The "Abusement" Lunch

Today I think I'll introduce you to a blog kept by a Japanese housewife. Well, rather than calling it her web journal it's more like her web record of the lunchboxes she makes for her husband and son(s) pretty much everyday. Before going any further, just do have a look (it's in Japanese but what matters are the pix anyway):

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kasumin_yorosiku

These pieces of art are food, and not like any artistic food made by the best chefs around the world but LUNCH made every morning for the blog keepers mere and pure amusement to "abuse" her husband and son. It's not too common anymore for wives to make lunches for husbands to take to work, but a good portion of the mothers still make lunch for their kids to take to school in Japan if the school doesn't provide "kyuushoku" (school lunch).

In her title she writes (lit. translation) "Abusement Lunch for the Rebellious 2nd Son, Weary Lunch for Husband - Mommy's Gyakugire Lunch Series". "Gyakugire" means something like a counter-anger... say person A was angry with person B but as B listens to A's point's B becomes even more angry against A. That's "gyakugire". It also implies a meaning of anger suddenly bursting out.

Well she says in her blog description that she was getting frustrated with making lunch for her husband and four kids cuz it was all about "early hours, plain work, troublesome" not even being appreciated by any of them for the work she does. So one day her frustration bursted out and since then she started making these "abusement lunches" to tease and in a way, abuse her family through the lunch she makes. Imagine, one day you open you lunch box in school or office sitting together with your friends/colleagues, and what you see is a marvelous, artistically beautiful lunch designed into a manga character's face... that would surely be a kind of abuse for the one who eats it, and an amusement for the mom.

Over the years her skills improved a lot and now she's got a good comical gallery on her blog. Some of them are just plain artistic non-abusing lunches and some of them you just can't help laughing at when you see them. Her blog has been placing high ranks for a while on Yahoo! Japan't blog chart and is now pretty popular, needless to say, especially among housewives who get up early in the morning to prepare her family food.

The selection of designs vary from traditional art pieces, manga, anime, game, TV personalities, animals to embarrassing messages, and like I said she makes them really well. Then the text on her blog is another thing. She doesn't write like a typical Japanese middle-aged housewife who barely knows how to use computers and cell phones, but writes her blog very youngly. She uses a lot of the youth language, lots of jokes, emoticons and shapes like stars.

So that's for today.
All right, today's update on Japan Mode: Onsen Guide - hot springs in Tochigi and Shizuoka prefectures added.
Tochigi is the pref. that has world heritage Nikko and at onsen in Shizuoka You can have a grand view while relaxing in the soothing bath.