This is a beautiful wooden box I bought last
year.
It needs six steps to open it, as if it is
a kind of puzzle.
Recently a friend of mine mentioned an article
written about
these "secret boxes" in Japan.
http://club.nokia.co.jp/tokyoq/weekly_updates/tutt/tutt.html
Mine is not that complicated as the one introduced
in the article,
but I remember I saw the box that needs 20+
steps to open it at
the shop I bought mine.
I searched the web for more information about
these wooden boxes
and found a real good page (in English)
They even have an online shopping page :
)
http://www.yosegi.net/index-e.htm
By the way, I found an expression "
lucky 5-yen coin" in the
article about the 27-steps secret box.
I guess it needs some explanation about it.
In Japan, "5-yen" is pronunced
"go-en" and it is the same
sound as another "go-en" which
means "connection or bond(caused by
fate)".
Japanese people like to mention this word
in many situation.
It has a sort of mysterious atomosphere in
the word itself - something men
cannot change but fated to be so.
It is nothing but "go-en" that
you happened to find this site
and reading it now : )
- Thank you -
BACK