Itadakimasu

We were in Japan between February 9th and 20th, first visiting some people dear to us in Ibusuki (指宿市), then exploring Kyoto (京都) on our own.

(A somewhat random selection of photos. I might follow up with a more organized set later.)

This is my second time visiting Japan. The first was for a pretty intense work trip, meeting with the Android keyboard team in Tokyo (都京). I didn’t have much time for sightseeing on that first trip, but I still found a lot to appreciate, and my second trip was the same. I was especially impressed with people’s kindness and consideration. For example, in Kagoshima, we got on the wrong train car, but another passenger kindly walked with us across several cars till we found the right place. (I’m also still very grateful to the keyboard team for having been such gracious hosts.) Those dear to us Ibusuki are some of the kindest people we know, models to follow.

One custom I didn’t adopt but admire is saying “itadakimasu” (いただきます — “I humbly receive”) before a meal. An extended discussion of the phrase includes a translation of a line from an 1812 etiquette book that popularized it: “When you grab chopsticks, you should thank all nature and living things, the Emperor, and your parents.” Ignoring the bit about thanking “the Emperor”, I like this idea of being generally thankful, including to the larger world even beyond the farmers.

There’s so much to be grateful for in general. I’m tempted to expand it maybe too much — to the billions of years of generations of life who through trial and error brought us the adaptations that allow us to live, to the stars that created the ingredients for life, to all the human generations before us that built our language and culture, to Matt Mullenweg for WordPress.

I’m grateful today for the flowers that are blooming from the seed I sowed and for the blue sky above; I will also be grateful if it rains on Wednesday, and I’m grateful for the weather forecasts that are so helpful even if necessarily imperfect.