Meaning of むせかえるような笹飾りの香りがした


Referring to eating ice cream at a Tanabata festival:

> ソフトクレームの甘いにおいの中に、むせかえるような笹飾りの香りがした。  
>  Amongst the sweet smell of the soft cream was the choking smell of bamboo
> decorations.

My translation sounds ridiculous. Firstly, I wouldn't expect bamboo
decorations to have a choking smell, and secondly, there is no further
reference to this smell either before or after this sentence.

Have I completely mis-translated? Can you tell me where I went wrong?




> ソフトクレームの甘いにおいの中に、むせかえるような笹飾りの香りがした。  
>  Amongst the sweet smell of the soft cream was the choking smell of bamboo
> decorations.

My translation: I was overwhelmed by the fragrant smell of bamboo decorations
amongst the sweet smell of the soft cream.

I think your translation is literally correct, but ...  
It is not your skill to be blamed but the available Japanese-English
dictionaries.

I guess that you know "むせかえる" is a combined verb of "むせる" and "かえる."

In my dictionary "むせかえる" and "むせる" are both translated as "be choked."

In my English-English dictionary "choke" is defined as:  
to (cause to) have great difficulty in breathing or stop breathing because of
blocking of or damage to the breathing passages.

I think "むせる" is not the same definition that is written in my English-English
dictionary, but it is the abrupt body motion in order to push out foreign
objects other than the air inhaled by mistake or without intending from the
breathing passages to keep them clear for inhaling fresh air. Sometimes "むせる"
may accompany coughing.

In the given sentence, I think "むせる" does not mean actual state of breathing
difficulty but the author wanted to describe the dense smell of bamboo.

As for "かえる", it is used to explain the enormous degree of the density of the
smell. There are two possible interpretations: the first one is to describe
the pushing back motion of the foreign objects; and the second one is to
describe the degree of being overwhelmed just by swaying back the upper body.

I think the second interpretation is the intention of the author.




むせかえるような is a common idiom describing an odor or fragrance is extremely thick.
It's quite exaggerated, that it tells a smell is so dense that felt as if a
lump of steam occupies the nostrils to choke someone. Of course no one is
harmed nine out of ten times when you hear the phrase, so you don't need to
worry about it.

I think the translation would be just like "abundant", "rich", "filled with"
and so on.

