Japanese people who are too shy to work up the courage to say "I Love You," or at least want a little surprise, have a new option: a bean plant that sprouts to read a special message. \nJapan's second largest toymaker, Takara, will on Feb. 10 start nationwide marketing of the gift cans, which hold soil and the small plant bearing a message that sprouts up in about five days. \nIt offers six different messages, which are inscribed through a laser beam, with one side of the bean carrying words such as "I Love You" and "Good Luck!" and the other side a smiley face. \nKnown as "Ma Mail," a pun on the Japanese word for bean mame, the product can be used as "a new type of message card to convey your feelings to your loved ones," Takara said in a statement. \nAnother toymaker, Tomy, offers its own version of message beans set in a calcium-made white egg that "hatches" after being placed in water. \n"You can have the fun of fortune telling as you don't know what message will come out until the bean sprouts," Tomy said, adding the egg would also be suitable for a gift as this is the Chinese zodiac year of the cock. \nThe bean cracks open through the egg and shows French-language messages such as Avec toi! (With you!) and C'est la vie! (That's life!) on one side and Japanese words of encouragement on the other. \nThe bean splits open to grow leaves which usually cling to the stem for about a month, Tomy said. \nBoth Takara and Tomy aim at sales of 1 million units for the initial year. \nSales company Senshukai started selling beans made by a South Korean firm on Jan. 7 at ?630 each, with healthy sales of 100,000 cans so far, a company official said.
PHOTO: AFP
Pins hidden in her shoes, head forced down a toilet, kicked in the stomach: South Korean hairdresser Pyo Ye-rim suffered a litany of abuse from school bullies, but now she is speaking out. The 26-year-old is part of a phenomenon sweeping South Korea known as “Hakpok #MeToo,” where people who were bullied publicly name and shame the perpetrators of school violence — “hakpok” in Korean — decades after the alleged crimes. Made famous globally by Netflix’s gory revenge series The Glory, the movement has ensnared everyone from K-pop stars to baseball players and accusations — often anonymous — can be career-ending, with
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