More Japanese tampons:
Anshin (1977) Tampons, box, directions.
ORIGAMI applicator. (Tambrands gift,
1997) It's the same as Ortex Gold and Cameo
tampons.
Shampon Young stick tampon (Japan,
1977)
Instructions for making JAPANESE
WASHABLE MENSTRUAL PADS (early 20th century?),
successors of the uma (pony
or horse)
See ads for JAPANESE COMMERCIAL MENSTRUAL BELTS from the early 20th century with a discussion of how Japan influenced European art and vice versa.
Visit the ODOR page.
 
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The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
Cellopon menstrual tampon
(1968, Eisai, Japan)
Because of reasons discussed below Cellopon seems to be a Western tampon
reworked for the Japanese market just as the origami
tampon Anshin (Japan, 1977) was (it's the same
as Ortex Gold and Cameo
tampons). But I might be wrong. Mysterious Japan!
The former Tambrands, which made Tampax tampons, kindly donated the
box and contents as part of a fabulous gift
of hundreds of menstrual products.
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Below: The cardboard box measures 5 1/2
x 2 1/4" x 1" (13.1 x 5.5 x 2.54 cm).
The box is actually more faded than the scan
shows.
A Tampax hand at the former Tambrands company
wrote on the box.
The English words and possibly Western woman might mean
that this is a Western product for the Japanese market. But the ways
of Japan are mysterious and it might not mean that. But what's L-type??
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Below: Someone once called Japanese the
most unnecessarily complicated language in
the world. Here's
part of the reason why: the large, dark type below
is in the Japanese phonetic script katakana,
which Japanese use
to reproduce the sounds of non-Japanese-and-Chinese words - like Cellopon.
The second character, the square one,
is actually pronounced somewhat like RO; Japanese
does not have a European L sound. The other Japanese phonetic script,
hirogana - you can see two examples right above the left-most katakana to
the right of the end character (a kanji
character, derived from Chinese, pronounced SHIN, that means "new")
is used for verb endings and other grammatical words
or for words the writer prefers not to write using kanji, the traditional
way to write Japanese.
See why it's complicated?
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Below: I hugely enlarged the back of the
box so anyone knowing the language can read it. MORE
at right.
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Right below: After the phonetic for Cellopon
you see L and three phonetic characters
roughly sounding out the English word type.
What puzzles me is type is not translated into
Japanese,
just phoneticized, suggesting that it was not important for the Japanese
market but was for
the probably original English-language market.
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Below & right: The ends.
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The box cost 180 yen. At this time 360 yen equaled $1 so the box cost
$0.50.
(See http://www.yen-to-dollar.com)
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© 2008 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
of the work on this Web site
in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please
report suspected
violations to hfinley@mum.org\
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