Who I am and Why I’m here. – Zero to Hero

I am a Japanese woman living in California with my husband and an arrogant but super cute dog. I grow up in Tokyo and all my family is so-called “Edokko”, which means native Tokyoite. A while ago I moved to California and started to work at a Japanese stationery store without knowing that I loved stationery, art and craft that kind of stuff. I really enjoyed my job.

One thing I was surprised at the store was that people spend money without knowing details of what they are buying.  Sometimes the little information about what you are buying can make you say “wow that’s so cool!” So as a manager of the store, I always tried to make our customer happy by giving little cool trivia kind of things. Usually they liked it and I really liked to communicate to customers like that. Then I thought I also could do same thing on a blog if I have one. That’s the reason why I am doing this.

As you know we Japanese make pretty good stuff. Office supply, art supply also. There are a lot of stuff I would love to show people and explain why they are so cool. So through this blog, I am expecting to connect people who likes or use pens, journals, and other Japanese cool stuff. Basically what I am going to show or talk about is what large retail stores like Staples, Target or Wal-Mart do not have. Through these stuff, I can show you little about how Japanese culture is. So if you are learning Japanese, or your loved one is from Japan, my blog could be a little good item for you. I know there are many many pen persons, organizer enthusiasts, or etc, they are quiet though. I am hope to see them soon.:)

 

Stapleless Stapler Harinacs

Staple-less stapler, Harinacs is one of the biggest hit office supply in Japan resent years. It has gone like hot cakes and now been replacing a standard stapler in every household. The first Harinacs was invented by a Japanese very famous office supply maker, KOKUYO in 2009. Since then they have improved its capability, and latest one can bind firmly 10 papers, of course without a staple. Although they were not the first company invented staple-less stapler in Japan, the big name, technology and effort to make better product made Harinacs number one product among of other staple-less stapler.

image from httpwww.sinkan.jpnewsindex_4427.html

There are some reasons why it became a great hit product. First, it is definitely ECO. How it works is that it first makes a hole on a bundle of papers and then ties up the papers by itself. By using this stapler, you would never discord papers with staples. Before that, Simply, you do not need to get rid of a little staple clinching papers. In Japan where regulation for garbage separation is stricter than US, a lot of people go green by following the regulation. SO using Harinacs makes them easier to do paper recycle.

image from Kokuyo Worldwide
http://www.kokuyo.com/en/

Second reason is safety and security. Has your child ever tried to put a little block of staples in his/her mouth? If you use it instead of regular stapler, you would never worry about it any more. Additionally, you would never say “damn it” hitting papers by an empty stapler because it does not need any staples!

This is such an innovative product that can replace traditional stapler, which is long life worldwide super common tool at home and office.  I am very proud of my home county’s creativity and technology and that’s why I am doing this blog.

 

Here is someone’s YouTube video that shows how Harinacs works, it is not the latest one though.

 

 

Mitsubishi Pure Malt – Your Lifetime Pen

This is one of the most coolest pens I have ever seen and I love this pen so much. All customers I have shown this pen loved it too. Why it’s so cool? Because it’s made by wood aged 150 years old. It had lived 100 years in the Forest and 50 years more as a whisky barrel. Doesn’t that sound amazing? It is a ballpoint pen Pure Malt produced by Mitsubishi Enpitsu in Japan, known as “uni-ball” in the world. They chose outlived white oak wood of whiskey barrel aged 50 to 70 years for the body of this pen.

A whiskey barrel is made with White oak tree. Only oak wood can age whiskey because of its components. They are usually 100 years or more old. Oak is known as king of forest in England and a woodman have a moment to keep a deep awe for the sublimity of the oak before they cut it down. By the way, a letter Oak in Japanese is like this 楢. It actually consists of two meaningful parts, tree and head. That is to say king of forest. Universal!

 

 

The lifetime of a barrel is from 50 to 70 years. Whisky is no longer aged in a barrel if the barrel is aged more than that because wood component of the barrel starts to dissolve into it. So the barrel is break into pieces to be lumber. As you can imagine from the shape of a barrel, a piece of the wood has gentle bent after cultivating whisky for long. So It is steamed to be straight and filed.

 

 

Can you imagine that little wood in your hand had lived in the woods for 100 years or more and seen so many things. Not only that it had served as a barrel to brew whiskey slowly and gently for over 50 years. And now it starts another long life as a pen. Could smell like whiskey in your hand. 🙂

 

 

500 Color Pencils

Felissimo 500 Color Pencils image Via http://www.felissimo.co.jp/collection/v1/cfm/products_detail002.cfm?gcd=436447&wk=45271

When I heard “500 color pencils” for the first time, I was like No way! Because 500 is too much for color pencils. IMPOSSIBLE was my first thought. However it was possible and they are beautiful!

500 color pencils were produced by a Japanese company, FELISSIMO in 1992, which was 500th anniversary year of Christopher Columbus.  It was also a year of the Earth Summit as known, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The company made it in thought of the great history and nature of the earth.

Since FELLISIMO was a business organization that offers certain benefits monthly to their members or subscribers, the color pencils was also distributed monthly as a set of 25 colors.  It completes 500 colors in 20 months. They has sold more than 70,000 sets, which equals 3,500 complete sets of 500 color pencils.

What I like about this color pencils is naming. Each color has a meaningful name after beauty of nature or greatness of the earth, and they are kind of funny. I guess the project team members of this product would have had a fun time together when they named each color. Well, let’s see them little bit!

Cleopatra’s pearl

Tree frog enjoying rain

The Olympic Flame at Barcelona

Smile of Pompadour lady

October pumpkin pie

Canadian smoked salmon

Princess and poisoned apple

Tosa dog intoxicated with the victory

Raccoon drum and fife band

Bamboo leaf ship made by father

String bean just boiled

Grasshopper’s concert

mysterious desert island

Spring of rejuvenation

Mermaid’s robe

Dayflower at 7:30 am

Teardrop of clown

Veil of sigh

Wedding party

Meltwater and primrose

Beetle at a tree trunk

Hot chocolate at autumn long night

etc etc…

Did you visualize each colors by these names? 🙂