Japan

The second one is for a brand to capitalize on the culture of social responsibility. Japanese have a great expression, kuuki wo yomu, which translates as “reading the atmosphere.” Products, brands, and ideas are more likely to succeed if consumers are already susceptible to them and are easily persuaded to invest their time and money in them.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us the universe. A part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons

Was it when you got fat, or bald, or got bad plastic surgery that couldn’t disguise the fact that you were fat and bald?

anything could mean anything; an author’s intent did not matter, could not in fact be discerned; there was no such thing as an obvious or commonsense reading, because everything had an infinitude of meanings. In short, there was no such thing as truth.

I break off a piece to try. It doesn’t taste at all like castella. This is glutinous and tough, like rubber. What did I do wrong? I can’t understand it. I thought I followed the recipe exactly. While chewing on an overly sweet horrible lump, it suddenly strikes me as funny and I fall about laughing. I’m not devastated; if anything I feel good.

mono no aware, a wistful pathos at the transience of things, the kind of poignant sadness that deepens an experience instead of detracting from it. The kind you feel once you’re no longer grasping at the moment, thereby undermining your experience of it, but stepping more fully into it. Feeling yourself a part of it. Being it.

Eiko had never visited the Minaguchi-ya, but he had read an ancient book, by a gaijin from the old American States named Oliver Statler. The book had detailed the Minaguchi-ya: every room of the place, over all the generations of its operation.

Exactly. In the act of praise, there is the aspect of it being ‘the passing of judgement by a person of ability on a person of no ability’. A mother praises her child who has helped her prepare dinner, saying, ‘You’re such a good helper!’ But when her husband does the same things, you can be sure she won’t be telling him, ‘You’re such a good