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14 September 2019

little postcard home

summer 2019 Japan
my little keepsake.



summer joy

on to the ground. nothing stops this little one to hold the moment. 
stepping outside. space of freedom. sound of cicada. beaming sun on her arms. heights of nekojyarashi. echoing laughters. splash of water. sweaty T-shirts and muddy pants.

her joy overlaps with my sensation more than four decades ago. 
funny how vividly I can remember such joy. 

today’s climate has significantly changed comparing to my childhood, which sadly impacted on how ‘less’ they can be playing outside in summer here, but the energy for play has not changed. we are all born from this soil to free ourselves.

now I am thinking about our task. that we have to work hard for this soil to last longer for them and the future generation, so they can feel the summer joy too.



first day

first day.
nervousness kicks in. 
your tummy seems to be louder. 
your hands seem to be stickier to hold mine.
your skins seem to be stiffer to smile. 
your legs seem to be slower. 
saying good day to you was the hardest. 
I know because I was there too.

second day. 
your tummy seems to be hopping. 
your hands seem to be wiggling. 
your skins seem to be softer to smile. 
your legs seem to be faster to skip. 
saying good day to you was delight. 
you already made a friend.
your ability amazes me.
I sure know I was there too but I cannot remember how I did. 
If I knew the answer, surely I don’t struggle like I do now. 



無限大
(i like this one in Japanese particular, but my nearest translation in English will follow)

あかいせん
ちゃいろいはし
はなまる
しんかんせん と おひさま
にじ
くさ と すべりだい
あおぞら と クレーンしゃ
ないてるかお
わらってるかお
いちばんぼし のれんしゅう
ちからもちになったきぶん
ねこじゃらし
えぷろんしているおかあさんがパンケーキをつくってる、ポーンって
それをみておどろいているわたし

「なんでもいい」って無限大。
出てくる 出てくる 無限大。
なのに、「なんでもいい」がいつから難しくなったのかな。
書けない、描けない、無限大。

limitless 

red line
brown bridge
hanamaru
bullet train and sun
rainbow
grass and slide
blue sly and mobile crane
crying face smiling face
practising stars
feeling of being powerful
nekojyarashi
mummy making pancake with an apron on, then flipping a pan like this (insert movement sound)
and i’m watching like ‘wow’

anything is limitless
everything is limitless
never stopping limitless

but somehow that limitless has become difficult
can’t write that limitless
can’t draw that limitless 



i love you 
i love you
i love you
the word i did not know when i was you
i love you 
i love you 
i love you 
the sound i try to hold before it disappears


*   *   *
Many thanks to Huma for inspiring me to write as I am.

1 July 2019

2 year review (managing my small business and life with family)


Hello there. This is a belated post to share, since I was going to write this last month but better than never, right? (part of my learning about priority, if I might add?)

Two years (and a month) ago, I quit my day job as a pottery workshop instructor for people with learning difficulties and different support needs, followed by my long career in social care. It was definitely a big step for me, to leave a financial security and to enter unknown of sorely self employed business. Was I confident? Absolutely not. This was probably the biggest leap I took in my life. 

There were two main reasons for the big leap. Practicality and pursuit of my once-hidden dream to be a potter.

Most of my salary went straight into our daughter’s nursery fee. Prior to her school, my husband and I discussed the practicality, such as school holidays and other needs that came up as our concern. My employment was throughout the year including Easter and summer holiday so it was almost impossible for us to manage within just annual leave, without family support (which we do not have) or child care. Since nursery fee will be no longer required, we decided it’s a time. To change my direction to be sorely self employed and to look after our daughter, rather than continuing my day job and paying someone else for a child care. It felt like the most reasonable timing to take that leap toward my dream to become a potter. (Just note that I totally understand this does not work for everyone, so I have no offence for people who choose a child care for their option.) My target was set to allow the first few years to establish financially. It has not been easy but I have never looked back my day job ever since. 

Anyway, I have decided to write my reflection of learning from past two years of my small business. This review is primarily about my business, however, it involves working around with family significantly so you will see I mentioned that here and there. Writing does help me reinforce my learning. By sharing it, I hope some of you may find this helpful. Obviously this is entirely my own reflection being a potter and a mum to an early age schooler, and it may not be useful for everybody. However, I believe ‘checking in’ like this yearly (or whatever the length of time you choose) would help, be it your own business, family life or anything that important to you, so I’d totally recommend to take time to do so.

Some of my points might be duplicated in some ways or other, but here it goes. 8 tips I learnt on my two year small business and working around with family.

1. Drop a super woman badge

No, I am not a super woman. I cannot do everything.

This may sound silly but honestly was the most crucial mindset changer for me. I needed to unpack my ingrained habit A LOT. If you are a perfectionist, you may resonate with this. 

I grew up watching my mum, who was a house wife who looked after three children whilst my dad was earning sorely, although this was quite common in Japan. My mum rarely had a voice or stood up to my dad. When I behaved badly, my mum got told off by my dad and she contained the blame. My mum always said, “you need to ask your dad, first.” “He is in charge.” From a young age, I learnt some kind of discomfort of not earning your own money. I aimed not to be a house wife. I did not have much desire to have my own children to be honest. I have always worked. Even when I was studying (both student time and mature student time during my degree study) I was always working. Working gave me flexibility, independency and financial stability, especially since I divorced with my abusive ex-husband. Luckily I enjoyed most of the work I did, or at least found an incentive to keep going. But at the same time it has created self criticism. When I wasn’t working, I felt guilty or being lazy. When I wasn't working enough, I felt insecure or even somehow incomplete.

So when I returned to work after maternity leave, with my daughter who was born with severe medical condition, I had to face a huge difficulty. It was difficult to balance my life with work, house chores, parenting and everything else. I’ve cut down hours to part-time, which made me feel less independent. Inability to do ‘all well enough frustrated me and often criticised myself. 

Becoming self employed was supposed to be a helpful plan to adjust such stressful thinking I had, but in fact I was feeling terrible more often than not. Because I was looking at what I did not manage to do, most of the time! I was carrying a badge of a super woman of “wanting to do all well.”  After many emotional and physical overwhelms and breakdowns, I had to gradually but ‘consciously’ let that slide, by focusing on the priority one at a time, and accept the fact that I cannot deal with all and that it is ok. Acknowledging my habit was hard but necessary. Acceptance without feeling bad about myself was hard, but necessary. A super woman badge definitely had to go and it was well overdue.

2. Lower your expectation / Be realistic 

Dropping your super badge also means lowering your expectation. Because if you are a perfectionist, or even simply you love working hard, your own expectation is usually up high, and quite frankly, unrealistic!

To me, transition from the nursery to school was particularly difficult. Firstly, school hours are not even comparison to the nursery hours. (She was at nursery 8-5. School is 9-3. Nursery opens throughout the year apart from bank holidays and Christmas. School holidays are nightmare, just to remind you!) So yes, my working hours have significantly reduced. I compensate this by working in evenings and weekends, but not always possible nor practical. So I have to admit that and work around the reality.

Secondly, my daughter’s needs have actually increased in a ‘different’ way. She can get sick. She requires more emotional support. She brings homework. In addition to that my girl goes to a Japanese school on Saturday morning and I help out there. If you think babies and toddlers are more difficult, wait for it! I guess, when she grew a bit older, the things might change of course. But for now, I did not want to miss any sign of her worries if any, so spending time with her has become my priority, especially when she was struggling to settle in school.

Tune into your ‘current’ life needs. Be realistic with planning. Lower your expectation so that you have a space to be able to handle any unexpected need. (i.g. child’s sickness / unexpected urgent tasks etc) These tips all helped me, although I am still learning all the time. 

3. Plan ahead 

Are you a list person? I am! I have always written to do list in my diary, along with all schedule of work and family. But the list can easily get too overwhelmed and uncontrollable! So I have started to separate the work plan from my diary, and made my own monthly and annual planner templates that I can type in print / also pencil in. Planning ahead definitely helps me work as productively and smoothly as possible. Finding the most suitable way to plan ahead may require a bit of trial and error. This is how I did and so far I find it working for me. 

For a monthly planner, each date has three sections; morning, afternoon and evening. Firstly I fill everything that I have already fixed, including school holidays. (colour coded with school stuff, family stuff, private stuff such as E-courses or attending events. I love colour code!) By doing this, I can clearly visualise how much space (how less more like!) I have for my studio time. Then, start to plan my studio work with a target date (or deadline) for making for orders, shows and online shop.

For an annual planner, I slot events and so on, and rough numbers of items to be made for. Once I know how much making time I have (I consider from throwing to glaze firing, admin and packing) then I can estimate how many orders I can have in a year. Slotting the estimate in the planning sheet will enable me to know when I can complete my work for each clients. Bulk of my income is from trade at the moment. Most of trade customers require a lead time when taking orders. In my first year, I completely failed on this, without knowing ‘exactly’ how long I needed. As a result, I worked non-stop to meet thier expectation / lead time. This was completely wrong way round. YOU DECIDE YOUR LEAD-TIME. And in order to do that, you will need to know what your time / capacity is prior to that. Well, you will need to experience first to know exact numbers, so in a way a bit of catch 22 to start with!

How far ahead you are going to plan is depending on your business style I guess. My work plan is now roughly done up to the end of 2020. This may sound a bit far for some people, but application of large ceramic shows will start quite early in general. It still has rooms to adjust and add, and obviously things can be changed. However, knowing it in advance makes easier for me to see a bigger picture both financially and practically, also enable me to plan something different or time consuming (new idea, new practice etc). 

4. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries!

Setting boundaries is a MUST HAVE skill. Oh, I’ve learnt hard way! (ha ha ha) Here are some examples with comparison to what I used to do without boundaries. 

  • You don’t have to reply to all Email. You are not obliged to do so. (and I used to do so)
  • You don’t have to do the task right now just because it came urgent. YOU decide which one is urgent. (and I used to panic and do it all once.) 
  • You don’t have to stick your head up in every single places that you feel you’d better do. Just because you feel, you don’t have to. (and yes, I used to stretch too much!) 
  • You don’t have to follow advice for what works for others. Even from someone who you admire. Their time management, frequency to send newsletter etc are theirs. You need to define yours to suit your capacity. 

I think boundaries come with understanding your priority. Your priority is yours, not theirs. Boundaries can be set for pretty much everything. Email enquiries, communication with your client, social media platform, phone calls, friendship, extended family circle, school activity volunteer, I mean everything. Of course, you want to be flexible and sometimes required to be so, but making the boundary blur often leads to unwanted stress or even a danger in my experience. 

5. Learn to say NO without feeling guilty

Alongside with setting boundaries, it is also crucial to learn how to say no. AND not to feel guilty about it! I used to find this one so hard, and guess many of you might be the same. Because in general, we want to be nice to people, right? But in fact, the more you learn to say no, the smoother and easier your business can be run. And remember, saying no doesn’t make you a bad person!

My example can be, saying no to S.O.R. (sale or return) clients. I mean, unless you have plenty of time to make work, you spent your ‘limited’ time making for practically ‘renting’ your work and waiting to be paid later. This does not sustain my business. So I have declined most of SOR now, apart from some existing clients who have sold quickly or exhibition (because it’s temporary). On my first year, I took too many SOR, because I was hesitant to say no. Now I have set target with clear numbers for existing SOR, so come September I will be reviewing and withdrawing those who didn’t meet my target by then.

Also for trades and any other collaboration enquiries, I have set another measurement on who I would like to work with, such as diversity and inclusion. If my value does not meet with their approach, why should I work with them to meet their need? The requirement need to be met in as equal measurement as possible. Weighing too much on one side is not workable for me.

6. Listen to your body

Call for action for all hardworking people. Listen to your body. Full stop.

7. Ask for help

If you can outsource help in your business and that is your wish, that could be a solution. In my case, I like working myself in my studio, and checking what I do, at least for now. So outsourcing within my business is not what I am currently looking for. But instead, I look for where I can off load my tasks outside of my business. 

I am fortunate that my husband is a calm, grounded and more relaxed person. (basically nothing like me!) He holds a space for me to express overwhelms and stress. Nevertheless asking for help wasn’t always easy for me, especially when you are not a breadwinner. But to maintain a healthy relationship, being honest to each other is most important, whether you earn less or not. So I tell him what I find difficult or struggling with and what might be helpful for him to do instead of me doing, be it house chores or parenting chores etc. For instance, he is good at ironing and mending, so that is now his tasks. I cook weekdays, he cooks weekend. Some nights he does bed time routine so that I can work evening. This year he started to work at home once a week, so that day I get a little extension of my studio time, whilst he does school run. All these sharing daily tasks is an enormous help to keep me going. 

We also involves our daughter to help out our daily routine, such as bringing dishes to/from table, hanging and folding washing etc. She gets to learn life skills, so it’s a win win! 

By the way, I’d strongly recommend “The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)” by Philippa Perry. The book is about parenting, but lots of useful information about relationship in there. Her approach of focusing on repair than rapture on communication is simply wonderful and wise. If you would like to be able to ask for help, the communication is a key. 

8. Recognise small achievement / Mistakes are learning curve, not a failure

So I’ve talked about accepting what you cannot deal with, lowering your expectation, setting boundaries and saying no, all without feeling guilty. Someone like me will still think, “well, that all sounds like just doing less!” “Have I simply become lazier?”

To tackle that negative thinking habit like I always had, instead I needed to recognise small achievement on each step, if possible daily. Achievement might not be visible or a concrete result. It can be less visible or even still in progress. But recognising that progress and telling myself what I have managed so far gives me a huge positive impact. This positive impact challenges my negative thinking habit and helps me move forward. 

This is easier said than done, I know. I am still a learner. But I believe this will strengthen me in a long run. 

Since April, I have started to take a note of my small achievement. Just in a quick bullet point. In this notebook, I ONLY write positive outcomes. No matter how small they are. By physically writing it by hand, I am taking time for it, reinforcing it and hopefully making this into a habit of self acceptance. 

Here are some examples I wrote:

  • I set boundaries to the clients at BCTF and said no to SOR enquires. 
  • I unsubscribed newsletters that I no longer read.
  • I was much more patient with my daughter today. We planted tomato seeds together, which she enjoyed.
  • I wrote something personal but important on IG story today, for which I received many massages from other women. Knowing this was helpful for others really makes my heart full.
  • I completed a large order to Japan and packed (10 boxes!). Invoice done. Phew! Satisfied!
  • My session with a therapist went well today. Feeling progress and I am happy about.

In addition to that, I always believe making mistakes is an essential part of learning and not entirely a failure. Just to remind you that I have learnt by doing my first year of business ‘quite badly’, so that now I can put these 8 learning tips out here. That itself is a huge achievement for me. 

So that was that. Hope any of these I mentioned was helpful for you. If you have any suggestions that you would like to share, please feel free to do so. 

Thank you for reading. m x 

20 May 2019

Naming DOES matter (my thought on cultural appropriation)

my mum and four year old me standing in front of our home 
on the day of the entry ceremony of nursery. 


On calling out.
The recent feed of @littlecreativefactory, showcasing their new collection called “wabi sabi” that has nothing to do with it, has deeply upset me. I found it irritating and insulting. It followed by @papercutpatterns, presenting non-buttoned top calling “kimono”, which then they’ve amended the name after the apology, whilst they wiped all the discussion, which is another problem in itself.

This is not the first time, not even a small number. Wonky pot called wabi sabi. T-shirts printed random Japanese words that make no sense. I’ve seen them over and over again in the West, well before Instagram. I am sick and tired of seeing people mocking our Japanese culture, whilst they are innocently claimed themselves “inspired by”. And seeing those who continue to voice and call out brands to work better so we can be in the better place, but instead they almost always end up facing the fragility of people who cannot see the problem (or try to ignore it) and having to deal with microaggression, simply makes my blood boil.

Calling out for cultural appropriation is a way to make people aware of that which they cannot see themselves and unfortunately this blindness seems to be happening too often. I can think it is an act of kindness to call out in the hope to create a safe space with no harm. Not acknowledging the harm is dangerous for people on the receiving end. Silence is not kindness. I am more than sad, I am angry and hurt. This blog post is about my honest thoughts on cultural appropriation from the perspective as a Japanese and a maker, and at first and foremost as a human being.


Where is the line?
I must admit I have carried a mixed feeling for some time, when I saw our cultural words were used wrongly. Because I can see their interest. Because I would like more people to get to know our culture. There’s a grey area that we often question how far is ok and not ok. When the grey area get pushed, something worse can happen, and it did as I’ve experienced it.

I am not saying you cannot be inspired by other culture. We all get inspired by something, somewhere, someone. I acknowledge how much Westerners are attracted to Japan. For its mystery. We are often “fantasised”. As I came to study English language in UK, I was inspired too by English language for the communication possibility and seeing the world outside Japan. Of course I understand so well that many people who are interested in learning about foreign country, culture and language. I understand people want to visit or even live in Japan. If you are one of them, good for you. I encourage you. Because that is a start of learning about other culture and people. Through the real living experience and conversation with people of origin. You can’t just get it from the book or screen. What you have fantasised might transcend to a much deeper meaning and understanding than you had before.

However.

Just because you are inspired by Japanese culture or aesthetic, or read some of it, I don’t believe you are entitled to use it in whatever way you want for a mere profit, like naming your products “kimono” or “wabi sabi” that has NOTHING to do with them. Unlike just translating more generic words like ‘flowers’ and ‘stone’ that everybody knows, “kimono” and “wabi sabi”are some of many examples of our cultural words, that have been existing and deeply living only within Japanese people. 

Oh, but, those words are everywhere now. Everyone uses them, so what’s the problem? You may ask. The problem is the fact that everyone is using it so lightly. Everyone is doing it, so everyone think they can do it too. When people in the West take over the foreign cultural words and make them “culturally acceptable” in their white centred term. It’s based on their power to “make it ok” and they propagate such ideas. And it’s done so lightly and no one questions the problem. It happens without respecting the foreign culture, without clear understanding and without considering the significant impact on those on the receiving end. It is offensive. It can lead to a from of racism that was built on such blindness and fragility. And it is worse when this happens a dominant culture - the power holder - appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures. 

For instance, “wabi sabi” is one of the Japanese expressions that we native people find it particularly difficult to articulate, and we hardly use it in our daily life, even though it is rooted deeply within our heart and time passing nature surround us. Whilst native Japanese struggle to express it and rarely use the term, how come Westerners can name as their products with it so easily? Honestly? It is frightening to see 言葉の一人歩き** happens from wilful ignorance.

** 言葉の一人歩き (kotoba no hitori aruki) literally translates as “word walking on its own”. It’s the Japanese expression of the state of misused and misinterpreted information, that has nothing to do with the origin, are spreading selfishly in the society.

When I see our cultural words are used in the West time and time again, more often than not for their money sake, I get this agonising pain in my spine. That pain can be described as my feeling on the bottom line;
Our cultural words are not your trend. Our culture is not your entertainment. 
To me, being inspired is not enough. Because it does not measure the correctness. The correctness will require the level of respect toward the culture of origin and the level of understanding with all nuance and subtlety that won’t offend people from the origin. You cannot judge those levels by yourself.


Defencelessness
Some of you may think or have said in such debate, too sensitive, too politically correct, too over-reacting, or even narrow minded. Do you know how I feel as I write this blog? I feel alone. I may have no back up. I feel totally defenceless. This is because;
Firstly, I am not an educator, an author, a translator, or an expert. I am limited to explain effectively. 
Secondly, because of the language. I have to exhaust my energy to tell people why I think it’s wrong in a foreign language (English). It took me a whole week to rewrite this over and over again and still feels not enough to explain it all. Quite likely so, many native Japanese (including those friends of mine who share their views) cannot communicate in English. Let alone use it for confrontation. 
Thirdly, as you may know, Japanese are a nation of politeness. We are often too polite to confront for the sake of argument. We respect others and make peace within our heart. It is our nature, our social characteristic NOT to put opinion forward. (unfortunately it can be rather a weakness for us.) Then there are people outside who take advantage of it.
So in the end, we are often left watching the world abuse us. And it hurts. Cultural appropriation hurts people. It even triggers my anxiety. 

I feel this hurts more often and more acute lately than when I was living in Japan. This is quite likely my perception has changed a lot since I live in UK. (will talk about this later why) The truth is Japanese people’s reaction can vary. The degree of involvement and the focus on the matter can differ from people to people. As Emi Ito @little_kotos_closet said herself in her dedicated narrative on Kimono, not every native Japanese who live in Japan are concerning about cultural appropriation. But most of the case, they are not even aware of what’s happening in the West, because such debates do not happen in Japan as often as the outside of the country. They are not sunk in racial problem within their daily living in such mono-racial country. 

But it doesn’t mean that you can ignore those who are aware and care. When people point out the lack of respect, those voices are totally valid. In fact those who are telling you it matters and hurts should be the utmost centre of care. I once talked about cultural appropriation in my past IG post, then now prior to this blog post, I have spoken to numbers of Japanese people including; those who live in Japan, those who live outside Japan, those who are biracial and carry Japanese heritage. Those who speak out their hurts are the centre of my attention and who I would like to support. And I really don’t believe anyone have the right to criticise that we (and those who speaks out) are too sensitive.


But what about Japan?
Yes, Japanese people do that too. Japanese people also have the tendency to use foreign words, often ignorantly. If you have travelled the city of Tokyo, you would have probably noticed that there are many shops written in English logo. Every time I go back to Japan and see people wearing clothes with English words that make no sense, I often feel like crawling into a hole with embarrassment. Yes we seem to love using English in such ways, and it’s been happening a lot, especially since more and more Westernised we get. Must not forget the impact from America that effectively occupied Japan after the war and we’ve been significantly influenced by the white ideology. 

It is so apparent that people in Japan lack the awareness on cultural appropriation within such mono-racial society. It’s our weakness in defence. I believe this contributes to the reasons that why we won’t often get involved in the debate. Because how can we whilst we are doing so ourselves? As I said I have discussed with numbers of native Japanese people prior to this blog, and many have expressed this awkwardness. I admit Japanese people need to learn about cultural appropriation individually and collectively. More so makers and brands hold this responsible for impacting consumers, spreading the ignorance in the society, when we are doing incorrectly and naively. 

Though almost having held back my voice with knowing own nation’s awkwardness in defence, I would like to express it from my personal point of view, after living a half of my life in Japan and another half in UK, seeing Japan and the world from this unique position. In my opinion, I still lean on to that there are more weight on the majority and believe that the power is laid on the whiteness in the West. My focus of frustration is the misuse of cultural related words and that seems to be happening more in the West. Or am I completely biased? Is this the view from someone who has experienced racism (as I wrote here) in the white society? Is this because I am constantly questioning my identity? The more I see Japan from outside, the more I would like to protect my origin of culture, and the eagerer I am to pass down the true cultural influence to next generation, including my daughter. Is it wrong to wish to protect the culture of your origin? Is this desire relatable to anyone?

The difference is that whist Japanese people live in Japan might withhold their voice in order to avoid confrontation or necessity, because they never experienced the trauma, that Japanese people outside of Japan might have had. And my ultimate bottom line - “Our cultural words are not your trend. Our culture is not your entertainment.” - have to be centred to those who are in the minority, who are are hurt and distressed by it. We have to be very mindful about that. 


We all make mistakes
I name all of my pottery collection in Japanese. I know exactly what the name means. I can explain clearly why it is called that way and what idea goes behind it. If you are my customers, you know I do so clearly whenever I was asked. Some design of my work are inspired by my lived experience of non-Japanese element, but I still name it within my clear knowledge. I certainly don’t want to offend anyone from any foreign culture by using their words to name my work just for the sake of it. Because simply there is no reasons for me to do so. 

If you are makers of any products, be it a brand or small business (including myself), you have a responsibility to do it correctly, because you have the influence, be it small or large, to your customers and society, and more so if you are using the online world. If causing harm, whether it was intentional or not, you have to own the mistake and do better.

Ideally you do it right from the start, but unfortunately it is often not the case. We all make mistakes. The important part is to recognise the mistake, accept it, amend it accordingly and do better in the future. You tell that to your kids and you know that yourself, right? Please do not look away, ignore those who took time to call out, or offend them for worse. Please take your accountability to deal with the mistake. This is why having such conversation might be painful but so important as it is the work which is toward a healthy direction. Avoiding conversation is more harmful.


On your naming and your responsibility 
As I said before, it is maker’s and brand’s responsibility to do it correctly. To emphasise that, if you are one of them, you can ask yourself question; 
Why do you want to name (or have already named) your selling products with a foreign cultural word? 
Is it because it’s trendy? sounds cool? sounds better? catchy? sellable? inspired by? read a white American said it means ‘imperfect’? google translation said so and sounds about right? looks ‘kimono-enough’ to you? nobody in Japan offended you? your Japanese friend said ok so you felt you got a 'pass'?
Then please question further. 
Do you really think they are enough reasons to take advantage of our cultural words? Can you confidently explain to your customers? Have you involved people from the culture? How much consultation is enough? Who can pass it? Who gets to say ok? Have you ever thought of people who might be hurt from your products name? How are you going to respond to them?

Ultimately, does it really need to be called that?

How far is ok or not ok might be down to the correctness. That might be measured by the level of respect that was shown to the culture of the origin, and the level of understanding. This validation can be quite different from the people in the culture living within to those who living outside, even though both are genuinely native to the origin. (as I explained previously) Well if you cannot measure it, then you cannot draw a line. Will this be forever blur?

Let me insert an example of exception here.

Once I met an Australian potter called Euan Craig, (written a post here) who lives and works in Japan over 25 years now. Euan is drawn to the Japanese “mingei" influence and the philosophy learnt directly from his early career through apprenticeship to one of Japanese National Treasure. He has been creating his beautifully hand crafted pottery art to date. He is one of those people I call, “日本人より日本人らしい” (nihon-jin yori nihon-jin rashii), translated as “more Japanese than Japanese”. He speaks fluent Japanese, dedicated the study of Japan and understands the culture to the subtlety and nuance we express. His respect is seen within his conversation. His humbleness is mirrored his work. He is someone I would probably never offend if he ever name his work, say “wabi sabi”. I wouldn’t call that cultural appropriation. Because the level of respect and understanding is so apparent to me.

Yet, the truth is, he wouldn’t do it. Why would he? He deeply knows that such words should not be abused from the first place.

Is that too extreme?

If you are truly inspired by the foreign culture, then you can pay the respect by finding the other way that people from the culture can feel appreciated, NOT appropriated. You are the power holder. Use your privilege to lift them up.
Our cultural words are not your trend. Our culture is not your entertainment. 
If you want to name your selling products with a foreign word, think again. Naming DOES matter. Please don’t take it lightly. 

I am summing up with the beautiful expression by @maiko.hikosaka;
“If you have enough creativity, respect and dignity as a human being, you surely won’t need to culturally appropriate and make a living off of it.”


Ending note
Some of you might know that I have contributed to the recent book “wabi sabi” by British author Beth Kempton. In case you may see this as a contradiction to what I said, I would like to add this as an ending note.

To be frankly honest, when Beth first approached me, I told her that I am anxious about it, because I knew it would be very difficult for me to explain. She well knew that too, because of her life long dedication to experience, to connect and to study Japan and Japanese language. Like I said I am happy for people who want to learn about our culture (or any other country for that matter). I am not against the curiosity and enthusiasm. However, I am not an educator nor author who might be able to explain this all in English effectively. This is where she might be beneficial for many.

The difference is that she has indeed involved and communicated many native Japanese people over decades and prior to the book (including myself) and have put them forward. She has said herself in the book that it is hard to define the word of wabi sabi and used the term of “what she comes to understand” instead. None of these are one line sentence, or absolute definition. It’s a lengthy research that was challenged the misconception and impact have been left in the West by another author. (or google translation for that matter) If anyone can do so quickly, such a book won’t be needed. As she told me herself, her interpretation is still based in a Western upbringing, as an outsider with a keen interest, but feels confident enough to have dug deep from her years of dedication. The way she encouraged the readers was respectfully managed, sharing her hope on how people can learn from the Japanese wisdom and philosophy that might be able to apply into your mind and personal development, possibly to help them as a life lesson. It is written to encourage people to explore more about it but it certainly does not encourage to abuse it.

I guess how readers would take further would depend on individuals - how much respect and care to be taken on their action.




Addendum

In order to clarify, I would like to add and emphasise that there are many people who enrich Japanese culture being of non-Japanese heritage. Like Euan and Beth I mentioned here, there are many other people who are immersing themselves in an adopted culture through their long term dedication of study, craftsmanship, living experiences with deeper understanding and respect. They are the people who may be able to bridge the gap between Japanese cultures and the world, who may be able to help others to understand us better, and also enlighten the wider world, that we Japanese people might not be able to do by ourselves. 

If you are truly inspired by the Japanese culture (or any culture for that matter), I hope you will continue to explore your learning. You never know where you may end up. 

Please remember you can learn and celebrate other culture, by appreciating, NOT appropriating.


Thank you so much for reading.


*please note that the writer has reviewed this post and written a reflection post in 2022. You can visit it in her new website here