Rice becomes popular souvenir for Japanese visitors
An increasing number of Japanese tourists are visiting Korea to buy rice, as prices continue to soar in Japan, retail industry officials said Wednesday. Japanese visitors have increasingly been spotted filling their carts with rice at supermarkets in Seoul in recent weeks, they said. This growing trend was highlighted in a viral post on X, formerly Twitter, where a Japanese tourist shared her experience of buying rice during a trip to Korea and bringing it back home. The Japanese tourist, who identified herself as a middle-aged housewife, shared earlier this month that she purchased 4 kilograms of white rice and 5 kilograms of brown rice in Korea during a layover in Seoul, after traveling from Cebu, the Philippines. “My mission in Seoul was to buy rice, as prices in Japan have become too high. I decided to take the opportunity to purchase some while in Korea,” she wrote. She said 10 kilograms of rice in Japan costs around 8,000 yen ($57), whereas the same amount can be found in Korea for nearly a third of the price — about 3,000 yen. As rice is classified as a regulated agricultural
Apr 23, 2025By Jun Ji-hye
