Japan is known for "no waste" culture, also called " Mottai-nai".
This philosophy has been so ingrained in everyday life in my country that my mom, like any other mothers, used to scold me and said, "Mottai nai!", whenever I left even one grain of rice in my rice bowl.
As a small country with scarce resources, that must have been a wisdom that naturally developed.
So the recent trend of "reuse, reduce and recycle" has also been practiced in Japan for centuries.
But Japanese people didn't stop there.
They take it to the next level, to an art form.
This art form, called Kintsugi, is a technique to fix broken ceramics or pottery with lacquer resin & powdered gold.
It not only allows you to reuse the damaged cups and plates, but also metamorphoses them into something even more valuable.
I'd heard about kintsugi before in some books, but quite fortunately in this trip to Japan, I just ran into the real "kintsugi-ed" works while visiting a small pottery studio near my hometown!
And these kintsugi works are from hundreds of years ago, almost when this particular technique was born.
I just couldn't help admiring them for a while without a word.
It's said that this art is deeply rooted in some of the Japanese philosophies influenced by Buddhism.
One is so called "wabi-sabi", which can be roughly translated, "to embrace the flawed or imperfect".
Another thing that came to mind was "non-attachment".
That can be a strong message to me because I'm not very good at it.
I would be so upset if I dropped my favorite soup bowl or dinner plate on the floor.
Or anything I posses. (long way to go, in terms of "enlightenment"......)
Then my favorite mantra.
"Everything changes" or "acceptance of changing".
It's fascinating how little artwork can talk to us about a lot of things.
And I like their "humbleness".
Very subtle, quiet.
Yet they speak a volume.
And I really appreciate this aspect of Japanese arts, which can be seen even in Japanese food culture.
This philosophy has been so ingrained in everyday life in my country that my mom, like any other mothers, used to scold me and said, "Mottai nai!", whenever I left even one grain of rice in my rice bowl.
As a small country with scarce resources, that must have been a wisdom that naturally developed.
So the recent trend of "reuse, reduce and recycle" has also been practiced in Japan for centuries.
But Japanese people didn't stop there.
They take it to the next level, to an art form.
This art form, called Kintsugi, is a technique to fix broken ceramics or pottery with lacquer resin & powdered gold.
It not only allows you to reuse the damaged cups and plates, but also metamorphoses them into something even more valuable.
I'd heard about kintsugi before in some books, but quite fortunately in this trip to Japan, I just ran into the real "kintsugi-ed" works while visiting a small pottery studio near my hometown!
And these kintsugi works are from hundreds of years ago, almost when this particular technique was born.
I just couldn't help admiring them for a while without a word.
It's said that this art is deeply rooted in some of the Japanese philosophies influenced by Buddhism.
One is so called "wabi-sabi", which can be roughly translated, "to embrace the flawed or imperfect".
Another thing that came to mind was "non-attachment".
That can be a strong message to me because I'm not very good at it.
I would be so upset if I dropped my favorite soup bowl or dinner plate on the floor.
Or anything I posses. (long way to go, in terms of "enlightenment"......)
Then my favorite mantra.
"Everything changes" or "acceptance of changing".
It's fascinating how little artwork can talk to us about a lot of things.
And I like their "humbleness".
Very subtle, quiet.
Yet they speak a volume.
And I really appreciate this aspect of Japanese arts, which can be seen even in Japanese food culture.