Mottainai: Purely Japanese?

Before I begin this entry, I would like to note that this is not an anti-Japanese Op/Ed by any means, but rather an examination of a concept that is overly repeated in Japanese society. This story matches quite well with a joke Michael Green, the Japan Chair of CSIS in DC told at a conference.

Three men, an American man, French man, and a Japanese man were asked to write a book about elephants. A year later, the American comes back with a book entitled, "How to Make Money Off Elephants with No Money Down and No Interest." The Frenchman's book was entitled, "How Elephants Make Love." The Japanese man's book was entitled, "What Elephants Think about the Japanese."

In the Japanese language and society, there is a word, mottainai, which roughly translates into the word waste in English. I say roughly translate because waste does not exactly equal this concept.

When Japanese people are young, just like most Americans, their parents make them eat every last bite of food on their plate. In Japan, the parents say that not doing so is mottainai. In America, people of my generation were told that they should eat their food because there were starving children in Africa and China (nobody would include China today...). The meaning of both stories is, "don't waste food."

This concept translates into other aspects of life in Japanese culture whether it is turning off the water when brushing your teeth or turning off the lights when you leave a room. If this sounds familiar to you, then you understand why I question whether this concept is purely Japanese. Our grandparents who lived during the depression reuse paper plates. When I say this to Japanese people, they respond by saying, "yeah, but do you have a single word for it like mottainai?" My response is, "do we need one?"

Upon a closer examination of Japanese lifestyle, there is nothing to be proud about as far as conservation. I don't have statistics, but their per/capita waste is right up with Americans and the rest of the Western "developed" world. That fact is true even though they use a lot of nuclear power which cuts down on CO2 emissions.

However, they have a fascination with individually packaged things. I bought marshmallows that were individually wrapped. When you go out to eat Japanese fastfood, you use disposable wooden chopsticks called waribashi. You walk down a block and you are likely to pass 2-3 convenience stores each stacked with food that will be thrown out at the end of the day. My Japanese development teacher here at school reminds students about that fact. Japan throws out enough food from convenience stores alone that could feed countless people. It's just the same as how bagel shops in the U.S. throw out all the unsold bagels after business hours...

I am not here to criticize Japan and its wasteful practices because, as an American, it would simply be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It is also true that they have this universal concept wrapped up in one word.

Still, I think it is better to lead by action and not by word. It doesn't matter if you have 10 different words for snow if snow doesn't fall, so does it matter if you have a word for conservation when you don't conserve?

My hope for the next few years is that this latest financial crisis will lead to a new sense of what it means to conserve; that Americans, Japanese, and all of the developed world alike learn the value of each grain of rice or breadcrumb. Global warming and feeding the hungry go hand and hand in this regard. I hope we are able to make headways into each problem through conservation.

This video was a commercial that aired on MTV this year. They made a bad choice in songs (All I Need by Radiohead has nothing to do with child labor!!!), but the commercial is nonetheless touching.