Principle of "Chindogu"

Because of the enthusiasm that the Japanese have for inventing, there is a word called “chindogu”, which, literally translated into English, means “strange/weird tool”. It was spun off from Kenji Kawakami, editor of a popular Japanese home shopping magazine. That led Kawakami to publish four books of “unuseless inventions”, among them “101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions” in 1995 and “99 More Unuseless Japanese Inventions” two years later. They are called “unuseless” because while they actually do solve a problem, they are not practical enough to be called “useful”.

According to Kawakami, digital and electronic things are all very well and good, but they pass too quickly for them to give users a spiritual satisfaction. He considers this art of inventing a mental and spiritual act, and apparently his ideas have caught on to some of the Japanese public. The International Chindogu Society claims to have around 10,000 members across the world, with around 9,000 members in Japan while the remaining 1,000 are scattered.