As a part-time aficionado of eccentricities of Japanese people (including, but not limited to, the family I married into), I am a fan of Japantrends.com. They cover a wide range of wierdness, from ads against crotchrot to personalized baby handprint stamps.

My favorite find of their are user-supplied videos of nakipita, the art of making baby stop crying. From Japantrends:

Benesse [a Japanese lifestyle company] is currently running an online competition where parents are invited to submit videos of their babies crying — and then being soothed by some unexpected technique.

It might be turning on the vacuum cleaner, sticking an ear pick in their ear canal — or just showing them their favorite cuddly toy. Whatever it is, the secret weapon (thankfully) immediately stops the infant from wailing.

Could it be that YouTube might teach us a parenting trick or two? Doubtful. As any parent knows, what works once on a baby probably won’t even work a second time. So even though this screamer was stilled by a bowl of dumplings, I doubt it would work on my own lil’ tyrants. But, on the plus side, it would leave me with some dumplings I could take into the other room and eat while I let the kid scream it out in his highchair.