This document discusses traditional toys in Japan, specifically a card game called Menko that children have played for centuries. Menko is similar to the American game of Pong, where cardboard or paper cards are thrown down and players try to flip over their opponent's cards. As toys can be expensive, Japanese children often make their own Menko cards out of materials like cardboard or construction paper. The game is described as a traditional and beloved pastime for Japanese children, who enjoy both playing it and creating their own cards.

1. Ryan Taylor
Toy from Japan
FYS 100-205
Children all around the world play with a variety of different traditional toys that are
hand made. Kids in other countries and even kids in poverty in some places in America
can not afford actual toys from the store there fore they make their own toys. In Japan the
children there play a card game known as Menko, Menko is very similar to the American
game Pongs. The game Menko has been around in Japan since the 1700’s so it is a very
old game that children in Japan have played for thousands of years. The kids make these
cards out of cardboard or even construction paper if they have it. They put some sorts of
an image on the card and they throw the cards down on top of each other. When someone
acquires an opponent’s card by flipping it over when throwing down his own card.
Menko is a very traditional game to Japan and children still have fun today playing it.
They say the children have just as much playing the game as they do making their own
cards.

2. Works Cited
1) Japanese Toys. (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2015, from
http://web.mit.edu/21f.066/www/theisen/toys/traditional2.html