Saturday, August 19, 2006

Only In Japan: Polished Balls of Mud

Yes, Mud. And all by hand.

The Japanese call them Hikaru dorodango. They really are balls of mud, molded into perfect spheres, dried and polished to an amazing gem-like luster, all by hand. The fact that this is supposedly a traditional pastime among Japanese children reveals quite a bit about the culture.

Check out these photos form the Dorodango web site showing balls made from all sorts of different soils.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Talk about playing with mud ... can you imagine any American child you know sitting down to make one of these by hand? How long does one of these pups take to crank out? If Japanese kids are all sitting around polishing their mud balls why isn't there a childhood obesity problem? Questions abound.