McDonald's Japan

This evening, my wife and I were watching TV and a Wendy's commercial reminded her of when she was a student attending a private school in Tokyo's Hiro-o District which is known for the several embassies and the foreigners associated with those embassies.

It was around 1983 when my wife's parents divorced and my mother-in-law became a single mom and was the bread winner running various Japanese pubs (izakaya's) near the emperor's palace frequented by bureaucrats and other politicians.

Private schools may have been the supreme school in comparison to their counterparts, public schools. But, the public schools had a good system in terms of supplying the schools a hot and nutritious meal whereas the private schools did what they could internally with no support from the outside. The results were disastrous according to my wife and as a result, nearly everyone brought lunch from home.

Having said this, my mother-in-law was busy and once every two months or so, didn't have time to make my wife or her older sister's lunch. So, at their nearby station, Shimokitazawa, they would stop off at McDonald's and get a to-go order (mochikaeride) and would bring that for lunch. My wife would become the envy of her classmates at lunch when they would have to eat their tired and ordinary Japanese meals while my wife ate a cheeseburger and fries.

Today's video is a Japanese commercial of McDonald's from 1977. "McDonald's is a word of the world."

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