In Japan, people from all sectors of society are encouraged to create their own inventions.  Many inventions that made life easier were created by housewives.

In Japan, being a housewife is considered a profession.  Many college students' career choice is to be a full-time housewife.  While keeping houses, housewives have come up with inventions that made life more convenient, not only satisfying their need for self-realization but also benefiting the family and society.

Japan has a housewife invention association as well as invention colleges to guide, encourage and honor the housewives for their creativity.  As a result, housewives rushed to create inventions with inspirations derived from their lives. Most of their inventions are practical solutions to problems of everyday life.

To prevent men, especially boys, from dirtying the toilet rim when urinating standing up, a special mat was invented by a Japanese housewife to enable men to urinate from a kneeling position, thus easing the burden of clean-up.  Another Japanese housewife invented a special-shaped scoop with multiple uses including skimming off the scum, serving food, and measuring seasonings with lines marked inside.  Lately, an exercise box is very popular in Japanese families.  Five minutes of exercises on the box equals the benefit of 30 minutes of walking.

Today, more and more housewife inventions are sought by manufacturers to make into products for the mass market, yielding remarkable economic benefits.  Some housewives even established their own companies to produce their own inventions.

The commercial success of these inventions gave more and more housewives hope, and encouraged them to passionately engage in the inventing activities, which led to happiness at home and harmony in society.

Source:
http://news.163.com/10/0623/07/69RJT89D00014AED.html