TOKYOMANGO

Menu from 1948 US Occupation New Years day dinner

Ken Alley, a book collector who found stashes of post-WW2 Occupation era letters by a 30-year old woman named Betty Ryan, sent me this rare piece of holiday memorabilia—it's a menu of what was served to the US Occupation forces and staff on New Years day dinner in Japan in 1948. Turkey and cranberry sauce. Yum. Must have been a rarity in the East back then.

5 ways to have a Japanese New Year anywhere in the world

New Years is one of my favorite times in Japan. People party, of course, but it's a lot more than that. It's a time to reflect on the year past, and think ahead to the one in front of you; it's a time to get together with family and pray, not in a religious way, not even necessarily in a spiritual way, but by getting in touch with your most sincere wishes and desires for yourself and the world around you. And it's a time to eat.

I'm not in Tokyo this winter, and chances are you aren't either. But here are a few things you can do anywhere in the world to have a taste of a Japanese New Year:

1. Stick some bamboo in the bush in front of your house to create your very own kadomatsu—a traditional new year decoration.

2. Send nengajyo—postcards with well-wishes for the New Year—to all your friends, business contacts, and acquaintances. The Japanese post office works their ass off for the couple weeks before January 1 to make sure these get to their destinations on time, on the morning of the 1st. My dad gets hundreds every year!

New toy lets you make giant edible purin

If you are a Japanese flan—or purin fanatic, Giga Purin will be a great investment for you. It's basically a giant bucket-shaped mold that lets you create abnormally enormous Japanese purin. Check out their not very appetizing commercial above. The people in the commercial dig into the gigantic pudding with such happy gusto, I kind of feel like trying it. The moral of the video is: you can be one of those smiley people in the commercial if you eat puke-able amounts of purin. (by Emily Co)

Arcade Mania, a book about Japanese video game culture

I hung out in Shibuya a lot during middle and high school. It was just the place to be—cheap food, Tower Records, sticker pictures, karaoke, and yes, before any of that stuff existed, there were the video game arcades. My favorite was a five-story little building in the middle of Center-Gai on the left side. I don't remember what it was called. It was tiny and narrow and smoky but that was where most of my friends and I met, so that if somebody was late you could just play games until they showed up.

Fellow Wired writer Brian Ashcraft and blogger Jean Snow have a new book out called Arcade Mania: The Turbo-charged World of Japan's Game Centers in which they neatly dissect the world of Japanese video gaming. It talks about rhythm games (BeatMania came way before DDR or Rock Band. I swear. I remember playing it every weekend when I was a kid); dating sims (dating in-game can be much more passionate than in real life); and UFO catchers (these days you can win everything from ice cream to blow fish). Gaming is a big part of Japanese mass culture—and was, even before the Wii—and I found this book to be a delightful peek back into that part of my history. You should check it out!

Gizmine, a web site for buying quirky Japanese gadgets

People always ask me where they can buy the quirky Japanese gadgetry that I feature on my blog. Like, the alarm clock that you have to shoot with a gun. Or the hungry piggy bank that eats your coins. Well, guess what guys. You can buy these and a whole bunch of other fun TokyoMango-esque toys at Gizmine, a new online shopping site reminiscent of the Rakuten back catalog, except it's in English and you can pay in dollars and they'll ship to the US, no hassle. Great place to buy yourself a belated Christmas present.