Dicing with a rice death in festive Japan. I read that a total of 13 people died from eating mochi during this New Year holiday. Most of them were elderly people who couldn't dislodge the mochi themselves. If someone chokes on mochi: 1. Remove mochi using fingers if it is visible. 2. Beat the person's back (or upper stomach) to try and dislodge the mochi 3. Use a vacuum to suck out the mochi until medical assistance arrives.
As a Japanese person, I don't like the picture that the news site used. First of all, why are chopsticks set on the top? We would never do that. And the items pictured are not mochi, but rather some kind of daifuku or dessert made from mochi powder. Mochi is made using only mochi rice so that it is sticky and has an elastic mouthfeel. Daifuku is made from mochi powder and sugar, so it is much softer and easily dissolves in the mouth. We should not be careless with daifuku, but they are not a silent killer like mochi.
better late than never
Posted by: Taobao buy | Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 03:40 PM
13 is not so bad. As an Aussie living in japan I was deeply upset to see my entire home town destroyed this month in terrible flooding. Then on the Japanese news the focus of the flood was not the loss of life or hardship, but concern over beef, flour and coal imports. The people I know on japan are far more caring than this. Perhaps we should all give to those who have lost friend, family and everything they own, and not be so concerned about the lack of commodities from our Asian neighbour.
Posted by: Jason | Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 08:07 PM
Whatever those things are in the picture are sold as 'mochi' in Singapore too. Maybe the rest of the world has got it wrong? (or real mochi is far too dangerous to export from Japan?)
Posted by: Mark | Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 11:05 PM