Fukubukuro 2010

Unless you happen to understand Japanese, you probably have no idea what a fukubukuro is. The word literally means lucky/mystery bag and it’s a New Year’s Day tradition in Japan where retailers sell bags of merchandise for deep discounts. Since these are “mystery bags”, customers have no idea what they’ve purchased until they open them and the prizes could be anything from a new blu-ray player to a sock. The idea to turn this concept into a series of articles was not my own, but something that tim rogers first did in 2001. As far as I know he doesn’t still do them, but I fell in love with the idea two years ago and only just now managed to implement it.

It is in that spirit that I present my Fukubukuro for 2010. Unlike tim, they’re not a reflection of my year in video games; instead each article is about my life viewed through the prisms of weather, events, movies, music, and, yes, video games. As much as possible I tried to write each of these entries in the month to which they refer to, but I did cheat on a few of them. As 2011 begins today, I hope you enjoy my journey through 2010 over the next twelve days. It’s been a lot of fun working on this feature.

Happy New Year,

Dan

A Floridan New Year's Day
This would be my little brother and I as kids on New Year's Day at the beach in Florida

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7 responses to “Fukubukuro 2010”

  1. Min Avatar
    Min

    Haha, I would’ve thought you would be the one with the dorky glasses as a kid.

    1. Dan Avatar

      This picture must be after I got my contacts, so I’m around 11 or 12.

    2. David Avatar
      David

      We each had our dorky glasses years. Mine was the shortest though, just one or two years in like 2rd or/and 3rd grade. At this time, I think we’re living in Oregon and visited Florida for the holidays

      1. Eric Mesa Avatar

        This is after we were already living in Cooper City

      2. Dan Avatar

        You’re done with the dorky glasses phase, but what about the dorky phase? When are you gonna be done with that?

  2. Eric Mesa Avatar

    Awesome! After having teased this project forever, it’s neat to finally see what it is about.

  3. […] Last year was the debut of my Fukubukuro (福袋, lit: lucky/mystery bag) series in which I look at the things that happened to me over the year and write about them. It’s deeply personal in a way that I never wanted this blog to be back in 2008, but also in a way that I think is truly important. Each year’s Fukubukuro is like a time capsule for me, allowing me to see where I was, how I was thinking, and what I was hoping for. Based on that, I have to say that one thing stands out most clearly to me: […]

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