where there are even animated gifs. You should probably be reading every story with animated gifs.
The first time I went to China, I did not see one fortune cookie. No one mentioned fortune cookies, watermelon was offered to me at the end of the meal, (fortune-less! I may add!) and I just kept my confusion to myself. Maybe this is more embarrassing because I am a 1/4 Chinese (or maybe not, that’s not exactly a huge percentage). But being born and raised in America you are led to believe that these cookies are an essential part of every Chinese meal. When I came to Japan, I saw cookies twisted like fortune cookies, that’s when I decided I probably should Google this.
The answer is that the fortune cookie’s origins are debated (big surprise, most famous foods are). The History of the Fortune Cookie | Infoplease.com has two stories:
“One history of the fortune cookie claims that David Jung, a Chinese immigrant living in Los Angeles and founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company, invented the cookie in 1918. Concerned about the poor he saw wandering near his shop, he created the cookie and passed them out free on the streets. Each cookie contained a strip of paper with an inspirational Bible scripture on it, written for Jung by a Presbyterian minister.
Another history claims that the fortune cookie was invented in San Francisco by a Japanese immigrant named Makoto Hagiwara. Hagiwara was a gardener who designed the famous Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. An anti-Japanese mayor fired him from his job around the turn of the century, but later a new mayor reinstated him. Grateful to those who had stood by him during his period of hardship, Hagiwara created a cookie in 1914 that included a thank you note inside. He passed them out at the Japanese Tea Garden, and began serving them there regularly. In 1915, they were displayed at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, San Francisco’s world fair.”
The reason why I find the Japanese one compelling is that paper fortunes, as well as cookies that are similar in texture, shape, and crunch to fortune cookies, are some things that are not all that new in Japan.
Tsujiura Senbai - A cookie that predates the fortune cookie…but has no fortune inside traditionally
“Tycoon” comes from the Japanese word “大君”(“taikun”), which was a term used for shogun, to make them sound grander when they had an audience with foreign leaders. “Shogun” means “general,” but during the Tokugawa Shogunate they were as good as the rulers of the land.
“…It[The use of the word, "tycoon"] worked with Matthew C. Perry, who opened Japan to the West in 1854; Perry carried out his negotiations with the shogun, thinking him to be the emperor. In fact, the shogun did rule Japan, although he was supposedly acting for the emperor. The shogun’s title, taikun, was brought back to the United States after Perry’s visit. Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet members used tycoon as an affectionate nickname for the President. The word soon came to be used for business and industry leaders—at times being applied to figures like J. P. Morgan, who may indeed have wielded more power than many princes and presidents.” -From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
I think the word “tycoon” shows us just how industry now equals power and influence. Maybe I am reading too much into it?
