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I’m curious if handcrafting artisans like this exist in North America/Europe at anywhere near the same scale (and we only see stories from Japan as we view it a

I’m curious if handcrafting artisans like this exist in North America/Europe at anywhere near the same scale (and we only see stories from Japan as we view it as something their culture does) or whether this is a uniquely Japanese thing to do. Perhaps we just value it less here in North America. All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted products seem to come out of Japan.

deleted 3y ago
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Alex3917 3y ago
> Perhaps we just value it less here in North America. The reason we have less stuff like this in the USA is due to geography. We are a mostly flat country, rather than being mountainous or separated onto different small islands. Because of this, products produced via economies of scale can outcompete higher-quality artisanal products.
- swexbe 3y ago
  Except, shipping by boat has been more cost effective since the beginning of history. The furthest you can get from the ocean in Japan is like a full days walk.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > shipping by boat has been more cost effective since the beginning of history I've read that before the Transcontinental Railroad, it was cheaper and faster to get to San Francisco from a port in China than from St. Louis.
    - badpun 3y ago
      Similarly, people who wanted to join the 1849 San Francisco gold rush, but were on the East Coast, took boats which sailed all the way around South America to reach SF the fastest.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Well, unless it involved going around the horn. Time costs something too?
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  > We are a mostly flat country Eh? The US is the opposite of "mostly flat". And large swaths of the mostly flat part have low population density. The country is also very regional with considerable local diversity in what is produced and available locally. The US produces a lot of very local artisanal products throughout the country that don't travel very far that are based on local tradition and history. That's been true everywhere I've lived in the US.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > The US is the opposite of "mostly flat". And large swaths of the mostly flat part have low population density. Eh? Most of the population lives in the Atlantic coastal, Gulf coastal, and Midwest plains. Only a minority of Americans live in places that could be considered "mostly mountainous", methinks. Even Denver, the most populous city in (arguably) the most mountainous state, is actually a Great Plains city.
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    The big flat areas have low population density BECAUSE of all economy of scale farming. Look at California: You've got 4 metropolitan areas, 2 of which (the Bay Area and Los Angeles) are in coastal areas that have geographically convenient access to the big flat area with farms, one (San Diego) in a big flat desert, and one on the river in the big flat area (Sacramento). Chicago's surrounding areas are flat farmland. Portland and Seattle likewise have river access to their state's big flat areas. What's between the Rockies and Appalachia? Big flat farms.
hindsightbias 3y ago
There are many vinyards that have small batch varieties, they just don’t invite the commoners. There was a story recently about Coppola. His property has something like ~70 soil type/grape combinations and he has more money than god, so he decided to buy fermenters for every combination and see what happens.
randomcarbloke 3y ago
there are thousands of examples of this outside of Japan, there are small chateaux whose stock will never even see a market because it is promised to friends, family, a circle of trade customers, and some insiders, the venn diagram of which is probably not far off a wonky circle.
deleted 3y ago
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dfxm12 3y ago
Perhaps we just value it less here in North America. I can't speak for Canada or Mexico, but due to so many benefits being tied to full time employment in the US and a general lack of any kind of social safety net, you have to already be independently wealthy or willing to be a starving artist to do something like that - invest a lot of time into learning a craft that probably won't payoff for decades (if at all). All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted products seem to come out of Japan. In general, I do think the west fetishizes this aspect of Japan's culture and thus overreports it. That said, many people around the world still do this. I suggest not relying on stories so much to understand the world around you.
- Tiktaalik 3y ago
  > due to so many benefits being tied to full time employment in the US and a general lack of any kind of social safety net, you have to already be independently wealthy or willing to be a starving artist to do something like that Something that is kind of wild about the USA is that for as much as the culture seems to value entrepeneurship, the political and economic system is designed to stifle it and discourage people from starting businesses.
  - dfxm12 3y ago
    It's just dishonesty from politicians. You'll see legislation passed under the guise helping "family farms", but in reality, these subsidies help big ag and hurt the smaller operations: https://www.johnlocke.org/farming-subsidies-disproportionately-hurt-small-farms https://www.johnlocke.org/farming-subsidies-disproportionate... I'm sure it's similar across sectors. Tech startups are what they are thanks to private venture capital.
bamboozled 3y ago
Japanese culture seems to emphasize the experience of "doing" a lot more than the west. This attitude surely stems from Zen Buddhist ideas. For example, in the west, there is a commonly shared fantasy that automating away work will lead to happiness, having the robots doing it all is Nirvana; However, e all know deep down inside we'd still need something to do, we'd have to create some purpose or some object for ourselves. I bet most people would be outside growing food and playing in the garden with their kids if they didn't have to work. Many people in Japan actually do this, there is a LOT of small scale farming in Japan, they do not really share the same farming practices we do in the west. Step out side Tokyo and this is immediately obvious, almost everyone is growing something. It's much more small scale and often has more human involvement. I think Japan is culturally more suited to accepting the fact that life can be toil and toil is good, it is what there is. I'm definitely not trying to say Japan is better, or all Japanese people are like this, just there is cultural roots which make some of these practices more suited to life in Japan than it would in other cultures.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  It also helps that Japan generally lacks the flat land that makes ultra mechanized farming impossible, and high food import tariffs. That being said, I wouldn’t say they’re accepting of it; Japan’s rapid depopulation is overwhelmingly happening in the countryside, because it is all toil for less pay.
  - bamboozled 3y ago
    It doesn't really lack large swathes of flat land. Sure it might not look like Texas, but if you're telling me there isn't enough room to be running combine harvesters over large areas of land you're wrong. Anyhow, the land influences culture, so my point still stands, if the reason for their attitude to farming practices is because there is mountains, it doesn't make much difference, people don't know any different and that's how they have operated for millennia. Japan’s rapid depopulation is overwhelmingly happening in the countryside, because it is all toil for less pay. Right, like as if working in Tokyo is no toil for more pay? Sorry but you don't sound very well informed to me. In general, Japanese don't get well at all, I view Japan as much more of a socialist system than people realize. Japan's aging population problem has nothing to do with whether you live in the countryside and grow your own veggies or not, it has to do with demographics and go visit any major city and you will find a lot of elderly people there too. Of course a small village is going to be more effected than Tokyo with 30+ million people when the population is shrinking. Either way, people from Tokyo eat sushi rice from rural areas.
yeeetz 3y ago
NA and EU have plenty of local artisanal products. It just doesn't have the some appeal as Japan, which tends to occupy a hallowed spot in the minds of educated/nerdy guys on the internet.
bluepod4 3y ago
> All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted products seem to come out of Japan. idk. Most of my YouTube recommendations are exactly that but from all around the world lol. I can’t even say most are from Japan. I would be lying if I did. As a very simple example, I just watched a video about some candy company in Massachusetts that has been hand-making hard candy the same way for more than a hundred years. (To stay honest, I do tend to subscribe to channels where the entire purpose is to showcase niche things from all around the world. Great Big Story, for example.)
- fsckboy 3y ago
  japan is roughly 1.5% of the world population. where do they stack up in your video feed (maybe even leave out half the world's population, so call it 3%)?
  - bluepod4 3y ago
    Uhh, not sure if you misinterpreted what I said. I said that most of the videos in my feed aren’t Japan-related.
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      i'm saying that because it's a small number of people, most of them shouldn't be Japan related. but if the Japan related topics are more than 3% of your feed, then Japan is by estimation overrepresented, i.e. Japan likely does have a culture of exacting artisanship, i.e. opposite of what you are providing evidence for.
      - bluepod4 3y ago
        We’re not saying the opposite actually. I agree with what you’re saying, BUT: > idk. Most of my YouTube recommendations are exactly that but from all around the world lol. I can’t even say most are from Japan. I would be lying if I did. “Exactly that” = small batch, artisan videos “From all around the world lol” = not only from Japan “I can’t even say that most are from Japan” = Most of the videos on my feed aren’t from Japan I think you’re hung up on the “exactly that” part. I didn’t say “most of my YouTube recommendations are small batch, artisan videos from Japan and the rest are from all around the world.” I said “most of my YouTube recommendations are small batch, artisan videos from all around the world.” I didn’t estimate how many videos are Japan-related. I didn’t need to. GP said that “all stories like this are from Japan”. I gave my opinion that he’s wrong based on my YouTube recommendations. Not all stories are from Japan. Even with your misinterpretation of my comment, the conclusion remains the same lol since it was a reply to GP. You seem to have read my comment without that context. Whether Japanese videos are overestimated (or underestimated which is probably closer to reality) in my feed is meaningless to the conversation that I was having with GP since the discussion (based on the highlighted quote from GP’s comment) was about whether all stories like that come from Japan. The conclusion is “no, not all stories like that come from Japan”. Thanks for trying to teach me basic statistics though, I guess!
julianeon 3y ago
"Old vine" wines are pretty close to this, and that's a large niche; walk into any large city's grocery store and you can probably find at least one. Similar idea: old vines, undisturbed land, small batches, artisan production.
nonagono 3y ago
My hypothesis is that Japanese people just appreciate high-quality products more. In the sense that even poor people, which of course exist in Japan, are willing to save up money and occasionally splurge on upscale items, vs poor people in USA who prefer to "average out" their spending and just buy the best that they can afford daily. Some evidence: 1) Japan has a higher percentage of iPhone users (65.88%) compared to USA (56.74%), while being poorer than USA on most metrics (GDP, median income, PPP-adjusted income etc.) 2) I don't have quantitative data, but just from experience Japan has so many more high-fashion stores, expensive pastry bakeries, expensive candy makers etc, when compared to USA. And if the stores are there, the customers must exist too.
- SenHeng 3y ago
  And before people chime in about blue vs green, SMS is barely used here. Everyone uses LINE. Everyone. https://line.me/ja/ https://line.me/ja/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Alex3917 3y ago

> Perhaps we just value it less here in North America. The reason we have less stuff like this in the USA is due to geography. We are a mostly flat country, rather than being mountainous or separated onto different small islands. Because of this, products produced via economies of scale can outcompete higher-quality artisanal products.

swexbe 3y ago
Except, shipping by boat has been more cost effective since the beginning of history. The furthest you can get from the ocean in Japan is like a full days walk.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > shipping by boat has been more cost effective since the beginning of history I've read that before the Transcontinental Railroad, it was cheaper and faster to get to San Francisco from a port in China than from St. Louis.
  - badpun 3y ago
    Similarly, people who wanted to join the 1849 San Francisco gold rush, but were on the East Coast, took boats which sailed all the way around South America to reach SF the fastest.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Well, unless it involved going around the horn. Time costs something too?
jandrewrogers 3y ago
> We are a mostly flat country Eh? The US is the opposite of "mostly flat". And large swaths of the mostly flat part have low population density. The country is also very regional with considerable local diversity in what is produced and available locally. The US produces a lot of very local artisanal products throughout the country that don't travel very far that are based on local tradition and history. That's been true everywhere I've lived in the US.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > The US is the opposite of "mostly flat". And large swaths of the mostly flat part have low population density. Eh? Most of the population lives in the Atlantic coastal, Gulf coastal, and Midwest plains. Only a minority of Americans live in places that could be considered "mostly mountainous", methinks. Even Denver, the most populous city in (arguably) the most mountainous state, is actually a Great Plains city.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  The big flat areas have low population density BECAUSE of all economy of scale farming. Look at California: You've got 4 metropolitan areas, 2 of which (the Bay Area and Los Angeles) are in coastal areas that have geographically convenient access to the big flat area with farms, one (San Diego) in a big flat desert, and one on the river in the big flat area (Sacramento). Chicago's surrounding areas are flat farmland. Portland and Seattle likewise have river access to their state's big flat areas. What's between the Rockies and Appalachia? Big flat farms.

hindsightbias 3y ago

There are many vinyards that have small batch varieties, they just don’t invite the commoners. There was a story recently about Coppola. His property has something like ~70 soil type/grape combinations and he has more money than god, so he decided to buy fermenters for every combination and see what happens.

randomcarbloke 3y ago

there are thousands of examples of this outside of Japan, there are small chateaux whose stock will never even see a market because it is promised to friends, family, a circle of trade customers, and some insiders, the venn diagram of which is probably not far off a wonky circle.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dfxm12 3y ago

Perhaps we just value it less here in North America. I can't speak for Canada or Mexico, but due to so many benefits being tied to full time employment in the US and a general lack of any kind of social safety net, you have to already be independently wealthy or willing to be a starving artist to do something like that - invest a lot of time into learning a craft that probably won't payoff for decades (if at all). All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted products seem to come out of Japan. In general, I do think the west fetishizes this aspect of Japan's culture and thus overreports it. That said, many people around the world still do this. I suggest not relying on stories so much to understand the world around you.

Tiktaalik 3y ago
> due to so many benefits being tied to full time employment in the US and a general lack of any kind of social safety net, you have to already be independently wealthy or willing to be a starving artist to do something like that Something that is kind of wild about the USA is that for as much as the culture seems to value entrepeneurship, the political and economic system is designed to stifle it and discourage people from starting businesses.
- dfxm12 3y ago
  It's just dishonesty from politicians. You'll see legislation passed under the guise helping "family farms", but in reality, these subsidies help big ag and hurt the smaller operations: https://www.johnlocke.org/farming-subsidies-disproportionately-hurt-small-farms https://www.johnlocke.org/farming-subsidies-disproportionate... I'm sure it's similar across sectors. Tech startups are what they are thanks to private venture capital.

bamboozled 3y ago

Japanese culture seems to emphasize the experience of "doing" a lot more than the west. This attitude surely stems from Zen Buddhist ideas. For example, in the west, there is a commonly shared fantasy that automating away work will lead to happiness, having the robots doing it all is Nirvana; However, e all know deep down inside we'd still need something to do, we'd have to create some purpose or some object for ourselves. I bet most people would be outside growing food and playing in the garden with their kids if they didn't have to work. Many people in Japan actually do this, there is a LOT of small scale farming in Japan, they do not really share the same farming practices we do in the west. Step out side Tokyo and this is immediately obvious, almost everyone is growing something. It's much more small scale and often has more human involvement. I think Japan is culturally more suited to accepting the fact that life can be toil and toil is good, it is what there is. I'm definitely not trying to say Japan is better, or all Japanese people are like this, just there is cultural roots which make some of these practices more suited to life in Japan than it would in other cultures.

bobthepanda 3y ago
It also helps that Japan generally lacks the flat land that makes ultra mechanized farming impossible, and high food import tariffs. That being said, I wouldn’t say they’re accepting of it; Japan’s rapid depopulation is overwhelmingly happening in the countryside, because it is all toil for less pay.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  It doesn't really lack large swathes of flat land. Sure it might not look like Texas, but if you're telling me there isn't enough room to be running combine harvesters over large areas of land you're wrong. Anyhow, the land influences culture, so my point still stands, if the reason for their attitude to farming practices is because there is mountains, it doesn't make much difference, people don't know any different and that's how they have operated for millennia. Japan’s rapid depopulation is overwhelmingly happening in the countryside, because it is all toil for less pay. Right, like as if working in Tokyo is no toil for more pay? Sorry but you don't sound very well informed to me. In general, Japanese don't get well at all, I view Japan as much more of a socialist system than people realize. Japan's aging population problem has nothing to do with whether you live in the countryside and grow your own veggies or not, it has to do with demographics and go visit any major city and you will find a lot of elderly people there too. Of course a small village is going to be more effected than Tokyo with 30+ million people when the population is shrinking. Either way, people from Tokyo eat sushi rice from rural areas.

yeeetz 3y ago

NA and EU have plenty of local artisanal products. It just doesn't have the some appeal as Japan, which tends to occupy a hallowed spot in the minds of educated/nerdy guys on the internet.

bluepod4 3y ago

> All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted products seem to come out of Japan. idk. Most of my YouTube recommendations are exactly that but from all around the world lol. I can’t even say most are from Japan. I would be lying if I did. As a very simple example, I just watched a video about some candy company in Massachusetts that has been hand-making hard candy the same way for more than a hundred years. (To stay honest, I do tend to subscribe to channels where the entire purpose is to showcase niche things from all around the world. Great Big Story, for example.)

fsckboy 3y ago
japan is roughly 1.5% of the world population. where do they stack up in your video feed (maybe even leave out half the world's population, so call it 3%)?
- bluepod4 3y ago
  Uhh, not sure if you misinterpreted what I said. I said that most of the videos in my feed aren’t Japan-related.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    i'm saying that because it's a small number of people, most of them shouldn't be Japan related. but if the Japan related topics are more than 3% of your feed, then Japan is by estimation overrepresented, i.e. Japan likely does have a culture of exacting artisanship, i.e. opposite of what you are providing evidence for.
    - bluepod4 3y ago
      We’re not saying the opposite actually. I agree with what you’re saying, BUT: > idk. Most of my YouTube recommendations are exactly that but from all around the world lol. I can’t even say most are from Japan. I would be lying if I did. “Exactly that” = small batch, artisan videos “From all around the world lol” = not only from Japan “I can’t even say that most are from Japan” = Most of the videos on my feed aren’t from Japan I think you’re hung up on the “exactly that” part. I didn’t say “most of my YouTube recommendations are small batch, artisan videos from Japan and the rest are from all around the world.” I said “most of my YouTube recommendations are small batch, artisan videos from all around the world.” I didn’t estimate how many videos are Japan-related. I didn’t need to. GP said that “all stories like this are from Japan”. I gave my opinion that he’s wrong based on my YouTube recommendations. Not all stories are from Japan. Even with your misinterpretation of my comment, the conclusion remains the same lol since it was a reply to GP. You seem to have read my comment without that context. Whether Japanese videos are overestimated (or underestimated which is probably closer to reality) in my feed is meaningless to the conversation that I was having with GP since the discussion (based on the highlighted quote from GP’s comment) was about whether all stories like that come from Japan. The conclusion is “no, not all stories like that come from Japan”. Thanks for trying to teach me basic statistics though, I guess!

julianeon 3y ago

"Old vine" wines are pretty close to this, and that's a large niche; walk into any large city's grocery store and you can probably find at least one. Similar idea: old vines, undisturbed land, small batches, artisan production.

nonagono 3y ago

My hypothesis is that Japanese people just appreciate high-quality products more. In the sense that even poor people, which of course exist in Japan, are willing to save up money and occasionally splurge on upscale items, vs poor people in USA who prefer to "average out" their spending and just buy the best that they can afford daily. Some evidence: 1) Japan has a higher percentage of iPhone users (65.88%) compared to USA (56.74%), while being poorer than USA on most metrics (GDP, median income, PPP-adjusted income etc.) 2) I don't have quantitative data, but just from experience Japan has so many more high-fashion stores, expensive pastry bakeries, expensive candy makers etc, when compared to USA. And if the stores are there, the customers must exist too.

SenHeng 3y ago
And before people chime in about blue vs green, SMS is barely used here. Everyone uses LINE. Everyone. https://line.me/ja/ https://line.me/ja/