Meibutsu

The shops there are sure to make a reduction on quantity, well knowing that every person who goes off on a holiday is expected to return with "meibutsu" for everybody he knows, the idea being that a person who has enjoyed himself and had nothing particular to do should try to make up to those left behind in the place where they belong, engaged in the usual dull routine.

Whether a metal pipe or a bamboo toy, it can be presented with perfect propriety to grandmother or infant grandson.

Some are sticky like the chestnut paste of Nikko, some are bulky and a source of perpetual anxiety like the fragile baskets of Arima, some are pretty like the Ikao cotton cloth dyed in the iron spring water, and some are useless and ugly and impossible to carry, like the fierce fishes of Kamakura—the fishes which blow themselves up into a globe when angry or excited and then remain blown up—as an eternal punishment I suppose—and get turned into lanterns.

There are dozens of all varieties, useful and useless, dear and queer, sensible and silly, so that people with much-travelled acquaintances are soon in a fair way to start a museum.

[2] Meibutsu are key to the promotion of tourism within Japan, and have been frequently depicted in media since the Edo period (1603–1867).