Selfish Noodles

In class a few weeks ago, we were going over some words in our tango ("word", not to be confused with "dango" the mochi on a stick of 3 mochi balls flavored with egg, matcha and anko), and our teacher wrote a word on the board:

"wagamama."

One of my classmates, Campbell alongside myself burst out laughing. Campbell is from Sydney, and our teacher turned to us and asked why we were cracking up.

Campbell said that there is a noodle restaurant chain in Australia called "Wagamama" and I concurred - in London there was a shopping center near my dorm in the Angel part of Islington/King's Cross and there was a "Wagamama" branch. It was extremely overpriced and very crowded, so my friends and I always went for the Chinese buffet next door.

"Wagamama" means selfish. So any Japanese person or Japanese speaker who sees a Wagamama restaurant has very good cause to laugh.

No wonder their prices are so expensive - it's all in the name.