The Shintoan Value Behind Japanese Aesthetics

When you think of Japanese aesthetics, most people think of Wabi-Sabi (侘び寂び), or beauty in impermanence, embodied in Japanese cherry blossoms that bloom for only a few days and then disappear. But what if I told you that there is a more important concept behind Japanese views of beauty? Japanese aesthetics is based on the concept of making something natural. We usually think that the concepts of the made thing and the natural thing contradict each other. Take, for example, the chair. While the material may be natural, like wood, we can't go out into the forest and look for a chair. However, in Shinto, the concepts of manufacture and naturalism are not seen as opposing, and there are examples of harmony between the two throughout Japanese culture. And this harmony is necessary for understanding the Japanese views of beauty and perfection.

Let's look at three such examples.

Japanese cooking

There is a saying in my Japanese cookbook. She says:

French cooking is designed to show the skill of the chef. Japanese cooking is designed to show the quality of the ingredients. (Japanese Cooking: Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji)

A similar story from another book says the command as follows:

A Chinese chef was bragging about his knowledge of spices and how he could combine them in a thousand different ways to create different flavors and textures. He asked what his Japanese counterpart could do. The Japanese chef replied that he could make a carrot that tasted more like carrots than anything else. (Shinto: The Road to the Homeland by Thomas P. Kasulis)

Japanese food is praised all over the world. However, the common complaint I hear about Japanese food is that it can be very "normal". Regular white rice, some fish with a little soy sauce, and steamed vegetables. This may not seem much to the naked eye, but it is the perfect example of making something natural. In Japanese cuisine, making something natural means extracting and enhancing natural characteristics. Carrots should taste like carrots and not like anything else. Instead of burying the natural flavors of rice, vegetables and meat in thick or rich sauces, Japanese cuisine seeks to enhance its natural flavors with minimal intervention. In fact, the concept of "umami" (旨味), known in modern cooking as a kind of delicious taste, comes from Japan and the idea of making something natural. In original usage, "umami" simply means delicious food; or the essence of deliciousness. Each component has a "umami" that needs to be extracted. When done right, using high-quality ingredients, it produces some of the best foods in the world.

Tatami

If you've ever visited a Japanese home, you've probably seen and smelled the tatami. Even modern Japanese houses have at least one tatami room, mainly used as a guest reception, as a family home, as a Buddhist altar (butsudan 仏壇), or as shinto (kamidana 神棚). And the connection to nature is very clear. The tatami is made from rice straw and is a natural improvement over just covering the dirt floor with straw. Straw is woven to be stronger and easier to handle (you can move a tatami mat more easily than a pile of straw). There is another part about the tatami that highlights the concept of "making things natural." Not all straw can be used in the tatami. The straw must be of a certain quality and length in order to be used. This means getting rid of the majority of straw. (In fact, there is a growing industry that uses thrown straw for other purposes such as pillows, yoga mats, and hats.) So tatami mats are not only synthetic in the sense that they are woven, but only woven with specially selected straw; a second unnatural process. However, all this is in an effort to maintain the same qualities as a simple dwelling with a thatched floor. The texture, smell, and appearance of a thatched floor in Japan is seen as valuable and worth preserving in order to keep one connected to the natural world, the kami world.

Japanese beauty standards

The third and final example is a bit more contemporary. Japanese cooking and traditional Japanese carpets have a long tradition and are arguably losing control of Japanese life. However, the most popular Japanese culture shows cases of "making something natural." Go to a beach in Japan during the summer and take a look around. As an American, I expect to see among families young people who boast a lot of skin: topless men and women in bikinis. What may surprise you is that this is actually an uncommon sight on Japanese beaches. The Japanese value white skin and "natural" appearance. Thus, getting tan is something that young people, and a large majority of young women, try to avoid. And it's not just tan. Young women in Japan, in general, wear less makeup and undergo fewer cosmetic surgeries than their counterparts in other developed countries. Perhaps an extreme example of this is the trend of dental treatments to make teeth "worse". There is a trend in Japan where girls wear dental caps to give themselves "yaeba" (八重歯), or double teeth, and this trend reached its peak in the first decade of the twenty-first century. This appearance, which has gained popularity among deities in Japan, is seen as a natural defect and contributes to the consideration of girls as innocent.