The beginning of a year, Japanese love to buy so-called “Fortune Bags”.
Especially, women are crazy about getting one from favorite brand shops.
Bags are usually sold from around 5,000 yen to 30,000 yen. People cannot see what’s in the bags, but they get things more than they paid for.

Surprisingly, the most expensive fortune bag that was knocked down at auction this year was for 400,000 yen.
According to a research on Net auction market done by Aucfan.Co,.Ltd., the highest bid during January 1st to 3rd was 400,000 yen (more than $4,000) of “Foxy Fortune Bag”. This is 1.6 times expensive than that of last year, which was 248,000 yen.
The number of maximum tenders was 558 for “Toshiba big-size TV Fortune Bag” This is 3.5 times more than that of last year.
It says that the result definitely shows increase of demands for fortune bags.


I guess it is a part of Japanese culture.
Although it is financially difficult in many countries, of course in Japan too, they go and get bags which they do not know the contents. People are enjoying the moment when they get what they really wanted or better than they expected. Or maybe they are testing their luck for the very beginning of a year just for fun.