The other night, at a party I was in a conversation about creativity. Somebody mentioned ‘Chindogu’. As I didn’t know what Chindogu was, she explained to me that it’s a Japanese creative way of thinking. “It has something to do with toilet paper on your head.” This had to be interesting!

According to Wikipedia:

Chindogu is the Japanese art of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that [...] seem like an ideal solution to a particular problem.

Aha, so far so good. But there was more information and that’s where the true meaning of Chindogu lies:

However, Chindogu has a distinctive feature: anyone actually attempting to use one of these inventions, would find that it causes so many new problems, or such significant social embarrassment, that effectively it has no utility whatsoever. Thus, Chindogu are sometimes described as ‘unuseless’ – that is, they cannot be regarded as ‘useless’ in an absolute sense, since they do actually solve a problem; however, in practical terms, they cannot positively be called ‘useful’.

It turned out that “the toilet paper on the head” is a genuine Chindogu invention and the ideal solution for hay fever sufferers. With a roll of toilet paper on top of their head they always have paper at hand to blow their noses in.

And here is a very practical device to cool down those hot noodles!

No explanation needed for the next one, I think.

Here is a movie featuring the best of Chindogu.

I think Chindogu really is a nice way of creative thinking and very humorous. But the most important thing in it is the paradoxical ‘unuselessness’ of the inventions.

For more information about Chindogu see the website of the International Chindogu Society or check out the books 101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions: The Art of Chindogu and 99 More Unuseless Japanese Inventions.

Sources: International Chindogu Society and Wikipedia on Chindogu, both retrieved on April 18^th 2008.