- Current
Nikkei View
- About
- Roots
- Nikkei
Links
- IMDiversity Job Bank
- More
about Gil:
Gil's Home Page
Resume
Fave Web Sites
1957 TimeLine
"Toy Book" Excerpt
Writing Samples
SUPPORT THE NIKKEI VIEW!
Amazon.com now offers a way for you to sponsor the Nikkei View column! Just click below for more information!
Search Amazon.com using keywords such as "Japan," "Japanese
American," "Tokyo," and others for books or videos.
I'm now an Amazon.com
Affiliate. I urge everyone to support their local independent businesses
first, but if you search Amazon.com from here, I earn a percentage of
your purchases. It's one way you can help underwrite the Nikkei View.
Thanks!
JOIN THE DISCUSSION!
"Ties Talk" is an e-mail discussion group through which people of all ages and backgrounds from all over the U.S. and the world can comment on the Japanese American and Asian Pacific American experience. You can get a sample of the types of discussion that go on in the Ties-Talk Archives.
To
subscribe to "Ties Talk" and join our community, send an e-mail
to majordomo@lists.apanet.org
with the following line in your message:
subscribe ties-talk
Once
you send in your subscription request, an automated e-mail message should
be returned from "majordomo" to your e-mail address asking you
to confirm your membership to the list. Once you send in the confirmation,
you'll be added to the list. The "Ties Talk" e-mail discussion
list is operated by the Japanese American
Network, or JA*Net.
Hope to see you in e-mails!
Connect to the Denver area's Asian community with AsiaXpress!
Radio the way it should be: DavidsWebcast
ARCHIVES
LATEST
COLUMN
2001 COLUMNS *
2000 COLUMNS
1999 COLUMNS * 1998 COLUMNS
January 23, 2000
LITTLE THINGS MAKE LIFE EASIER
Isn't it funny how everyday experiences can get you thinking about the little things that make life easier? Recently, I've been eating a lot of a Japanese version of cup-o'-noodles, which feature thick udon noodles and extra ingredients such as spongy fish cakes and dried vegetables along with small packets of "dashi," or soup base, and sometimes sesame oil for authentic flavor. I've also been snacking a lot on osembe, rice crackers, and the many other Japanese junk food items I stock up on when I cruise the aisle of Pacific Mercantile.
| I've noticed one thing that's common to all these and other Japanese foods: They all have an easy way to open the packages. |
And I've noticed one thing that's common to all these and other Japanese foods: They all have an easy way to open the packages. In the case of my cup-o'-udon, not only is it easy to open the plastic wrapper around the styrofoam bowls (just scratch at a raised band of plastic that easily tears), but the little packets of ingredients inside the bowls are all clearly marked with either an arrow or notch where you can rip them open. Plastic bags of crackers or cookies or any other candy or snack all also feature a clearly-marked place to pull at, tear, rip, or separate to open the package.
Even "Ramune," a popular super-sweet "lemonade" concoction sold in Japan and available at Japanese supermarkets here, has an easy-open bottle. Instead of a twist-top, the bottles are sealed with a glass marble stuck into the top. The package comes with a small plastic plunger (held in place by a plastic wrapper which of course is easy to unwrap) which you use to push down the marble. While you drink, the marble rolls around a reservoir at the top of the bottle. I've always accepted the fact that Japanese package design incorporates such convenient features, but it struck me recently that U.S. manufacturers usually don't add them to their packages.
This isn't an absolute -- American gum companies such as Wrigley's has included that red band around one end of a pack of gum for decades, so it's easy to just rip open one end of a pack to get at the sticks inside. And, Band-Aid adhesive bandages for instance have always included helpful features to open up each strip.
Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturers of Band-Aids, must have realized that when you're bleeding, speed is of the utmost important in getting some sort of bandage over the wound. Still, when I was growing up, Band-Aids were impossible to open using the supposedly handy red string that you tugged to separate the waxy individual wrappers. The string was hard to grab, and most of the time, pulling it only left a red string in one hand, and an unopened Band-Aid wrapper in the other. These days, Band-Aids are packaged in he same waxy wrapper but with a clearly-marked area at one end where you can separate the halves of the wrapper to get at the bandage inside.
But for every product like Wrigley's Spearmint Gum or Band Aids with an easy-open feature, I feel surrounded by a dozen things that are hard to open.
I often end up using my teeth to rip packages open - even simple bags of snacks such as chips or candy can be too tough to open by grabbing each half of the package and pulling them apart at the seam. Instead, I bite down on a corner of the bag and yank it. It gets the job done, but it just feels so... uncivilized!
One of the worst offenders is the packaging that record labels put around a Compact Disc.
It's tough enough trying to get a fingernail under the tightly-folded seams of the clear plastic wrapping -- I've gotten into the habit of dragging my front teeth across the cellophane to rip open a gash. But once you get the wrapping off, you're faced with a very sticky strip of tape that seals shut the lid of the CD cover -- this strip has something to do with copyright and security so you know the CD's brand-new. But it takes Herculean effort and the patience of Job to get the darned tape off. I can't tell you how often I've clawed at those things only to have some of that tape stuck on the CD case forever, and several bits of tape hanging off my fingers for hours.
Is designing for convenience an Asian trait? It shouldn't be -- people everywhere want things to be easy to use. Yet, I'm constantly amazed at how Japanese products are better designed in their packaging than Western consumer goods.
I know, this is starting to sound like one of those annoying, whiney tirades by Andy Rooney, the commentator on U.S. TV's "60 Minutes" program.
But I've been dwelling on this topic because I think it really does reflect a need within Japanese industry for efficiency. At a high level view, you can see the same ethic at work in the robotization of Japan's manufacturing processes. There are simply too many people, too few resources and too little space to waste time and energy doing anything in Japan. So everything has to make sense, be quick and easy to use and simple and efficient to store.
There is a downside to Japanese package design: Waste.
Although the products I've mentioned here are quick and efficient with their packaging, many Japanese products, especially food products, are elaborately packaged in wasteful individual wrappers. Yes, each individual wrapper has that helpful tab or notch so you can rip it open, but it seems a bit extreme to buy a bag of rice crackers only to have all 25 crackers inside snuggled in their own wrappers. Sometimes, the crackers are even lined up in a plastic tray as well. And if you ever buy a selection of Japanese pastries in a box, you may find that each piece of cake is dressed up as if for display under a Christmas tree.
I'm politically-correct enough to feel liberal guilt about such unnecessary packaging. But at least I'll be able to figure out how to open them!