Manju Memories

This week one of our students gave us some Mikage Manju, or what many others (including myself) call ‘Konko Manju’. Konko Manju is a well-known manju from Konko in Asakuchi city. You can find the city in western Okayama. I lived there for about five years. Not to mention I was a teacher in the area. During my time there, I would often be given Konko manju as a snack and it quickly became one of my favorite types of manju.

One of my strongest memories of Konku Manju is connected to a mascot character named ‘Konko Manjuman’ (google it and you might get a good laugh). Throughout my first few years in Asakuchi I had a few interesting run-ins with him. My first encounter was during a somen festival in my first few months in Japan. I took a picture of one of my friends eating somen. What I did not realize until later was that Konko Manjuman was sneaking in the background of the picture. Several months later, I was at a local festival watching the school’s brass band play. Part-way through the performance I looked to my right and noticed the mascot standing right next to me pretending to be the conductor of the band. I can only imagine that the one foreign person at the event standing right next to a man with a manju as his head conducting was quite the sight.

Several years passed and I did not have many encounters with him, but one day I was checking writing assignments of some students. One of them piqued my curiosity. “My friend’s father is Konko Manjuman”. This line stuck in my head. I asked some of the teachers of their grade. They immediately responded with “Oh yeah, …’s father is Konko Manjuman”. I had never realized a student I had taught for about two years was his child the entire time. It was certainly quite an amusing memory for me.