Today is the 28th, which I happen to remember has been designated Chicken Day by the Japan Poultry Council since 1978, due to the fact that the Japanese word for chicken (niwatori) can be expressed phonetically using the number 28. KFC Japan has latched on to this idea and offers a discounted “Chicken Day Set” every month. There’s a whole universe of these odd-but-fun unofficial days, like Railroad Day (Oct. 14), commemorating the opening of the first rail line in Japan, Bread Day (April 12) which marks the introduction of Western bread here, or Pocky Day, which the Glico Corporation has designated as November 11, since 11/11 looks like four Pocky sticks waiting to be munched on. My daughter, who amuses herself for hours on end looking at pictures of cats on the Internet, recently told me that February 22nd is “Cat Day” since the number 2 in Japanese is ni which stands for the nyan-nyan-nyan sound that cats make.
Happy Chicken Day from KFC Japan. “Donald McDonald” is not happy.
