From a single straw to a life journey across Japan.
You are born somewhere among Japan’s 1,740 towns. One summer at age seven, you trip on the road and grab a single straw. Every five years you meet someone new and trade — local flowers, regional specialties, secondhand finds from junk shops — traveling Japan over a lifetime. What will you be holding at the end? And how many people will you have bonded with?
BEEYLike the old Japanese folktale “The Straw Millionaire,” let’s trade our way through life. But what matters most isn’t only what you end up with!
About 10 min · your birthplace is random
If you have what someone needs, they’ll trade you something good.
Treasure or junk? You won’t know until someone appraises it.
Giving with nothing in return deepens your ties — and kindness may come back to you.
Every five years, choose to stay put, move to another prefecture, or head for the city.
Item values are rough guides for the game. Prefectural flowers and specialties were chosen from widely known local favorites. Birthplace odds are based on ages 0–4 in the 2020 Census, and lifespans on the 2020 prefectural life tables (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare). Town names romanized from Geolonia’s Japanese Addresses data (MIT License).
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