Program on NHK World and why I love the Japanese
This thread is an observation of a society in which admiration for wealth is still exceeded by admiration for character.
One of my favorite stops on the TV dial is NHK World Japan. You never know what you’ll find there, but quite often they’ll have a show that highlights – very respectfully – the work or food or daily life of ordinary Japanese people.
One series Is called The Professionals. Each program focuses in a detailed way on an individual person who isn’t likely rich but rather is perfectionist about their particular craft. Today they’re carefully showing, in a thoughtful way, the daily work and the philosophy of a 92-year-old woman, Misao, who makes the best mochi bean cakes by hand from ingredients she grows herself. Such mochi cakes are made of a sweet red bean and rice flour paste wrapped in bamboo leaves. After taking some of these to a nursing home when she was 60 years old, and seeing the joy on the faces of the people who ate them, she recognized that with her own hands she could bring great joy to other people, so she decided to start making the absolute best bean cakes that she could. She makes 50,000 such cakes each year by hand and they are renowned.
They are so popular that people travel long distances just to come buy only five little cakes at a time. She says her mother taught her, “the harder you work the more the work will teach you.” She talks about the details of the bamboo leaves in flexibility or thickness, the red beans she grows herself. They describe her work as painstaking, admire her dedication to her craft.
Misao learned principles of life from her mother — “use every last bit” — that shine through in her work.
No one makes mochi cakes like Misao does. The chefs at a fancy Tokyo restaurant explain that the reason her cakes are so good is that she leaves the skin of the bean on, it has the most flavor — but nobody does that because there’s too much fiber. But Misao works very hard to break down the fiber while using the whole bean, so unlike everyone else’s, hers have the flavor but are still very soft inside.
American TV has shows about ordinary people having problems or crises, and you find plenty of weird semi-glamour shows about big shots deciding the fate of businesses, or outlandish quasi-heroics in the pursuit of money like Gold Rush or Life Below Zero. I find this NHK series to be so peaceful, wholesome, deep, beautiful. It helps support a societal philosophy or common worldview based on respect, consideration, and humility.
“The best way to live a life? Goodness it would be nice if there was a textbook for that.” Misao says.
The show elevates the work of individuals — a piano restorer, a man who grows extraordinary roses — and conveys the philosophy that lives in them. Reminds me of a book I read on Japanese craftsmanship called “Memories of Silk and Straw” — essays describing the small shops and lifestyle of families in prewar Japan that produced the highest quality silk, tatami mats, paper and other products from scratch.
What gets elevated in Little America? The Apprentice. We’ve lost our way.
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