Kit Kat – きっと勝つぞ！ Superstition food
Good morning.
I wanna talk about food with special power in this post.
Recently, I exchange messages with no-Japanese high school student who wants to study in Japan. Talking with a high school student reminds me of my high school life. What I did in school was study and tennis…How was your school days?
Center Test
Big event are taken place today and tomorrow for high school students. Test for entering university. We call it “Center Test(センター試験、せんたーしけん、senta shiken), University Entrance Center Test. This test is similar with SAT in US and A Level in UK. Most of third grade high school students take this test for entering national universities and some private universities. Students take same test on same time and on same day. Students can take next second test prepared by each university depending on the score in Center Test.
(In Japan, elementary school starts at 6 years old for 6 years, junior high school for 3 years and high school for 3 years)
Even if your condition is bad, you have to take this one-time test in one year. Your future may be different depending on the score. You have studied hard for this test every day and night. That is very pressure and stress to 18-year-old students.
Superstition food
To ease this pressure, we often eat Kit Kat before taking this examination.
Do you know Kit Kat? Yes this is Kit Kat. I believe it is available all over the world.
You might think why students eat Kit Kat before the test. Ok, here is the answer. “Kit Kat” sounds like “きっと勝つぞ, きっとかつぞ,kitto katsuzo”. That phrase means “Surely I (or we) will win”.
So students eat this snack with hoping I surely will get good score in this test. Kit Kat is one of superstition food, food eaten with praying for luck in the future. That becomes very popular customs 20 years ago or so. They say one dialect in Kyushu area sounds like “Kit Kat” and teacher started to give this snack to students before the test.
In my case my mom often made Tonkatsu（とんかつ）before the test.
Tonakatsu is also believed superstition food. Tonkatsu is a fried pork cutlet. Katsu comes from sound of cutlet. Katsu sounds same as 勝つ（katsu）meaning win.
This is katsudon, tonkatsu over rice.
It is very popular to eat these kinds of superstition food before big match and test in Japan. Eat tonkatsu before your big match and test then you may get good result! I believe your country also has superstition food like these. I want to know that if I have chance.
Anyway, I wanna send my message to students in Japan today. Do your best for the test!!
Words:
勝つ（かつ, katsu） means win.
試験（しけん, shiken） means test.
How was this post about superstition food?
If you like this or feel this is useful, please share on Facebook and retweet on Twitter!
If you wanna join Leo Sensei’s group on Facebook, click Facebook mark on top or bottom and send friend request to me. You can get update information on this site and post questions in the group.
