After more than fifteen years, our rice cooker finally broke.
It had cooked rice for our family almost every day. It was an important part of our home.
We decided to throw it away. Before I did, I wiped it clean.
When my child saw the shiny rice cooker, they asked,
“Oh, Mum, are we going to use this again?”
“No. It’s broken, so I’m throwing it away.”
“Then why are you cleaning it? Nobody will use it anymore.”
The question surprised me a little.
Why was I cleaning it?
It could no longer do its job. And yet, simply throwing it away as it was felt somehow wrong. I wanted to thank it for all those years, clean it one last time, and then let it go.
Then I remembered other moments. When I broke a rice bowl and had to put it in the bin, I would quietly say “thank you” in my heart. Sometimes I even wrapped it in paper or a bag first.
In Japan, there are old customs for saying goodbye to tools. In fude-kuyō （筆供養）, people give thanks for old, worn-out writing brushes. A fudezuka （筆塚） is a small stone monument where such brushes are laid to rest.
In hari-kuyō （針供養）, people give thanks for sewing needles that have broken or bent.
Kuyō （供養） is a small ritual of thanks and respect.
These tools are not simply thrown away as rubbish. They are sent off with gratitude, as things that once supported someone’s daily life.
Of course, I don’t mean that this feeling exists only in Japan.
But when my child asked, “Why are you cleaning it?”, I realised that this feeling was still inside me. It was so natural that I had never noticed it.
I was born and raised in Japan, but I have lived in the UK for nearly twenty years. I live in a British house. My daily life is here. I gave birth to my children and have raised them in this country.
The way I live has changed a lot.
In Japan, I used to take a bath every day. Now I usually just take a shower.
Cooking in the oven, something I rarely did in Japan, has become normal for me.
When I walk into a shop and nobody says irasshaimase (“welcome”), it no longer feels strange.
From the outside, my house looks nothing like a Japanese home.
There are no tatami mats.
I don’t sleep on a futon on the floor.
And of course, I don’t wear a kimono every day.
But when I think about it, the same may be true for people living in Japan today.
Many people in Japan now sleep in beds, sit on sofas and wear Western clothes.
If you only look at the surface, modern life in Japan is quite different from the “traditional Japanese life” people often imagine.
If that is true, perhaps a life does not need to look Japanese to keep something Japanese inside it.
I have certainly become someone who lives in Britain.
But from time to time, a part of Japan I wasn’t even aware of quietly appears.
I have plenty of favourite mugs. But when I drink Japanese tea, I still want to make it in a kyūsu, a small Japanese teapot, and drink it from a yunomi teacup.
I hardly ever use my brush pen, but somehow I can’t let it go. I love the soft feeling of a brush touching paper.
I notice the first flowers of spring. I feel the season changing in the autumn sky and in the colour of the leaves.
And when I say goodbye to something I have used for a long time, I want to say thank you.
Maybe what makes a life Japanese is not being surrounded by Japanese things.
Maybe it lives in small gestures like these, and in the way we see the world.
So if you love Japan and want to feel it more deeply, you don’t have to turn your whole life into a Japanese-style one.
Something you receive from Japan can quietly become part of the life you already have.
It can be a single bowl.
A cup of tea.
A way of noticing the seasons.
From a small starting point like this, Japan can become part of your everyday life.
And little by little, it can gently change how your everyday life feels.
That is the thought behind the name Japan in Small Ways.
Asuka