‘Kodawari’ or an Attempt to Reach Perfection: A Quick Read about Japanese Professionalism
2014–2015 was the only year in my life during which I only had access to one TV channel on my dorm room’s television: NHK World TV from Japan. It was and still is the only official English language television channel aiming at telling the world everything that was great about Japan.
Growing up with Japanese graphic novels (manga), it didn’t take long for me to acquaint myself with the NHK World TV. Within a month, it became the source of my binge-watching habit.
My favorite show was The Professionals, a one-hour documentary series focusing on Japan’s best professionals from various fields. Little did I know that, boy, when it comes to professionalism, no one can really go all above and beyond like the Japanese. As for me, I once thought that being a professional is simply to have a stable “paid job.” In Japan, however, being professional is to be truly passionate about what you do no matter what work it is. You can be a professional grocer, farmer, bartender, coffee barista, dancer, the noodle stall owner, street performer, and so on.
Here is the key: Undergirding this professionalism among the Japanese is the concept of kodawari (こだわり) roughly translated to the “obsession, fixation, hangup, determination, fastidiousness, pickiness about something.”
Some translate it as “an attempt to arrive at perfection.”
Japan has always been a nation where many professions easily find their places in society no matter how niche-oriented what they do are. The anthropologist Merry White, in her book Coffee Life in Japan, translates it as “the kind of passion that is almost bordering on obsession.”
In the book, the coffee baristas were the embodiment of the very core spirit of kodawari — they’re attentive, critical, and ritualistic, about what they do. They treat every cup of coffee as if it is a work of art. From operating the intricate siphon coffee machine to the ultimate details of the art on a cafe latte, these baristas poured their heart and soul into making the “near-perfect” cup of joe for the customers. Anyone who could feel the very core spirit of kodawari could also feel the sensationally embedded in the taste of the coffee.
What makes Japan an interesting country, at least for me, is precisely this kind of respect for professionalism. In Japan, professionals from all walks of life are respected for the expertise and for the quality of the products or services that they deliver.
Japanese appreciation for professionalism not only makes these professionals wanting to continue to develop themselves, and pass on their expertise to the next generation, but also make young people want to become professionals — precisely because they know that there is always room for growth. This mentality helps to proliferate both professionalism and small businesses. You don’t have to have a large sum of capital to pursue what you love. It’s the love and passion (and perhaps some sense of economic feasibility) that make one stand out in the battle between professionals who want to deliver products and services which belong to the best of their class.
In one of my favorite episodes of The Professionals, Japan’s most respected greengrocer Teruaki Sugimoto showed us his passion for selling vegetables. He’s known by everyone in his profession as “the greengrocer who knows more than anyone in Japan about delicious produce.”
In the Kita-Senju Neighbourhood of Tokyo where more and more people are turning away from the local grocers and toward convenient stores to buy mass-produce vegetables and fruits, the 67-year-old Sugimoto was still all about handpicked, artisanal, and high-quality vegetables that he personally inspects, bids, and buys from the wholesales market by himself. To outsiders, he may look like a stubborn old man who has devoted his life to vegetables; but, to his customers, Sugimoto’s passion for selling vegetables lies beyond his interest in making money. He wants to be on top of his game, which, as he defines, is to serve his loyal and new customers with the highest quality vegetables, as well as in helping the farmers, without whom he wouldn’t be able to do what he does.
“Always protect the farmers,” is his motto. In a way, he’s a merchant — a middleman — who doesn’t produce anything. All he does is just to profit from the farmers whose sweat and blood turn into products for him to sell. So, he’s grateful for being fortunate enough to be doing what he is doing; hence, he believes that it’s important to protect the farmers whose hard labour is the bloodline of his family’s career for a generation. The blurb on The Professionals’ site summarizes it all:
The approach that sums up Sugimoto’s way of doing business is “always play offence.” And rather than buying everything at wholesale markets, he has developed his own channels for procuring select produce. Sugimoto says, “There are still many delicious things that people haven’t tried. I have to get out there and promote them. That’s what a greengrocer should do.”
Sugimoto concludes at the end of the short documentary that, to him, to be a professional is “to not to rely only on the past achievements but to strive to be better and better every day.”
The story of Teruaki Sugimoto in The Professionals got me thinking about what it means, personally, to be a professional. Professionalism is, in some ways, about duty, but on the other hand, what it is really about is how life could be given meanings.
First, kodawari teaches us about the benefits of being content with life, which may be the only things that life needs. Second, being true to what you believe is to be true to the very essence of what you do always put you in the flow and give some meaning to an otherwise reckless life.
