[disruptalot]

The original article makes no mention of kanji (Han zi). Instead it ends with: "Well okay, I'll come clean. I've actually been secretly teaching Japanese to you. 口 actually really is the Japanese character for "mouth" and 食 really is the symbol for eating."

Not exactly. Those are Chinese characters and Chinese meanings. The article does not teach anything exclusivly Japanese. For anyone who was not familiar, they would go around with the impression that these characters really originate from Japan. You can imagine how the Chinese people or people who study Chinese would feel being shown this cool new way to learn "Japanese".