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It has been almost a year since the last story of wasabi stories. Wasabi stories in the past can be found by clicking “category”at the right side bar of the blog if you are interested.

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The column I would like to get into today is one by a writer, Ms. Nobori Kiuchi.

Her column starts with, “I often find vegetables which are labelled with a picture of its farm producer in supermarkets these days.”

The reason for such a recent trend behind can be that consumers tend to rest assured by transparency of knowing who is responsible for products. But Ms. Kiuchi realised that she used to pick up vegetables which have a picture of friendly face when she did not know what to choose.

She, however, started to have some doubts- is it really ok to choose what to buy because of the pictures? It does not necessarily mean that a man who is photogenic does a good job.

It is possible that a person who has unfriendly turn grows delicious tomatoes. What consumers seek is tomatoes’ taste and not whether the pictures look right or wrong.

“I apologised in my heart to those who I did not pick. I was ashamed of my self. I judged by how they looked but did not even try their tastes and compare to find the truth.”

She then develops her story into the world of novels.

What if readers choose their books by what they see on the labels? What if they say, “I will buy this book because the author looks friedly with this picture”?

Similar instances can be found in our daily life too. People can be blind saying “that restaurant seems bad” or “the film is crap” only because they have read a piece of information on a website or etc.

Based on these examples, Ms. Kiuchi rases an alarm that it is dangerous to live in a vertual reality where you do not have your own experience.

Ms. Kinouchi was once told by her boss, “Do not use information which you did not check with your own two feet and eyes for your projects.”

It is nevertheless impossible to have commitment in everthing and question true nature of all in our busy daily life.

It often happens that we make series of blind choices without our own criteria for judgement but get carried away by opinions of many or social trends.

She concludes that even so she would try to keep herself away from cofusion to believe that she knows all only with little knowledge of certain aspects. She also hopes to be the one who knows to keep silent when she knows that she has not grasped the nature of things.

The NIKKEI 02/02/2012 by Nobori Kiuchi (Writer)

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