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 -



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