Bag of rice with new baby's photo

Over at DaddyTypes, Greg discusses dakigokochi, Japanese baby announcements in the form of a shippable bag of rice with the newborn's photo and stats printed on it. The bag is filled to match the baby's birth weight.
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isadrone

That’s… pretty cool, actually. You receive a baby analogue, weighted correctly, with visual cue (face) and details to further concretize your virtual baby-holding experience. All without having to convince the parents that you think it’s the bestest sprog ever. Plus, it doesn’t cry or shit and, best of all, after hefting it about a bit, you get to eat it. Mmmm, (virtual) babyflesh!
Lone

Saw this on NOTCOT or somewhere recently. All thats missing here are LOLCat or some other blurb. The baby on the left is just begging to share his wisdom.
trikitixa

I just wonder if this is a vestige of the Inari cult or some other Shinto gesture accompanying birth.
Peaceflag2007

mmm…longpig
Benny

oh man, I hope my future child to be weighs over 30 lbs…
cha0tic

@ #8
I bet the mother of your child doesn’t benny :)
deweyeyed

There is something really wonderful about these. And so much better than the tradition of cigars, now replaced by chocolate cigars.
Silverlotus

What an interesting idea. My baby was due yesterday (still holding on), and I think it would be really neat to send out bags of rice, or something, rather then paper announcements that no one will keep anyway.
Lex10

……especially cool if your last name is Rice!
License Farm

Is Condi pregnant? W’s got some ‘splainin’ to do…

It’s an interesting gesture. “Here, eat my offspring’s weight in rice so my wife doesn’t look so fat postpartem!”
deepy

What a great idea. We should do that in America with sacks of genetically modified corn.
CaptainKabob

This makes me think of the (apparently apocryphal) story of baby-food marketing gone awry:

“A large multinational corporation once attempted to sell baby food in an African nation by using packaging designed for its home country market. The company’s regular label showed a picture of a baby with a caption describing the kind of baby food contained in the jar. African consumers took one look at the product, however, and were horrified. They interpreted the labels to mean that the jars contained ground-up babies!” [Harvard Business Review, 1984]

from Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/business/market/babyfood.asp
DGHilton

This isn’t related in any way shape or form, except that it’s a packaged food product from Japan. Oh, and it’s funny.

http://www.hiltonjapan.com/2008/01/best-dogfood-name-bar-none.html

At least I think it is…