Recently (today, in fact) I finally figured out the kanji for "low fat" in regards to milk (低脂 in case you were wondering). This is an incredible boon to me. I prefer low fat milk, especially in Japan since milk is much less pasteurized and therefore stinky and rather thick.
Until now, I had only been able to buy one brand in my town, the only one that said "Low Fat Milk" on the package. But today I made a major reading breakthrough and figured out how to remember the kanji for it. Now I have multiple (read: two ... sometimes) choices!
Then I made a heinous discovery.
As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I discovered that the milk with English on it is just about twice as expensive as the all-japanese milk. I'm trying to justify it by thinking that possibly just one brand is much more expensive than the other, or imported from, say, the moon. Since virtually all milk in Japan comes from Hokkaido, transport costs shouldn't factor into the more-than-100-yen price difference. My conspiracy-theorist half tells me that it's just a simple demonstration of foreigners getting ripped off for ignorance. After all, that extra dollar for the English-equipped milk is paying for the convenience of not having to learn kanji! Even factoring in that convenience, the expense of the "English" milk borders on highway robbery.
I guess it makes sense ... but it still pisses me off. Anyone else see something like that?