What is Digg?99 Comments
- Leach, on 10/10/2007, -1/+47(Random Syllables) - The (optionally Ancient) Japanese Art of (Ordinary Task)
Works for anything. - Gdub, on 10/10/2007, -5/+35It amazes me how the Japanese come up with such simple ideas that us Westerners would never use. We need like four hundred yards of wrapping paper and two rolls of tape to wrap a book.
- CraigJ, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15didn't you know that in Japan you have to make a separate trip to the store for each item you buy?
- facelesscoward, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13It's been said that you should always carry a towel.
- toolegittoquit, on 10/10/2007, -10/+21Can't we appreciate some clever container folding without having to point out that it'll reduce global warming or some ***** like that.
- sensoukami, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8My wife wraps my lunch in a cloth all the time....my co-workers say if I had a long stick, it'd be my hobo lunch (I'm dating myself...does anyone under 30 get that?)...them Japanese is pretty damn clever.
- Smuikas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6In Japan, it is very expensive to own a car. Stopping by the local grocer on the way home from the train station is pretty much the staple - in which case, you want to be able to carry your groceries with you, or on your bicycle.
Can you fit what you need to eat (plus any basic items that you need to replenish; rice, bread, spices, etc) in the next 24 hours in two bags?
If not, you're probably eating way too much. It's similar in New York, when you don't want to be seen as the old person walking down the street to your apartment (which is likely 5-10 blocks from a larger grocer, though bodegas have some of the most basic of staples along with comfort foods) with a handcart, what do you do? You stop every couple of days and pick up what you're going to eat for your next couple of meals.
It's a simple concept, yet so very unfamiliar to so many suburbanite americans....
If suburbia weren't so insidious, you would realize that it's perfectly comfortable to live without a car and big-box stores (along with hour-long grocery shopping trips to get what you want to eat for the next two weeks in one large trip) - in fact, it's healthier... - jeo77, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Furoshiki..it even SOUNDS cooler...
- R3yDigg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Seems most of those wraps are for items already in some type of highly manageable or packaged form, book, bottle, box, single item fruit- so how is this doing anything besides being ascetically pleasing. For the record I carry my books in a highly reusable cloth container us westerners call a "backpack" and as a bonus I don't even have to refold it every time access it's content.
- smspence, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I logged in just to digg you up
- tamurlane6, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7WTF? did you read Gdub's full comment? He was making the point that the Japanese have a clever and less wasteful way of wrapping than the westerners do. I'm not really sure how you could post such a "lame" reply to that.
- MasterThief117, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Sort of how Russian Cosmonauts used a pencil instead of what America did and developed a pressurized pen to use in space.
- melonhedd, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5ALL HAIL GLORIOUS NIPPON ^_____^;;;;
- diggdong, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Rot real unless it is in a game show format.
- Ghoztt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Great post! Always nice to learn something new and unique.
- aedes, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5did the above person even say that the japanese version used paper? They only said if north americans tried to wrap it we would need paper.
classy. - cbuddha42, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Seriously, when it said no paper, no plastic, I thought this was going to be a way to wrap up your groceries and get out of the supermarket without any of their bags. I guess it would still work for that, but when you go to the supermarket you get a whole trunk full of groceries, so you would have to take a crazy number of cloths with you to happen to have enough of the right sizes to wrap everything.
- kalten, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Furoshiki are interesting, but this western take is a complete misunderstanding. Furoshiki really aren't for carrying - if you look at half of those pictures you see something that doesn't become easier to carry with the addition of the cloth.
Really, this is about concealment. If you buy slightly embarrassing things at a pharmacy in Japan (cold medicine, foot fungus treatment, or worse, Condoms!) they are all individually wrapped in opaque plastic bags and then bagged together. Japanese buy special covers to conceal the jacket of the books they are reading. Ever seen a Japanese person carrying around a used shopping bag from a designer shop they went to several months ago? Concealment's flipside - presentation.
If you ever buy a gift in Japan, it doesn't matter how much it cost, the wrapping is paramount. A western colleague recently made the clumsy manoeuvre of buying a smoked salmon as a souvenir from Canada which A) wasn't even purchased in a souvenir shop and hence lacked the right wrapping and B) wasn't split up into individual wrapping for ease of consumption. Let's just say the gift didn't go down that well.
Furoshiki are cool, but almost no one uses them. Recycling is high because the creation of garbage is so high that Japan would be buried in it otherwise. Energy usage is low because homes are much much smaller and public transit is better than in many western countries.
If anything makes me crazy here, it is saying "I don't need a bag" all day. - forkqueue, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Anyone that's been to Japan will know how laughable the idea that the Japanese are interested in reducing wrapping waste is. It's pretty much impossible to buy any sort of foodstuff that isn't in at least two layers of wrapping, and three layers is pretty common (outer box, foil-wrapped compartment, individually wrapped item).
There's a lot I love about Japan and the Japanese, but one thing's for sure, ecologists they're not. - 955701, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Cool, except I take my containers with me when I hit fast food restaurants, and can't see handing the 16 year old at the cash register a handful of cloth and EVER getting out of there again.
Having said that, here's what I'm doing http://twotonnerd.blogspot.com/ (shameless blog reference). I rated various fast-food restaurants on my ability to eat there without directly producing any garbage (cups, wrappers, etc.) Wendy's said it was against health codes (after I coincidentally talked to a health inspecter the day before), while McDonald's scored as one of the best places to eat trashless (unless you count the actual food). - sensoukami, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I agree about the wrapping, but the Japanese also user far less energy per capita than North Americans. They are also pretty good about recycling....
- Zackypooh, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2looks simple enough. ~.O
- Chicken, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yeah I got that. I think that joke still shows up in some contemporary anime.
- gann, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Furoshiki is not for daily shopping, but for packaging and carrying gift. So instead of a wrapping paper, they use a pretty cloth to wrap a present, and the one who receive it can simpy re-use the cloth.
- hiikeeba, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3The Japanese wrap the CO2 they're going to emit over the Kyoto Protocol target in a furoshiki.
- Dhalgren, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4It's my dick in a Furoskiki!
- sevenhelmets, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2ah yes, the dreadded, " no, I don't need a plastic carry bag for that stick of gum I just bought....."
- sakuraz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2That's like saying "Can't we appreciate some clever 3-seconds-to-put-on-condoms without having to point out that it'll revoutionize sex or some ***** like that"
It WILL revolutionise sex!
No more babies from laziness! - ramenite, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3A-San: Nan desu ka?
B-San: Kore desu ka? furoshiki
A-San: Furoshiki?
B-San: Hai! Tottemo benri desu yo!
/known to anyone that took college japanaese with that damned red Noda book - MasterThief117, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Some of the steps are a little hard to understand.
Or is this just because I am brain dead? - 955701, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2So now they need to mass produce clothes with these instructions on them....
- parsap, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You seriously do your grocery shopping every single day? I live in the bay area, about a block away from both a Safeway and an Andronicos and I still only go to either of them about once a week or two weeks.
- eohano, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I think that he doesn't understand what a "Westerner" is and thought Gdub was talking about the japanese...
- ChromaVita, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yea, i don't think i've ever read a book that included a hobo carrying his lunch over his shoulder with a stick, but i've seen the concept many times on TV. Old cartoons seem to frequent that idea.
- espion4ge, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2oh man, Japanese 101 and all those Core Conversations we had to memorize and recite just came back right there haha
- anonatron, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Don't worry, most digg users are "dating themselves", one day you will get out of your mom's basemen... wait, were you talking about age?
- Nadare, on 10/10/2007, -5/+7Interesting, sure it can make carrying the melon easier but in the end it seems like you're limited to 1 item (generally) per cloth. While I can stuff many things inside a plastic bag.
- Smuikas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Really? I've heard it all the time on the subway. Mainly after getting on at St. Mark's Place. (Tons of Japanese NYU kids hang out around there... maybe because it's close to NYU)
- sensoukami, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2lol...I'm happily married with two kids, so I'm "dating myself" quite regularly I'm sad to say...it's all I can get!
- Smuikas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I hear ya.
- LLLSecretChimp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1How much energy and materials are required to clean the cloth vs. the manufacture of a plastic grocery bag? How many times would you have to use the cloth for it to balance out? I think this could be a replay of the cloth vs. disposable diaper debate.
- takayuki2006, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1it's ironic, we Japanese abolish traditional names and mimic English, thinking English sounds cool.
i'd say the less familiar we're with the language, the more sophistication we find in them. - aduzik, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I saw Martha Stewart teach Conan O'Brien how to do that once, and I have never been able to replicate it as well as her or the woman in that video.
- socialidiocy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You can watch TV alone and know what a hobo is...silly.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1The single bottle wrap diagram confuses me.
- rnwen2750, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It is against health codes in the sense that if you get sick from an improperly sanitized container (regardless of whether you brought it to them or not), they will be held accountable. Additionally, using your container "on the line" could contaminate other people's food and then they would be in even bigger trouble.
- Th3_anOmoLy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1oh god, that was disturbing....
- rnwen2750, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1That is so freakishly cool! I propose that, alongside the alphabet, we teach children in kindergarden this amazing talent.
- Smuikas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1@pasnap:
Yep! I take the subway home, and the nearest grocery store to my apartment is directly between the stop and my apartment. I keep staples at home, pick up some fresh produce and some fruit and some meat, and head on home. Very convenient. It's the best way to shop :) Your stuff is always fresh, you tend to buy less, and you don't have to plan what you want to eat weeks in advance. - MrBabyMan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"this Western take" was created by Japan's Minister of the Environment. From the accompanying article here: http://www.env.go.jp/en/focus/060403.html "Ms Yuriko Koike, Minister of the Environment, has created the "Mottainai Furoshiki" as a symbol of Japanese culture to reduce waste. Furoshiki is a Japanese traditional wrapping cloth which is used repeatedly in a stylish way. (The utilization of this "Mottainai Furoshiki" will contribute to reducing household waste from plastic bags.)"
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