The story of how I went to buy snacks for kids and ended up with 23 bags of candy

Since I'm going to China soon, I went with my husband to buy souvenirs for our relatives.

The people we're giving them to are the children of our relatives.

It seems many of them are elementary or middle school students.

I had assumed we would get things like ramune, gummies, or small biscuits.

After all, they're kids.

I thought we would choose snacks that children would enjoy.
However.
Before I knew it, my husband's basket was filled with nothing but matcha candy.

Matcha milk candy.

More matcha milk candy.

And even more matcha milk candy.

I couldn't help but ask.

"We're giving these to kids, right?"

My husband answered as if it were obvious,

"That's right."

I asked further.

"But just candy?"

His reply was,

"Because it's cheap and you get a lot."

I see.

Wait, do I really see?

I couldn't help but say,

"Wouldn't it be better to at least get character-themed snacks?"

My husband started looking around the aisle.

That's when he found Peko-chan matcha Milky.

"This is good!"

Peko-chan is a representative Japanese snack character.

Plus, it's matcha flavored.

It has a Japanese feel to it.

Seeing that, I also thought,

"That might be good!"

In the end, some of the matcha candy he had originally chosen was swapped for the Peko-chan series.

Crayon Shin-chan candy was also added.

It seems we managed to avoid having everything be the kind of austere candy you'd find at a grandmother's house.

Actually, along the way, I also suggested, "What about Happy Turn?"

I thought that since it's a Japanese snack, it would be easy for kids to eat.

My husband just said one thing.

"There's plenty of that in China, too."

It's true that there seem to be similar snacks in China.

But in my mind, Happy Turn was a quintessential Japanese snack.

However, it seems it wasn't in my husband's mind.

It appears that what's important for a Japanese souvenir isn't "whether it's famous in Japan," but "whether it has a Japanese feel."

Thinking about it that way, I can understand why he chose so much matcha flavor.

Matcha flavor is common in Chinese snacks too, and the mooncakes my husband brought back from China the other day were also matcha flavored.

Maybe matcha itself is just popular.

When I counted later, there were 23 bags in total.

3 bags of Crayon Shin-chan candy.

4 bags of matcha Peko-chan Milky.

2 bags of regular Milky.

2 bags of strawberry Milky.

2 bags of banana Milky.

5 bags of matcha milk candy.

And 5 bags of throat lozenges.

I kept thinking until the end,

"Are these really for kids?"

My husband said,

"If there's any left over, we can just give them to the grandparents."

At that moment, I felt like a bit of the mystery was solved.

I had been intending to choose "snacks for kids" the whole time.

But what my husband was choosing might have been "souvenirs to distribute to all the relatives."

Come to think of it, my husband has always bought large amounts of candy when returning to China.

And when he came back from China, for some reason, he would bring back large amounts of candy.

At the time, I found it strange.

Neither my husband nor I eat that much candy.

In the end, they would always stay in the snack box, and some would even melt.

That's why last year, I even insisted, "We don't need candy as a souvenir!"

But now I understand a little.

To my husband, candy isn't just a snack for children; it's a convenient souvenir that's easy to distribute to everyone, can be eaten by adults, and has a long shelf life.

I went to buy snacks for kids, but before I knew it, I had 23 bags of candy.

When you're in an international marriage, things like this happen sometimes.

And every time, I think that cultural differences might actually be packed into a single bag of candy like this.

▼Related Articles