Rice Rice Baby
Don't feel like bringing your newborn round for the relatives to coo over? In Japan, you can send a bag of rice instead.
A rice shop in southern Japan sells "Dakigokochi," or custom-made rice-filled bags shaped like a bundled baby and printed with the newborn's face and name. Each rice bag weighs as much as the newborn and is shaped so holding it feels like holding a real baby.
And its bags are better, says shop owner Naruo Ono, because
other rice shops sell bags printed with baby photos, but they use regular bags. People say they aren't good for holding. Rice for small babies would be stuck at the bottom of the bag, and the baby's photo would be scrunched at the top.
I agree. It's just not the same rocking your rice bag to sleep when the face is all scrunched up like that.
The rice bags are the perfect "half-return" gift, Ono says. In Japan, a gift recipient is often expected to respond with a gift worth half the amount of the first gift. (Does the first giver then have to respond with another gift worth half the amount of the second gift, and so on? What a weird custom.)
Still, it's not the perfect solution. Ono says people complain that once the cuddling is done, they have a hard time opening the bags up and eating the rice. I say anyone who develops that level of affection for a bag of rice has other, bigger problems to worry about.
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