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argumentl · 3 years

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The Freedom of Expression - Ep 36 The banning of snacks and sweet drinks displays from next to cash registers.

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru with this week's episode of The Freedom of Expression. Joe san, Tasai san, welcome. Ok, today lets get straight on with it. Joe could you please...

J: Yes, lets have a look at this news. Snack and sweet drinks displays next to cash registers banned in Berkeley, California, USA. In the university city of Berkeley, northern California, a law has been passed this week banning the sale of junk food next to cash registers in supermarkets. According to local media, this is the first of its kind in America. The law, unanimously voted for by Berkeley City council, targets cheap, unhealthy products next to cash registers which 'encourage impulse buying, and burden parents of children who want them', with the aim of promoting healthy lifestyles. Products with over 5g of added sugar or 250mg of added sodium, and drinks containg a lot of sugar or artificial sweetners have been banned from sale next to cash registers. The ban will come into effect from next March. In the city of 120,000 people it will be imposed in 25 large scale supermarkets. The progressive city Berkeley, on the outskirts of San Francisco has been taking health initiatives before now. In 2014 they imposed a tax on soft drinks, and according to a survey from last year, consumption of soft drinks had halved by 2017.

K: Its true though, the cash registers over there have so many snacks near them.

J: They do, don't they?! They are really colourful. But banning it by law is really stepping in, isn't it?

T: Yeah.

J: The supermarkets aren't stopping it through self-restraint, its been forbidden by law, so if they do it will they be penalised?

T: Yeah, wow.

J: I think this is a warning that in America this kind of health damage caused by excessive additives and sugar in food is becoming a serious problem.

K: Yeah, people just end up picking it up.

J: When im waiting in line at the supermarket, its the same in Japan...in the convenience store in Japan, I wait till the last moment and always end up picking up those little Tirol chocolate squares.

K: Oh yeh, they have those out, don't they?

J: They do! Don't those chocolates just call out to you at the last minute? I always end up buying a few.

T: I buy 'Bikkuriman'. For the sticker.

J: Oh yeh. Still?

T: I just sometimes get the feeling like I want to open it. I reminds me off old times, haha. I throw it away straight away though.

J: Kaoru, what about you?

K: I don't buy that stuff.

J: Oh, you don't?

K: No, I just buy what I was intending to buy before I went. If Im walking around the store and I see an interesting new product or something, I might buy it, but the stuff near the cash register seems more like left over produce to me.

J: Ah, close to expiring?

K: Yeh, it looks like they really want you to buy it, so they put it there. I don't really feel like picking it up.

T: Ah, I see.

K: But in supermarkets they have gum and stuff near the registers, don't they?

J: Yeah.

K: I do buy gum.

J: Ahh, yeh...Kami? What do you think?

Kami: I pick all of it up.

T: Nice, Kami.

Kami: I get tonnes. 1000yen worth.

T: Haha

Kami: Maybe 500yen, not 1000.

K: Do you like sweets, Kami?

Kami: Yeh, i do. I pick them up straight away. Um, there's often drinks on display too, right?

J: Yeah.

Kami: If there's cola or fanta, I will buy both.

T: Haha

Kami: If I go to buy tea, I will buy all that.

K: You like sweet stuff, right?

J: Yeah.

Kami: No, its not that. Its just that it all looks delicious. It makes you forget *1

T: I see, yeh.

J: In that sense, its part of the store's strategy.

T: Yeh, Kami seems like he would hate that kind of strategy, but he still falls for it.

J: Yeh, he seems like he would be opposed to it, but he still buys tonnes, right Kami?

Kami: Yeh, I really jump on the bandwagon.

K: This stuff must sell a lot.

J: Yeh, I think so. This kind of food looks visually fun, right? Colourful and stuff. Kids get pulled in by it. Like, 'I wanna eat this!'. Its pretty amazing to pass a law in this. That would be impossible in Japan, right?

T: I feel like Japan has more freedom. I had the image since I was small that America is the country of freedom, but recently if you look at America, there is ban after ban...it seems like life there is getting more restricted. And in Japan, even with covid we can still go outside, or go to restaurants and stuff. It made me think Japan is quite free. Its a weird feeling.

J: Ahh, the rules in America are stricter?

K: Overseas, they were quite strict about indoors. Japan is only just getting like that recently, right?

J: Yeh, America was a lot quicker to regulate indoor smoking.

T: Its like that with alcohol too. When one of my best friends was in America during his student days, he once wore a Budweiser tshirt and he was told, 'Its illegal', and he had to change it. I thought that was pretty strict when I heard.

K: You can't carry it around with you either, can you?

J: Yeah, you have to put it in a bag.

K: I stepped outside a venue without knowing this while I was holding a beer can once, and I was told that isn't allowed.

J: Yeh, yeh, yeh. Well, it does depend on how you look at it. Its often said that in Japan, rather than having rules...well, in America there is a kind of society that is governed by rules, but in Japan its more about community, so rather than having rules, peer presure is very strong. People worry about what others think. Its very Japanese, 'other people are saying this, so...', or 'other people are doing this, so...'. People adapt themselves to that first of all.

T: I wonder which style is better?

J: Yeah. They are both different.

T: Its not nice being told by the government to stop something, is it? I understand the reasons though.

K: Well, people do protest that kind of thing.

Kami: But I think this law is good.

J: It is good.

Kami: I think its really good, because you can finish up without buying stuff.

K: Well, it is good.

Kami: Its really good. I thoroughly agree with it.

K: Kids won't pine for sweets either.

J: Yeh.

Kami: I do think its good to buy sweets for kids though.

J: Oh really?

K: Yeh, but just not there, right?

Kami: I wanted sweets when I was a kid.

K: Me too.

T: Yeh, me too.

Kami: I really wanted all those sweets by the register when I was a kid, but I never got them.

K: There are those socks full of snacks at Christmas, right? I wanted one of those.

T: Yeh, me too.

J: If you think about what made you excited as a kid, basically its the sweet shop, right?

K: Yeh, I used to go there.

J: Whenever I ate sour plums and stuff from the sweet shop, my tongue went bright red *2

K: They were crunchy, right?

J: Yeh! I would drink up all the syrup.

K: Haha.

J: I bet that would be no good under that tax in Berkeley.

T: Yeah.

K: Ahh, sweet shops...

T:???

J:???*3

K: I still feel like eating those kind of sweets sometimes.

J: Yeah. There aren't many sweet shops around these days, in the Tokyo area.

T: Yeah, there aren't.

K: But there are sections in other shops that sell those kinds of sweets.

T: A long time ago there was an izakaya in Sangenjaya that only served sweets as beer snacks.

K: Oh, there was, wasn't there?!

T: Yeh. I went a couple of times, cause its unusual, but sweets...

K: You can't withstand it?

J: After you become an adult, right? At first you are like, 'Woah, so nostalgic', but ..

T: Yeh, it gets boring.

J: You start to think halfway, 'this needs to be more tasteful!' Uh, in the precincts of Kishibojin there is apparently Japan's oldest sweet shop or something still there. Its a famous old man, or old woman who runs it.

K: I recently went to Kawagoe.

T: Oh, Little Edo!

K: Yeh, there is a sweet shop street there. The people there were amazing. Well, I mean they were all wearing yukatas and stuff, and eating.

T: Its made me want to go to a sweet shop!

J: Ah, there is a tonne of good places to eat there, isn't there?

K: Oh, is there? In Kawagoe?

J: Yeh.

K: As for sweet shops, the ones that have a downtown feeling are the best.

J: Yeah.

K: Its nostalgic, going to the sweet shop in the evening, and getting those colourful squeezy things to drink...

J: Yeh!

K: And eating sweets at the same time.

J: Which was your favourite sweet, Kaoru? From the sweet shop?

K: From the sweet shop? I liked Curry rice-crackers, and 5yen chocolate, and those gummy type things in a box, that you pick up with a little stick.

J: Oh yeh.

K: I used to eat that kinda stuff.

T: What about you, Joe?

J: I liked plum jam, I sandwiched it between those kinda soft rice-crackers. And I liked the Castella.

T: Oh yeh, they had those small ones.

J: Yeh, they were on a skewer. I used to eat them a lot.

K: Tasai?

T: I used to get those squeezy things too. And wasn't there always like a 10yen game outside sweet shops? I would win more sweets with that.

K: You won?? More sweets came out of the game?

T: It was like a 30yen ticket, right?

J, K: Ehh?

J: I never saw that.

T: Didn't you? Like, where you try to get the ball in the hole for ten yen? And if you win, you get a ticket?

K: Ah, I remember something like that where you can win, but I don't remember tickets coming out. It was little freebies. Ah, its nostalgic. Should we try going to a sweet shop on this show?

J: A sweet shop?? Should we??

K: Yeh.

T: Thats a good idea. With 100yen in change.

K: Actually, that place in Kawagoe was closed.

J: Haha, really?

K: I went all the way there, but..

J: Just for that?

K: Yeh.

J: Really?

K: Well, lets go to one on this show.

J: Yeh, lets do it! Film on location!

K: Ok, lets plan something. Lets fill ourselves with unhealthy snacks.