Yan Yan (snack)

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Yan Yan with chocolate sticks and vanilla dip

Yan Yan is a Japanese snack food made by Meiji Seika. It comes in a package with two compartments. One side has biscuit sticks, and the other has chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla frosting used for dipping. The sticks themselves may also be flavored. Some Yan Yan products are sold in rectangular with 9 sticks with dip.

1 The sticks
2 Flavors
3 Relation to other snacks
4 External links

[edit] The sticks

A package of regular Yan Yan

The sticks often have pictures of various animals on them with quotes relating to that animal. The quotes are in English, but often appear unorthodox to native English speakers. Examples of these animal quotes include:

Zebra - herbivore
Octopus - lucky number: 8
Starfish - star + fish
Cat - say meow
Rhinoceros - think big
Bat - only in the night
Squirrel - your best friend
Rabbit - eat more carrots
Horse - gallop away
Squid - black ink
Beetle - lucky color: brown
Seal - loves to sun tan
Sheep - wool sweaters
Stag Beetle - love it
Duck - go for a swim
Whale - biggesy ^[sic] mammal
Giraffe - tallest mammal
Fox - beware of lies
Snail - Snail Mail?
Chick - Lucky Color: Yellow
Goat - You are lucky today
Mole - in a hole
Elephant - Jumbo

And the mysterious ones "golden egg" and "golden log."

Some of the animal-related quotes relate not to facts about the animals, but instead to the noise the animal makes, which is printed in a Japanese-influenced English dialect. For example:

Chicken - kokekokko
Cow - Muuuuu

[edit] Flavors

Yan-yans come in a variety of flavors. This include vanilla sticks with chocolate cream, vanilla sticks with strawberry cream, vanilla sticks with vanilla cream, and chocolate sticks with vanilla cream.

[edit] Relation to other snacks

Pocky is a similar Japanese snack which includes thinner sticks pre-dipped in cream. The cream comes in a much wider variety of flavors such as green tea cream or honey-flavored cream. Yan-yans are dipped by the consumer themselves, and come in a more limited assortment of flavors. Meiji also produce a very popular snack "Hello Panda". It is a bear shaped biscuit with either chocolate, strawberry or milk flavored fillings. Every biscuit has a cartoon print on it depicting pandas playing various sports.