What is Fukubukuro?
福袋(fukubukuro) is a Japanese New Year's Day custom where merchants make grab bags filled with unknown random contents and sell them for a substantial discount, usually 50% or more off the list price of the items contained within.
In Japan, New Year is celebrated on a much bigger scale than Christmas.
While many stores stay open on Christmas Day, almost all stores are closed during the first three days of New Year.
However, these days it is also quite common for department stores and other large retail stores to open from January 2.
Many people flock to the huge sales and also to the "fukubukuro," or "happy bags."
Fukubukuro are one of the most typical features of the Japanese New Year.
*The term is formed from Japanese 福;fuku(good fortune/luck) and 袋;fukuro(bag).
(The change of fukuro to bukuro is the phenomenon known as Rendaku.)
Merchandise inside the Fukubukuro
As the name indicates, they are bags (usually paper) that contain several items inside.
The items are usually much more valuable than the price of each fukubukuro (ex: 10,000 yen fukubukuro may contain items that are worth 30,000 yen), so, fukubukuro are considered to be a "good deal."
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