일본의 미니멀리즘 문화: 소형화와 휴대성 수용

### 미니멀리즘을 수용하다: 일본인의 작은 것에 대한 사랑 이해하기
* 🇯🇵 JET 프로그램을 위해 일본으로 건너가기 전, 저자는 **같은 음료의 두 가지 크기를 같은 가격**에 판매하는 자판기에서 일본 문화가 작고 단순함을 중시한다는 것을 배웠습니다.
* 🛒 도착하자마자 저자는 **저렴한 팩 대신 버섯 한 개**를 구매하는 사람들, **더 큰 옵션이 있음에도 불구하고 작은 아파트**를 선택하는 전 여자친구 등 일상 생활에서 이러한 선호도를 관찰할 수 있었습니다.
* 📷 저자는 파나소닉 S9 카메라에 대한 **서양 리뷰어들은 그 크기를 비판**한 반면 **일본 소비자들은 이를 받아들여 일본에서의 성공**을 이끌어내는 등 서로 다른 반응을 보였습니다.
* 🌍 저자는 지진과 쓰나미와 같은 일본의 잦은 자연재해가 **작고 관리하기 쉬운 소유물**을 선호하는 문화에 영향을 미친다고 추측합니다.
* 🏙 일본의 지리적 특성상 대부분의 인구가 평평한 지역에 집중되어 있어 **공간이 부족**하고 넓은 주거 공간에 대한 선택의 폭이 제한되어 있습니다.
* 📚 코노 CH의 '통졸리'와 같은 역사 문헌은 이러한 사고방식을 반영하여 **재해로 인해 손실될 수 있는 크고 무거운 재산을 축적하지 말라**고 주장합니다.
* 🐟 저자는 동물이 환경에 적응하는 것처럼 일본 문화도 미니멀리즘과 휴대성을 우선시하는 방향으로 진화하여 과함보다는 **'딱 적당함'**을 선호하게 되었다고 말합니다.
* 🎮 궁극적으로 이러한 작은 것에 대한 문화적 성향은 자연의 예측 불가능성에 직면하여 **잉여가 종종 더 큰 위험과 손실과 동일시되는 역사적 맥락**에서 비롯됩니다.

일본은 역사적인 자연재해와 높은 공간 프리미엄으로 인해 작고 휴대성을 중시하는 미니멀리즘을 수용하고 있습니다.

Before moving to Japan to teach English on the JET program, I took an introduction to Japanese culture class in which the teacher shared an anecdote with us. He said that Japanese people love less; they love small things. I don't know why, but they just do. And he said that this was best exemplified by this paradoxical experience he had in which he came across a vending machine in rural Japan that sold two drinks, one large, one small, same drink, same price. And when I heard that, I just thought, What? There's no way that's true because who in their right mind would pay the same for less? But when I came to Japan, I witnessed this firsthand. I'd go to my supermarket and see people buying packs of one tiny mushroom when packs of two were just as cheap. An ex-girlfriend of mine purposely chose to live in a small apartment when there were others in the area that were in the same price point but significantly larger. I said, Why don't you move into one of these larger places? Wouldn't that

be more comfortable, and her response was just, and I simply couldn't understand this. I kept going back to why pay the same for less. Wouldn't it be better to have more space just in case? But I never really got an answer that made sense to me, so I kind of just chalked it up to Japanese weirdness and more or less stopped thinking about it. But this question popped back into my mind again fairly recently with the announcement of a new camera. You see, a couple of months ago, my buddy Harris Heller, he swung by BEO to hang out, and when he did, he had a Panasonic S9 with him. It's this new Panasonic camera that they had given him to reveal, and when I saw it, I thought, Hey, that's a pretty cool camera. Let's see what all the reviewers have to say about it when the embargo lifts. Well, the reviews dropped, and something very interesting happened. The comments on the English reviews of the camera and the comments on the Japanese reviews of the camera were markedly different. The West

seemed to say that Panasonic had cut too many corners in the pursuit of making a smaller camera. Some even went as far as to say that given the current camera market, no one in their right mind would buy such a product. And the sentiment in the Japanese comments was, and two weeks later, while people in the West continued to attack Panasonic for making such a pointless device, the S9 went on to become the second best-selling camera in Japan, forcing Panasonic to issue an apology for not being able to ship units quickly enough. So why? What's with the love of less, the love of the small in Japan? In my recent video on the non-AI mega thrust earthquakes, I talked about how Japan's culture of hard work and cooperation may have evolved as a sort of survival mechanism, that the reason Japanese people do so much overtime and are so concerned about not upsetting the peace is because hard work, caution, and cooperation were necessary in an environment in which a cataclysmic earthquake or tsunami could hit at any

time the thing is I think that these natural disasters are also directly responsible for at least part of Japan's love of the small. I think that it's been the earthquakes, the tsunami, the typhoon, and the fires that have led to this culture of kawaii you see. In response to that earthquake video I recently made, there was a fair number of people that said if these tsunamis are so destructive and so common, then why don't Japanese people just move? Why don't they go to a coast that doesn't have as many earthquakes, or why don't they just move more inland? And this is because, to begin with, there aren't any safe coasts. Again, the 2011 earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in Japanese history, that didn't occur along that southern coast of Honshu where all the non-Kai Mega thrust earthquakes happen. It occurred along the country's eastern coast, and the most powerful destructive earthquake that's happened since then was earlier this year. That was the NTO earthquake that happened along the country's

northern coast, and to answer the other question: why don't Japanese people just move more inland? This is because that land simply doesn't exist. Take a look at this topographic map of Japan. Now, I would wager that even people who aren't familiar with Japanese geography can accurately guess, based on this map, where all of the major cities are. That's right: here, here, and here. It's no coincidence that the majority of Japan's population has gathered in a few select places. They're the only places flat enough to actually build cities with both robust transportation infrastructure and a sea port to facilitate trade. All the people are in the flat areas because that's where the productive farmland is. That's where you can build the big factories and the car plants, etc., etc. You want to move the 60, 70, 80 million people from the few flat areas up into the mountains? Yeah, it might be possible, but it's not practical. It's going to bring the country's productivity to zero. This is one of the reasons they keep building

reclaimed Islands here why ult almost speculated in Akida that Neo Tokyo would be built on top of Tokyo bay because all the good land has already been used up so despite how crazy it may seem in many instances it's actually easier and far more convenient to expand Into The Ocean than it is to build up into the mountains right but what does this have to do with Japan's love of the small everything one because as we've just demonstrated the premium for space in Japan is so much higher than it is in a place like the United States and two because even if you're lucky enough to live in one of the nicer areas historically speaking owning more and bigger and heavier things has always meant getting hit harder when disaster inevitably Struck it may seem like I'm connecting unrelated Dots here but this is actually taught through literature and historical essays in Japanese schools there's a famous author Kono CH whose book the whole joli is actually required reading in the public Japanese

school curriculum and the whole joli is essentially the author's account of packing up and abandoning a privileged life to live in a 10t by 10t empty portable home after experiencing in a bunch of earthquakes, fires, and typhoons. CH basically came to the conclusion, what's the point of spending all this money on these big expensive things that will only weigh me down and could disappear at a moment's notice in the next natural disaster. He writes, all human Endeavors are foolish, but spending one's fortune and troubling one's mind to build a house in such a dangerous capital is particularly vain. You know, it's funny, we often talk about how interesting it is that certain animals will grow to match the size of their environments. Goldfish, for example, if you keep them in a small tank, they'll stay small, but if you put them in a big lake, they can become enormous. But I actually think that humans are the same. If you look at House tours for famous people that live in the United States

for example, you often see that they have three or four, maybe sometimes five or six extra rooms, extra bedrooms or bathrooms, that will likely never use, but they get them because they have the luxury of being able to flex. Again, this is why I think that Japan loves the small, the portable, the Kawaii, the Walkman, the Game Boy, the PSP. I think that generations and generations of people living through unimaginable earthquakes and catastrophic tsunamis and fires and typhoons in a place where there's such a high premium on space has led to this culture that asks, What can I throw away? How can I get rid of some more dead weight? What features can I take out to make this a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter? A culture that says, A bigger apartment? Yeah, bits night, and would rather have a Nintendo Switch than a gaming PC, and a small camera that eventually overheats over a big one that can shoot forever. A culture that says, Just enough is better than a cumbersome surplus, because in Japan, a cumbersome surplus has always meant more.

Why Japan Loves Small Things

Dogen

작은 것에 대한 일본인의 선호도

일본 시골의 자판기에서 같은 음료를 같은 가격에 다른 크기로 판매하는 것에서 알 수 있듯이 일본 문화는 작은 것을 소중히 여깁니다.

이러한 선호는 버섯 하나를 사거나 작은 아파트에 사는 것과 같은 일상적인 선택에도 반영됩니다.

처음에는 이러한 사고방식에 혼란스러워하던 화자는 새 카메라에 대한 영어와 일본어 리뷰의 대조적인 댓글에서 비슷한 패턴을 발견했습니다.

작은 것에 대한 일본의 사랑: 자연재해에 대한 문화적 대응

파나소닉은 작은 카메라에 대한 비판에 직면했지만, 일본에서 두 번째로 많이 팔린 카메라가 되어 배송 지연에 대한 사과를 하기도 했습니다.

자연재해의 위협으로 인한 일본의 근면과 협력의 문화가 작은 것에 대한 일본인의 감사하는 마음을 키우는 데 기여했을 수 있습니다.

빈번하고 파괴적인 지진, 쓰나미 및 기타 재해로 인해 사람들이 안전한 해안을 찾거나 내륙으로 이동하기 어려워지면서 독특한 문화적 대응이 생겨났습니다.

일본의 인구 분포와 작은 공간에 대한 사랑

일본의 인구는 도시와 인프라를 건설하기에 적합한 몇 개의 평지에 집중되어 있습니다.

일본의 지형상 내륙으로 사람들을 이주시키는 것은 비현실적이기 때문에 매립지 개발과 바다로의 확장으로 이어졌습니다.

공간에 대한 높은 프리미엄과 재해의 역사적 영향은 작은 소유물에 대한 일본의 문화적 선호에 기여했습니다.

미니멀리즘을 향한 저자의 여정

저자는 여러 차례 자연 재해를 겪은 후 10x10 크기의 이동식 주택을 위해 특권적인 삶을 포기한 이야기를 들려줍니다.

이러한 관점의 전환은 삶의 예측 불가능성 앞에서 값비싼 재산을 축적하는 것이 부질없다는 깨달음으로 이어집니다.

저자는 인간 행동과 일본 문화에 대한 관찰을 통해 과잉과 불필요한 무게를 줄이려는 욕구로 인해 작고 휴대가 간편한 미니멀리즘 생활에 대한 선호를 강조합니다.

패배는 인간관계, 경쟁, 개인적인 목표 등 다양한 상황에서 일어날 수 있는 자연스러운 삶의 일부입니다.

패배는 종종 실망감, 슬픔, 좌절감으로 이어지기도 합니다.

하지만 패배는 성장과 회복을 위한 소중한 교훈과 기회를 제공하기도 합니다.