BENTO, a missing link.

I am unable to explain the Asian phenomenon that is taking place in this house. My cultural heritage overridden by countless tea ceremonies orchestrated by the 9 year old in charge and our decoration choices overlapped by SHODO compositions and oriental paraphernalia.
We have been living the oriental craze during the last two years; Ever since Juulia discovered the Japanese culture (well in fact it is about anything Asiatic). It all started with an avalanche of questions that I could no longer answer: Could I read and/or recite the Chinese alphabet?, How to say mother and/or happiness in Japanese?, How many languages are spoken in Asia?, Can I also become a Maiko (implied: even though I am half Estonian and half Colombian)?, Could we purchase a Kimono and an Ao-dai and would I let her go to school dressed like that?, Could we drink green tea every evening with dinner? and eventually and more importantly: Can you please register me for Shodo (!!!!!!??? WHAT IS THAAAAAAAAAAT I thought!) in this number (Telephone number, website, email address and name of the teacher all written down in a piece of paper)? Emil, more modestly and much less imposing had been making a good deal of origami on his own. Being the background more or less explained already, lets go onto the BENTO issue.
Today, we learned that (like everything in Japan) Bento is almost an art. The definition found in Wikipedia sufices so far: "single-portion takeout meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware"

And this is the point of contact with me, the missing link, a good explanation on where her interest comes from (a little bit stretching the reasoning is harmless now, is not it?). The picture above shows a bento of those I had from childhood. I received plenty of these little boxes and never knew what they were about but still I collected several of Little Twin Stars, (the characters are shown above on top of the chopsticks container) from age 9, purchased in the same shop (an only one probably) where you could get them back then, that is in the 70s and 80s, in the 10th street of Medellin: "Lanas." On occasions a nice color Lacoste T-shirt could also be found there. Later, in Oviedo Shopping Center we had a small supply of Sanrio imports and "cool stuff" but nothing compared with the current stock. The shop then was called Mattel . Nowadays one can find everything imaginable, everywhere; Hello kitty, My Melody and other much newer "others" are flooding commerce all over the place in Colombia. One can find them even in el Exito, who would have imagined 27 years ago? My favorites as for today are Chococat and Badtz-maru.
Children of my age, all with the same collection, could also procured them in Miami, and they were a sign of disctintion for it also revealed the fact that one could also travel abroad in a time of closed economies and very little international exchange. Anything Sanrio and bento (described already) constituted the best type of gifts of all, followed by stickers and stationary as I received from La Tia Pata when I was around 11 or 12 and collected for many years to come. I still keep the stickers, my old bentos and even one that my brother J.F. had in white and red of Hello Kitty. The one possession I use up to now is his swimming bag, as appears below:

These below, are very sophisticated bento arrangements by declared B. serial producer Sakurako Kitsa, an American lady who evidently has a lot of talent and patience. Joonas loves them, but I am afraid to get inspired by this and create him yet another routine, one of sophisticated food compositions to pledge to forever and suffer every day with!