Oyakodon: the dish called parent and child (親子丼)

Oyakodon (親子丼) is a classic Japanese rice bowl: chicken simmered in a sweet soy-based broth, bound with softly set egg, and served on a bowl of rice. The name is darkly funny. It’s 親, parent, 子, child, and 丼, bowl: the chicken and its egg, together in one bowl.

What the kanji say

親 (oya, shin) is a parent. A well-known way to remember it splits it into 立, stand, 木, tree, and 見, see: a parent standing on a tree, watching for their child to come home. It’s a lovely picture, but it’s a memory aid. Historically, 見, to see, gives the meaning, and the left side gives the sound. 親 also means close or intimate, as in 親友 (shinyuu), a best friend, and 親切 (shinsetsu), kind.

子 (ko, shi) is a child, and began as a drawing of a baby with a big head and outstretched arms. It’s the ko in 子供 (kodomo), children, and the 子 at the end of many women’s names, like 花子 (Hanako).

丼 (donburi, don) is a deep bowl, and a meal served in one. The kanji is 井, a well, with a dot in the middle, perhaps something dropped into the water. The word donburi itself may come from a sound: Japanese has どぶん (dobun) for a heavy plop into water, and dictionaries even list どんぶり as a splashing sound. Another theory traces it to the bowls used by Edo-period eateries called kendon’ya, which served big helpings. In 親子丼 it’s usually read don, short for donburi.

Parents, children and strangers

Make the same dish with beef or pork instead of chicken, and the meat and the egg are no longer family. That’s why it’s called 他人丼 (tanindon), the “strangers’ bowl”. 他人 (tanin) means other people, or someone you’re not related to, and the name is a pun on 親子丼.

Where it comes from

Oyakodon dates from the late 1800s. The oldest record found so far is a newspaper advertisement from a restaurant in Kobe in 1884, which already lists three grades of 親子丼. Tamahide, a famous chicken restaurant in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi, has its own story: around 1887, some of its customers would finish their chicken hotpot by binding the leftover broth with egg and eating it with rice. There’s a third claim from Osaka, too, so exactly where the dish was born is still open to argument.

How to use it

• 親子丼をください。

  Oyakodon o kudasai.

  Oyakodon, please.

• 今日の昼ご飯は親子丼にしよう。

  Kyou no hirugohan wa oyakodon ni shiyou.

  Let's have oyakodon for lunch today.

• 牛丼の大盛りをお願いします。

  Gyuudon no oomori o onegai shimasu.

  A large beef bowl, please.

• あの親子、そっくりだね。

  Ano oyako, sokkuri da ne.

  That parent and child look so alike.

• Don or donburi? On its own, 丼 is usually どんぶり (donburi). At the end of a dish name it shortens to don: 牛丼 (gyuudon), 天丼 (tendon), カツ丼 (katsudon).
• 親子 (oyako) on its own simply means parent and child, as in the last example.
• The other readings matter. In 親友 and 親切, 親 is read shin, and the meaning is closeness rather than parenthood.
• Body words too. 親指 (oyayubi), the thumb, is the “parent finger”.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

Picture a parent (親) up a tree, watching anxiously, while down below its child (子) has rolled into a bowl (丼) of rice. Don’t tell the parent: it’s lunch.

The kanji in this lesson

Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Sources

• Wikipedia (Japanese): 親子丼
• Wiktionary: 丼
• Jisho (JMdict): 他人丼

Written by the Chirami team with the help of AI, then checked against JMdict and KANJIDIC2. How we write lessons. Spotted a mistake? Email support@brightsmilesolutions.org.