[1]The 10 Commandments of Chindogu, the Japanese Art of Creating
   Unusually Useless Inventions:

     Back in the 1990s I'd often run across volumes of the Unuseless
     Japanese Inventions series at bookstores. Each one features about a
     hundred ostensibly real Japanese devices, photographed and described
     with a disarming straightforwardness, that mash up other consumer
     products in outwardly bizarre ways: chopsticks whose attached
     miniature electric fan cools ramen noodles en route to the mouth; a
     plastic zebra crossing to unroll and lay across a street at the
     walker's convenience; an inverted umbrella attached to a portable
     tank for rainwater collection on the go. Such things, at once
     plausible and implausible, turn out to have their own word in the
     Japanese language: chindōgu (珍道具), or "curious tool."

   (Via Open Culture)
   Also on:

   [2]Twitter
     __________________________________________________________________

   My original entry is here: [3]Chindōgu (珍道具), A Curious Tool. It posted
   Thu, 11 Oct 2018 10:09:28 +0000.
   Filed under: culture, Japan,

References

   1. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/BegELO9if-Q/10-commandments-chindogu-japanese-art-creating-unusually-useless-inventions.html
   2. https://twitter.com/prjorgensen/status/1050328438463172608
   3. https://www.prjorgensen.com/?p=2193