Buying Randoseru: Japanese Elementary School Bag Guide
Japan’s traditional square backpacks will be your first grader’s perhaps most prized possession. Read on for a guide that tells you what to look for—and look out for—when making this important purchase! Randoseru, from the German and Dutch words meaning backpack, has been a prominent feature of Japanese elementary school life since the post-war period. Its history, however, began in the late Edo period when randoseru-like leather bags began being used by the modernizing Japanese military. The first student to use a randoseru was Japan’s crown prince who in 1887 was given a randoseru upon enter...