Remember the days before cell phones and e-mail, when people actually wrote letters to each other, by hand -- often pages and pages of kokoro-no toro (emotional outpouring)? Maybe it's just me getting sentimental in my old age, but, really, there's something to be said for the days when the sight of tegaki moji (handwritten words) from loved ones and friends brightened daily life.

For girls, school life would not have been complete without the passing around of kokan nikki (an open diary among friends). In a single thick notebook, a group of good friends would take turns writing about home, school, what they had for dinner, the new underwear they bought, what their boyfriends said or didn't say, why they couldn't lose weight despite kibishii daietto (rigorous dieting) but oh-I-did-have-a-chocolate-ice cream-yesterday-oops! and other confessions.

A friend of mine used to vividly recount the most erotic dreams she had the night before, usually involving the chemistry teacher and her older cousin from Aomori. Another would give us a blow-by-blow report on a huge nikibi (zit) that had suddenly appeared on her nose and, no matter what she did, would not go away. Her father worried that she had hana no gan (cancer of the nose), and we would alternate between offering sincere remedies and laughing our heads off. I'm telling you, Freud would salivate at the thought of getting his hands on one of these volumes.