When we went to Japan in April 1999, my mother asked me to bring her a typical Japanese lampion. I though this was a request easy too fulfill, as you see these lampions at every street corner. However it took me a whole day of investigation to find this shop in Ichikawa. And when I finally got there, they did not want to sell a pure white lampion to me, because for them this was only the "raw material". Well, finally they sold me one, because it does not happen every day that a foreigner with such a strange request comes along.... Lampions are made on demand for all kinds of purposes, for restaurants, weddings, funerals etc. (the one with the characters on the right side is for the election bureau of a politician)