My Favorite Gifts from Japan

Whenever my Japanese relatives tell me they’re coming to visit the first thing they ask is, “What do you want from Japan?” And with my jaw agape, a flurry of cute-but-unnecessary products start racing in my head. I’d ask for plastic miniature toys but now that I’ve accumulated a garage-full I’ve scratched them off my list. A slab of Kobe beef would be nice, but unless I can assure safe passage through customs I doubt that’s going to happen. So lately, when they ask I just tell them, “Surprise me.”

Here’s what I’ve received recently:

I’m a sucker for Japanese candy so I always get a handful of it. They’re brightly packaged and come in weird flavors. The one on the bottom is called “Fragrance gum” and tastes like a bouquet of roses. No, I’ve never eaten a bouquet of roses, but if I did I’d probably spit it out, too. After a while, though, it starts to grow on you.

I haven’t tried it yet but apparently this package contains tablets that make your voice sound “wondrous.” You swallow it just before you go out to the karaoke bar. It’s called “Pro Voice,” so maybe it somehow turns you into a diva?? My brother found it at a store called Don Quixote, which is Japan’s version of Aahs.

And finally, my favorite gift from Japan. Boxes of tissue! Only these guys measure only 4 inches long! Utterly useless if you have a bad cold, but amazingly useful for the incidental nose drip. Whereas everything in the U.S. is super-sized, many things in Japan come really small.
So if someone wanted to bring you something from Japan, what would you ask for?!

Himawari

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