My (now not so) recent discovery of Recycle Shops (shops where you bring anything unwanted, from old electronics and misfitting clothes to some hit-and-miss gifts, so they can find a new happy owner for fraction of the original price ;-) ) resulted in me finding a new furry friend - everyone, let me introduce Harrold <sic!>, the Harrods teddy bear. (By the way, do you know why our toy bears are called 'teddy'? It's a nice story, I've learnt it by complete accident while watching some of my countless documentaries. :-) )
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| Isn't he just handsome? :-) |
All signs on earth and sky suggest that poor Harrold is an example of an abandoned お土産 (omiyage), a souvenir from the place that one visited. It roughly translates as our souvenir, the characters read 'something created/born on (certain) soil', and is in fact a proof of one's travel as well as a token of one's relationship towards the person that receives a gift. It's a custom, so it is in fact expected of you to bring some little things for everybody that knows about your travel, starting with your family and friends, and ending on your boss and work colleagues. The things don't need to be ridiculously expensive. Most commonly, some local sweets or food products are given, something that is relatively original and characteristic for the area. Little toys are also popular (although nowadays they barely prove any local craftsmanship apart from the one of the Chinese workforce).
For instance, this is a lovely お土産 that Hiroha-san kindly brought me from her workplace:
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| It's sweets that imitate a 日の丸 (hi-no maru, the name of the Japanese flag) お弁当 (obentoo) lunchbox, a lunchbox made of rice, vegetables, some little sausages and mushrooms. Haven't tried the original yet. bit the sweet copy was delicious! |
And this is another nice gift from Hiroha-san, Sam, the Loose Moose (huh-huh-huh, I couldn't resist a lame joke, sorry :-) ), an omiyage from Canada. (Thanks to its bright yellow antlers the time I usually wasted looking for my keys shortened dramatically!)
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| Isn't Sam just endearing? |
Now, coming back to Harrold's case, I have to admit that apart from some kitsch red double-decker teapots, over-exploited shapes of St. Paul's Cathedral, London Eye, Tower Bridge (notoriously named 'London Bridge' by the tourists), and Parliament tower so eagerly and wrongly called 'Big Ben', immortalized for posterity and future excavation grounds in a variety of completely useless and random forms and materials, (oh, let's not forget my personal negative favourite, 'I ♥ London' items - the person that invented that slogan should be surrounded with items carrying it for eternity), I simply can't think of any better and more 'London' souvenir from London, UK than a Harrods bear. (I've decided to make a clear distinction here after meeting too many foreign students from London, Ontario, which they themselves call 'a rip-off of a real thing'.)
But finding an abandoned omiyage, just lying there made me reflective. How utterly unimportant such little gift must have been that somebody just got rid of it? Don't tell me it was taking that much space. How about the person that actually went to London and spend so much money on obligatory souvenirs, and then carried it through half of the world back home, just to give it to somebody that doesn't really care and appreciate the gift? One can of course discuss that if they didn't care at all they would have just thrown it to the bin instead of carrying it to the リサイクル, risaikuru, recycle centre of shop, but trust me, the rules of disposing the rubbish in Japan are so detailed and strict that they probably wanted, but gave up after they discovered there is no way of telling which parts of the bear should go to which category of rubbish - inflammable (可燃, kanen), non-inflammable (不燃, funen) of maybe organic? Maybe it contains some recyclable plastic, or God forbid, paper or metal? What about the tag, what actually is a tag made from? Paper? Fabric? Plastic? Is there any chance it has some iron or non-ferrous metal inside? Or maybe it's a special rubbish collection you have to arrange? You know what, it's easier to just drop it into the recycle shop and leave it.
But you know what was the best thing about finding such a symbol of London in the middle of Japan? Apart from the serotonin rush and a nostalgia wave - the price. Yes, the reason why I never treated myself to the Harrods bear myself was it's price, as I seem to have a natural talent to like only the most expensive things in every shop. An expensive taste, as some people call it. Even such a tiny bear could cost at least 10 quid, and I'd rather treat myself to some diet coke, frozen Pizza Express and some apples and bananas for exactly the same price. So what was my surprise when I flipped the tag to discover that:
Yes. It literally is 31 pence. 36 Euro cents. 50 American cents. Or 1.57 zł.
Mocking at Tim Wonnacott, the presenter of the BBC antique show Bargain Hunt, highly popular amongst the older female population of British antique-freaks and hereby present bored to death student of Japanese who needs some distraction while revising that bloody kanji: ' And THAT is <dramatic pause> what I call <another dramatic pause> A BARGAIN ' <even more dramatic silence>. :-)
I wonder how old my bear is...
