The Japanese sense of beauty
The Japanese have a strong aesthetic sense: they beautify, embellish, adorn and decorate everything they touch. A sandwich in Japan is not just a sandwich, it is a work of art. It is cut into an artistic shape – it can be circular, octagonal or star-shaped – and given a color scheme with carefully placed bits of tomato, coleslaw and pickles. There is, as a rule, a flag or some other decoration hoisted on top. Every dish is aimed at the eye as well as the palate.
Every tiny parcel, from the humblest little shop, radiates some original charm or at least tries to, and reflects pride: look how well done it is! Every taxi-driver has a small vase in front of him, with a beautiful, fresh, dark-red or snow-white flower in it. Once I watched a man at the counter in a fish-restaurant. Sushi and sashimi – the famous raw fish of Japan – comes in many forms and cuts, and it takes about ten years for a man to reach the counters of a first-class establishment. The man I watched was not bored with his somewhat monotonous job: he enjoyed every minute of it to the full, took immense pride in it. Michelangelo could not have set a freshly carved Madonna before you with more pride and satisfaction than this cook felt when he put a freshly carved piece of raw fish on your plate.
The Japanese are unable to touch anything without beautifying it, shaping it into something pretty and pleasing to the eye. One evening I was walking in one of the slummy suburbs of Tokyo and saw a heap of rubbish outside the backyard of a factory. It was an immense mountainside of rubbish, but it was not just thrown out as it came: all the boxes were piled into a graceful if somewhat whimsical pyramid, while the loose rubbish was placed on top as artistic and picturesque decoration. Someone must have spent considerable time in converting that heap of rubbish into a thing of beauty.
The Land of the Rising Yen by George Mikes (BrE)
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