{"id":213403,"date":"2010-01-22T15:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T20:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/37signals.com\/svn\/posts\/2115-shokunin-kishitsu-the-craftmans-spirit"},"modified":"2010-01-22T15:47:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T20:47:00","slug":"shokunin-kishitsu-the-craftman%e2%80%99s-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/213403","title":{"rendered":"Shokunin kishitsu, the craftman\u2019s spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do Americans have bad taste?<\/a> It’s a question we discussed here a few months back. Related, here’s a piece where Kenya Hara discusses Japanese aesthetics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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When coming back to Tokyo from abroad, my first impression usually is: What a dull airport! And yet it\u2019s clean, neat and the floors deeply polished. To the Japanese eye, there\u2019s a particular sense of beauty in the work of the cleaning staff. It\u2019s in the craftman\u2019s spirit \u2014 \u201cshokunin kishitsu\u201d \u2014 which applies to all Japanese professionals, be they street construction workers, electricians or cooks…<\/p>\n

There is a similar craftman\u2019s spirit (\u201cshokunin kishitsu\u201d or \u201cshokunin katagi\u201d) in Europe. Yet in Europe I can see it coming alive only from a certain level of sophistication. \u2013In Japan, even ordinary jobs such as cleaning and cooking are filled with this craftman\u2019s spirit. It is is common sense in Japan.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Hara also discusses why Japanese cooks prefer knives without any ergonomic shape.<\/p>\n

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A flat handle is not seen as raw or poorly crafted. On the contrary, its perfect plainness is meant to say, \u201cYou can use me whichever way suits your skills.\u201d The Japanese knife adapts to the cook\u2019s skill (not to the cook\u2019s thumb). This is, in a nutshell, Japanese simplicity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"knife\"<\/p>\n

[thx Eva]<\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do Americans have bad taste? It’s a question we discussed here a few months back. Related, here’s a piece where Kenya Hara discusses Japanese aesthetics. When coming back to Tokyo from abroad, my first impression usually is: What a dull airport! And yet it\u2019s clean, neat and the floors deeply polished. To the Japanese eye, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}