Cuteness - Photos

There’s a lot of cute stuff in Japan.  Some of it is due to the fact that there isn’t a lot of space.  Here are some statistics for you.  These are some I read many years ago and they stuck in my mind.  I hope they’re right.  I also hope I’m not repeating myself.  The Japanese islands are strung out very far north and south, but if you were to scrunch them all together, the land mass would be about the size of California.  But Japan has seven times as many people as California does.  Japan is also mountainous.  80% mountains, actually.  Which means those seven times as many people are smushed mostly into 20% of the space of California.  So there’s not much room, which means a lot of things tend to be small, which makes them cute.  I saw an absolutely adorable garbage truck the other day, for example.

However, it’s not just size.  Cuteness is valued, adored, nurtured, cultivated and it sells!!!!  I thought about telling Julia this amusing little tid-bit about Japanese culture, but decided to wait and see if she noticed it herself.  It took about a week before she started commenting on it.  At one point she said, “Mom, it seems like everything in Japan is uber cute, uber glossy and uber chic!”  With emphasis on uber cute, I might add.

I saw much, much more than I was able to capture, but here are just a few examples:

Cute Mini-Van

Cute Truck

Cute Motorized Thing

Cute Pedaled Thing

Cute Heart Bench

Cute Pig Bench

Cute Sheet Bench

Cute Kid Boats

Cute Adult Boat

Cute Bus Stop

Cute "Women" & "Men" Signs

Cute Kiddie Shopping Cart
Plus, there's that cute girl that keeps popping up all over Japan!
What's that all about?

Cute Stuftie on a Leash in a Store Front
(Trotting around and around and around the pole.)

Cute Buttons

More Cute Buttons.  (And Some Kinda Scary Ones.)