Giving you a little view of Japan without leaving your home!

Prayer letters, curious subjects, events, people, customs, and more for you to enjoy and learn.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

TOYS FOR GRANNIES


(copied)
Toys are not just for children any more!
Primopuel is a knee-high Japanese doll with soft apple cheeks and big black button eyes. It comes in green and pink. When you cuddle it or talk to it, it talks back. It is designed for grandmothers.
The two-tone doll can ‘master’ up to 5 songs and 380 words in the course of a year, provided it is cuddled and you talk to it.
“Families are living apart these days, so grandchildren are giving the dolls to their grandmothers and also daughters to their mothers,” said Bandai's Tajima Toy Store. “It's a little odd, but the dolls become like a substitute.”
It's now Bandai's best-selling doll with more than a million sold, mostly by women in their 50s and 60s.
Sega Toys Co.'s Dream Golden Retriever is also for adults. The life-size puppy robot wags its tail when petted, looks lovingly into your eyes when you pat its cheek and responds to six commands, including ‘sit up and beg’.
“A robot is probably better than nothing. People want companionship,” said Tomoyoshi Inoue, 54, a professor of education at Kyoto's Doshisha University. “I don't know if I'd buy one, but I guess people are just lonely.”

Source: Japan Times, 2008-07-01

We pray that families still make various members of the family important even when apart--phone calls, emails, letters. We also encourage our lonely young and elderly friends with the powerful Word of God:
Lamentations 3:21-25 ¶ This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

God’s faithfulness towards us is new and fresh every day!

Have a great day and we trust loneliness is not a part of your day, but if it is, go to the Friend we can have in Jesus!