[HN Gopher] Japan's Paper Culture
___________________________________________________________________
Japan's Paper Culture
Author : thomas
Score : 319 points
Date : 2021-12-28 02:15 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jetpens.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jetpens.com)
| taubek wrote:
| Does anyone have experience with alcohol based markers? Which
| paper would you recommend for such markers?
| dhruval wrote:
| Pens aren't my thing, but I am impressed with the quality of the
| article considering its part of a commercial website. Compared to
| the low quality content marketing most companies put out this was
| a breath of fresh air.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Growing up, I had a friend with a Japanese parent. She had
| supernaturally neat handwriting, produced with various impossibly
| cute and meticulous-looking Japanese pens and stationary over the
| years. I felt like some kind of clumsy, nasty barbarian in
| comparison.
|
| Japan is, of course, just _a place._ The people there are
| ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both
| cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their country and society
| have plenty of problems, just like any other. There is nothing
| magical about Japan or any other place.
|
| However. If all that remains of their civilization in 10,000
| years is a curiously well-preserved Japanese stationary store,
| perhaps buried Pompei-style and frozen in time... future
| historians may conclude otherwise.
| colechristensen wrote:
| One of the things attractive about Japan is that it actually
| does have a lot of unique culture in a world otherwise somewhat
| dominated by a global culture, when you are actually different
| there are bound to be several things about your culture which
| others see in awe.
|
| One of the disappointing things (not that there aren't awesome
| things) about traveling across the US is all the things which
| aren't different even though separated by thousands of miles. I
| recently moved back to Minnesota from several years in
| California and often get the strange sense that I'm still there
| because I'm in an environment so familiar that I think I'm in
| Sunnyvale for a moment. (Walking through a shop or doing this
| or that... the snow though is a bit of a differentiator)
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah. It's depressing when you fly 3,000 miles across America
| and hey, there's another shopping certain with an Applebees
| and a Target, exactly like the place you just left.
| nyolfen wrote:
| appreciating is not something 'genuinely harmful'
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. Appreciating = great.
|
| I would certainly hope that there is fairly large and self-
| evident gulf between appreciating and fetishizing.
| nyolfen wrote:
| how would the term 'fetishizing' apply to a discussion of
| paper culture?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| > Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are
| ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both
| cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their country and society
| have plenty of problems, just like any other. There is nothing
| magical about Japan or any other place.
|
| Japan, by your own description, isn't just a place. It's the
| place of a people who share a long and deep culture. If you
| substituted New Yorkers for Japanese in Tokyo, it wouldn't be
| like Tokyo for very long! (Feeling like a "clumsy, nasty
| barbarian" is certainly an apropos description of how I feel
| returning to New York after visiting Tokyo.)
|
| Most Japanese wouldn't describe Japan as "just a place." A
| Japanese acquaintance of mine (a law professor) and I were once
| discussing the issue of government corruption in Asia. My
| acquaintance dug into some 400 years of Japanese history to
| explain why it had less problems with corruption than China,
| next door.
|
| Of course it's not "magical"--just as there is nothing magical
| about Apple under Steve Jobs. But it is an achievement--the
| achievement of a group of people who share a particular
| culture. When my dad was born in 1951, Japan had a GDP per
| capita (adjusted for purchasing power) similar to Bangladesh's
| today. Within a generation they had become a first world
| country. You shouldn't fetishize their culture, but it's okay
| to marvel at their achievement!
| moogleii wrote:
| > My acquaintance dug into some 400 years of Japanese history
| to explain why it had less problems with corruption than
| China, next door.
|
| That's a bit suspect considering a lot of pre-WW2 Japanese
| governments were based off Chinese models (not to mention, as
| another commenter mentioned, there are other examples of
| Asian governments with low corruption, maybe even less than
| Japan's). In China's case, if we're going back hundreds of
| years, I suspect the explanation is a bit more complex, you
| know, having to deal with all that sheer area in the age of
| horses, no natural sea barrier against foreigners, not to
| mention a population size that easily dwarfed Japan's (and
| most countries in the world).
| suction wrote:
| Oh boy, this has got to be one of the most cringe things I've
| ever read on HN. You really drank the Nihonjinron Kool-Aid,
| didn't you? You also probably believe that Japan is the only
| country with four seasons, has zero crime, and its people are
| direct descendants from God, who is also the Emperor.
|
| That your Japanese friend is telling you that Japan is
| uniquely unique is very much par for the course - Japanese
| education is exactly that - brainwashing its children to
| believe that Japan is superior to all other places and
| "uniquely unique". And of course he has to dunk on China,
| which probably has less corruption than Japan depending on
| the definition of corruption.
|
| Just for one example - in what other country is organized
| crime legal? You can look up the office addresses for every
| Japanese crime syndicate in the phone book, and go visit
| them, even though I wouldn't recommend it. They are used by
| the government to intimidate, harass, and even harm critics.
| In return they get to operate in the international drug trade
| and human trafficking - as long as it hurts foreigners, the
| Japanese government looks the other way.
|
| Italy has the Mafia too, but they're in the underground. The
| Japanese Yakuza is basically a government branch. And the
| Japanese populace is so brainwashed and intimidated that even
| the North Korean people look daring and free-spirited in
| comparison.
|
| Japan is a very convenient prison to live in, but it's still
| a prison.
| unmole wrote:
| Your comment would be significantly improved with less
| hyperbole.
| suction wrote:
| Sorry, can't write emotionless about Western people
| getting Japan wrong.
| unmole wrote:
| Fair enough. FWIW, I think it's still a great comment.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Very well-said.
|
| I certainly do not mean that Japan is "just a place" in the
| sense that the nasty, slightly unkempt area behind my garage
| is "just a place." Japan is the sum of thousands of years of
| culture and achievement. I truly marvel at many things about
| Japan.
|
| I did my best (in my admittedly hurried and casual post) to
| be clear that fetishization is what was to be avoided, and
| not appreciation.
|
| Often, particularly in the 90s/2000s, one would see Japan
| fetishized as some sort of magical place of technical
| advancements, weirdo tentacle porn, cute and submissive
| women, etc. That sucked for a number of reasons too obvious
| to type out. That's the sort of thing of which I'm
| dismissive, not the sort of informed and genuine appreciation
| you expressed.
| unmole wrote:
| > My acquaintance dug into some 400 years of Japanese history
| to explain why it had less problems with corruption than
| China, next door.
|
| Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong are closer to China in terms
| of both geography and culture without having problems with
| corruption. It's almost as if 400 years of history has very
| little to do with it.
| rayiner wrote:
| Hong Kong was long a British colony. Taiwan and Singapore
| are tiny island nations, with founding generations small
| enough to retool the culture and institutions. The founder
| of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, was deliberate about
| reshaping the country's culture because he was adamant that
| "culture is destiny." https://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com
| /2010/04/zakaria_lee.pd...
| unmole wrote:
| And Japan is an American protectorate whose constitution
| was written by foreigners. So, what?
| rayiner wrote:
| So was Afghanistan. But a short duration of military
| dominance and writing words in paper can't change the
| culture of the people. Colonization, as with Hong Kong,
| or a generation of top-down rule over a small population,
| as with Taiwan and Singapore, can. Again, read Yew. He
| was deliberate and methodical about all this, and has
| written and spoken widely about what he did to transform
| Singapore.
| swsieber wrote:
| I dunno. That suggests that it's not culture and it's not
| geography... So what's left? Genetics and history? I'd pick
| history, the accumulation of aggregate choices.
| unmole wrote:
| > I'd pick history, the accumulation of aggregate
| choices.
|
| So, Japan doesn't have corruption because it hasn't had
| corruption for 400 years?
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't understand the premise, where Japan is supposedly
| uniquely high-integrity. It ranks around the United
| States in metrics of corruption, sometimes higher and
| sometimes lower over the last 20 years, and historically
| was significantly worse than it is now. It's about as
| corrupt as any of the many countries on this planet that
| have the rule of law.
| artdigital wrote:
| There are still places here that _require_ you to submit a
| handwritten resume for that matter
| Aeolun wrote:
| Don't forget you need to submit a new one for every place you
| apply.
|
| It does show a certain kind of dedication I suppose.
| eru wrote:
| I wonder if there are resume ghostwriters you can hire for
| that?
|
| I imagine you'd send them the text and a sample of your
| handwriting, and they'd produce a neatened up version that's
| close enough to your handwriting that someone could believe
| you'd produced it with enough care.
|
| (Cheaper versions would just give you a generic neat hand,
| without customising it to your own handwriting.)
| sombremesa wrote:
| > Japan is, of course, just a place.
|
| You allude to this later in your comment, but it really isn't
| when it comes to paper (and to some extent, cardboard).
|
| The irony in your comment re:fetishizing is that TFA talks of
| traditions whereas you say things like:
|
| > She had supernaturally neat handwriting
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| I thought that last phrase was very cleverly worded.
|
| The author obviously has an appreciation for crafting
| advanced stylistic prose in English.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| When writing that sentence, I had hoped it would be clear
| that I (a) was describing my naive childhood perspective and
| (b) was employing some lighthearted hyperbole.
|
| I also hoped that the second paragraph would really drive
| that home, sans subtlety.
|
| ("Maybe they'll even think it's funny," I dreamed)
|
| I therefore chose not to insult the reader by _further_
| clarifying that she was a pretty regular-ass person, not some
| kind of magical exotic creature. We were friends for quite a
| few years and folks tend not to be friends with weirdos that
| fetishize them.
|
| I even heard her fart once (which would have really confirmed
| her non-ethereal nature) but she swore it was her seat making
| some kind of noise so let's give her the benefit of the
| doubt.
| whoevercares wrote:
| As a Chinese my friends and I are always amazed by the
| contemporary Japanese art, music and movies. I attributed the
| success partially to the democratic system and remain hopeful
| for our own culture.
|
| Their cultural marketing is also great
| eru wrote:
| Japan had interesting art and culture before their modern
| political system, which largely stems from post WWII.
|
| Btw, there's a reasonable argument to be made that
| constraints are what drives creativity. From my own
| experience, East Germany had much better political jokes than
| West Germany. Mostly because you didn't need a carefully
| worded joke in the West, you could just open a newspaper.
|
| Compare also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo and
| http://d7.drunkenboat.com/db8/oulipo/feature-
| oulipo/para/oux...
|
| (Just to be clear: I vastly prefer to live in a free
| society.)
| moogleii wrote:
| I agree constraints can generate creativity, but is there
| evidence that constraints generate more of it? It seems
| like no. This is all difficult to quantify, but if I were
| to attempt to paraphrase history and try to quantify
| anyway, at least from a Western perspective, it seems like
| the cultural output of free "Westernized" countries vastly
| exceeds those from restricted places (Russia, China, etc),
| or it could simply be because we free countries mainly
| import and exchange with other free countries and just
| don't know what Russia or China or Iran are up to
| culturally. Without going out of my way to dive into Wiki
| or to find foreign shows/films, I can't say I come across
| Russian culture very frequently beyond rough stereotypes
| (or dash cam videos /s), and Chinese culture seems vastly
| misunderstood or is a complete unknown in the US. Neither
| really come up in the day to day, or even month to month of
| daily life. I probably encounter Japanese and European
| things daily.
|
| As for the parent comment, I think he's alluding that pre-
| modern Japanese art and culture had a lot more overlap with
| pre-modern China's, which makes it somewhat less notable
| from a Chinese perspective (e.g. something like England vs
| Australia; different, but there's overlap).
|
| But post WWII we see a massive divergence in cultural
| export and exchange (e.g. England or Australia vs the US).
| South Korea is another example (I've actually seen Japanese
| entertainment consortiums lamenting at the perception that
| the S. Korean entertainment industry seemed to be better
| funded and more able to export their culture). Just looking
| at Chinese history, the golden age of creativity and
| inventions seemed to occur when there were more freedoms
| (which I would argue is pretty much any era prior to the
| PRC since their control is unprecedented in conjunction
| with modern technology). Granted it was the olden times, so
| there were more things to be discovered, but it seemed like
| China back in the day was on a roll (off the top of my
| head, movable type, paper, matcha, bonsai, porcelain,
| celadon, silk, gunpowder)
| eru wrote:
| > Granted it was the olden times, so there were more
| things to be discovered, but it seemed like China back in
| the day was on a roll (off the top of my head, movable
| type, paper, matcha, bonsai, porcelain, celadon, silk,
| gunpowder)
|
| You seem to be throwing together all of pre-PRC China
| into one big blender?
|
| There have been lots of different dynasties and long
| stretches when China was not unified. Many of these
| dynasties were more different from each other, than some
| dynasties might be from the PRC 'dynasty'.
|
| Tossing all the achievements of thousands of years into
| one bin, and comparing them to what has been produced in
| the last few decades also seems a bit off.
|
| Most (or all?) of the examples of inventions you describe
| predate the Qing dynasty.
|
| The last emperors before the republic and later the
| communists were off the Qing dynasty.
|
| China was perhaps at its biggest sophistication compared
| to the rest of the world during the precocious Song
| dynasty. See eg
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty#Economy
|
| Song China was arguably the first 'modern' country in the
| world. Where 'modern' is used in the historian's sense of
| the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_history#Mo
| dern_history
| whoevercares wrote:
| Well even in PRC it's widely recognized that we saw a
| boom of high quality cultural work in early 90s - peak of
| Chinese rock band, movies from the fifth generation
| Chinese directors, mainland/HK/Taiwan music. This time
| coincide with the time CCP's control is loosen
| JohnBooty wrote:
| there's a reasonable argument to be made that constraints
| are what drives creativity
|
| It has often been said that budgetary and technical
| constraints were the genesis of many of the visual
| trademarks we see in Japanese anime/manga. I am no expert
| (just a fan for many years) but certainly of the belief
| that this is the case.
| ThePhysicist wrote:
| They also manufacture some great fountain pens. I recently got a
| Pilot Capless (Vanishing Point) and really like it after writing
| on Lamy pens for years.
| samatman wrote:
| My black Pilot Vanishing Point, from Itoya in Ginza, is the
| crown of my collection. Great story and fantastic pen, although
| for sentiment it can't compare to the Montblanc my father gave
| me for matriculating from university.
|
| Fun timing to run into this article, I have the pen and fresh
| ink sitting next to the converter as a nice project to work on
| during the intercalary week.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I have an itoya oasis notebook that I adore. Paper feels lux and
| has the right amount of tooth and it magically lays flat despite
| having a cloth binding. Got it at that Japanese paper/pen shop on
| Santana Row in san jose.
|
| https://itoya.com/products/notebooks-journals/profolio-oasis...
|
| also have a kyokuto side-bound wire notebook that has held up
| like a champ. The wire doesn't get mangled from jamming it into
| my backpack like some POS mead notebook would. Got it at the
| japanese paper store in japantown sf
| https://kencrooker.com/review-kyokuto/
|
| Still I think from now on I'm going to stick with the magic lay-
| flat cloth bound.
|
| one curious statement from the article:
|
| > Despite Japan's international reputation for using futuristic
| technology...
|
| maybe in the 1980s? As late as a few years ago, it was rare for a
| hotel in japan to have wifi. They're lagging in tech now in
| several industries.
| olah_1 wrote:
| > YAMAMOTO PAPER told us that they believe paper selection will
| be more limited in the near future as manufacturing becomes more
| streamlined and people move to digital tools. Their hope is that
| people will get to know Japanese paper culture as it is now
| before it permanently changes.
|
| Do Japanese paper companies make much use of recycled paper?
| sheppard wrote:
| For a peek behind the scenes at JetPens (with a slightly
| algorithmic bent): https://youtu.be/1Bi2Xys-ces
|
| Disclaimer: I work there.
| wrp wrote:
| I have followed JetPens since they started in someone's dorm
| room. Just how many people work there now?
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Also curious!
| sheppard wrote:
| We have about 50 people.
|
| An interesting tidbit is that some of the picking processes
| described in the video I linked to above were implemented
| only recently as COVID-19 simultaneously applied upward
| pressure on order volume (people shopping online more) and
| downward pressure on fulfillment capacity (warehouse worker
| density restrictions). We literally had to stop taking orders
| for a short while to keep the backlog of orders reasonable.
|
| It was gratifying to apply things we learned from computer
| science and industrial engineering together to help us keep
| up with demand.
| satyrnein wrote:
| Tangentially related, with pandemic WFH, have we finally achieved
| the "paperless office"?
| myle wrote:
| I understand the feeling of nostalgia in this thread, but for the
| actual handwriting and its flexibility I would highly recommend a
| ePaper tablet like remarkable.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| I would love to get some actual real-world experience stories
| about the remarkable - when the Apple Pencil came out, I
| thought it would replace my pen and paper approach, and I
| invested in the platform (2018 iPad, Pencil, Goodnotes) - but
| ultimately was disappointed because the writing felt ackward
| and "fake" on a glass surface. Because of this experience, I am
| wary of investing in a new toy with little usage reports which
| may follow the way of the Pencil, which now gathers dust in a
| cabinet until finally being put into the refuse pile...
| brennen wrote:
| The reMarkable is a very impressive piece of hardware with
| unfortunately bad software and a business model that looks to
| be deteriorating (see recent moves to subscription services,
| etc.).
|
| In physical/tactile terms, it's a really impressive writing
| experience, but I've found the utility of that so constrained
| by the absence of indexing and navigation features that I
| don't use it for much besides occasional drawings. It turns
| out that navigating a physical notebook works in ways that
| flipping through electronic pages can't keep up with without
| a lot of work on the interface.
|
| As an e-reader, recent updates to the rendering have made it
| usable, though there are still sometimes hassles with display
| and getting documents onto the device. It's theoretically
| great to be able to annotate PDFs, but in practice not being
| able to easily navigate the annotations later makes it
| substantially worse than writing notes in the margins of a
| paper book.
|
| I'm sure a lot of this can be improved with 3rd-party hacks,
| but it isn't designed as a platform and it feels only
| grudgingly open to modification, which seems like a huge
| missed opportunity. (Not to mention being yet another product
| built on open code that doesn't return the favor.) Being able
| to SSH to the device and poke around the filesystem is cool,
| but it mostly feels like a glimpse into how much more utility
| the whole thing _could_ offer.
|
| I'll use mine as long as it works, but I'm unlikely to buy
| another one and I can't in good faith recommend it for most
| users. I do know several folks who are happy with the narrow
| range of things it's good at, which is why I bought it in the
| first place. Personally, I'm placing my hopes for a more
| useful-to-me e-ink future on devices like the PineNote.
| thisoneistheone wrote:
| [deleted]
| yoz-y wrote:
| I always loved the look of notebooks in pen and paper ads. Neat
| text here, nice drawing there... however, does anybody actually
| take notes like this? My notes always look like trash, and back
| in school it was the same for everyone.
|
| It almost looks like if you want to take notes this way you have
| to plan ahead to be sure to have space?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Does your living room look like the advertisement photos at
| Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, or any other furniture
| store? I'm guessing not. This stuff is staged. Like notebooks
| advertisements.
| cpach wrote:
| My notes look kinda like that. My drawing and hand-writing is
| not stellar, but hey, at least I can read it myself.
|
| Not sure why you feel the need to plan ahead...? Just write and
| draw :)
| bamboozled wrote:
| It's fun, until you live there, and find yourself forever filling
| out tens of useless forms and workout that pretty much everything
| requires a form, whether or not it makes sense.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I think the art work, Kanji and calligraphy
| is awesome, there are many amazing things about the 'paper
| culture' but, there are many drawbacks, especially in 2021 when
| the rest of the world has gone digital in so many areas.
| myrandomcomment wrote:
| The need to fax a form is just a giant "I am sorry, what?" The
| answer after a bit of back and forth and pushing (which to be
| fair is un-Japanese of me, even rude) is almost always Shi Fang
| ganai which is a very fatalistic term meaning "it cannot be
| helped". I thought it was cool to be a Gaijin have a Kanji
| version of my name (carefully argued over and by close friends
| to convey the right meaning) with the associated Pan Zi
| (hanko) stamp (a name stamp you can use for forms), but now I
| know better. Japan is so well organized. I love the rhythm of
| the subway, the perfection of the trains, the absolute
| cleanliness of it all; the flaw exposed by the ham fisted
| response to vaccination that done properly should have been
| sorted at every "konboni" (convenience store). Oh well. Still
| an amazing place full of wonderful people.
| [deleted]
| buttercakes wrote:
| Print out form. Fill out form. Bring it to old man in an office
| to stamp form. Scan form. Email form.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Disappointed you forgot the faxing.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| And the Japanese businesses use Excel so much. They use it to
| make digital forms, make each cell a square, then fill it with
| one character per cell.
| davgoldin wrote:
| I'd put cleaning the mailbox in second place behind filling
| forms. They get filled up daily with flyers and paper ads of
| all kinds. It's so bad that most buildings have a dedicated
| trash can, just for these. Right next to the mailbox area.
| moogleii wrote:
| To be fair, my last apartment in NYC was like that.
| Convenient trashcan right in the mailbox room. Though I
| suppose my mailbox didn't literally get filled daily. If
| that's the case in Japan, that's pretty bad.
| bmitc wrote:
| This drives me crazy. Greater than 90% of our mail is junk
| mail and goes straight into the recycling bin. I was
| watching some recycling process videos the other day, and
| when it came to bailing up the sorted paper, it looked like
| it was basically all junk mailers. We literally have
| systems that supply time and money to design the mailers,
| supply ink and paper and probably some plastic to make
| them, mail them, pass them around in the mail system,
| deliver them, then they're promptly thrown away or
| recycled, then they're carted off to be processed, and then
| the mailers eventually end up in landfills or partly
| recycled. It's insane. It's a closed system that does
| literally nothing but expend resources and output
| emissions.
|
| I wish the government would make it illegal to mail
| advertising mailers. But then the USPS, which has had
| funding purposely cut by those who want their privately
| held investments to win out in the postal game or just hate
| anything that is available for everyone, probably relies on
| a lot of the revenue that comes from those mailers. So it
| continues.
|
| I've found it's basically impossible to get rid of
| receiving them.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| In the Netherlands we have stickers you can stick on your
| letter box that stop 99% of unaddressed spam from being
| put in. The sender can get into trouble with the
| regulator if they don't adhere to this system.
|
| It works really well (it has existed for decades), and
| many municipalities are now moving towards making this
| 'no sticker' the default! This means that if you want
| flyers, you have to put up a 'yes sticker' instead of
| having none, and without a sticker you won't get any.
| This opt-in approach has quite an impact on the amount of
| useless paper pushed around.
| kmonsen wrote:
| We had that in Norway too.
|
| We don't have that in the US since it's part of the
| business model of the postal office or USPS to deliver
| ads in your mail box.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| At least in Sweden those stickers only stop the
| unaddressed leaflets or catalogs they put in the mailbox.
| If someone printed your name and address on it, the junk
| will still be delivered.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| In the Netherlands too unfortunately, and this is being
| abused on a small scale by companies with bigger pockets
| to just purchase an advertising package from the
| privatised Dutch post (PostNL they are called nowadays),
| and have them deliver spam with your address and 'to the
| residents' on it. It's a spam loophole politicians so far
| have refused to close, and which PostNL defends as being
| perfectly legal and part of their business offerings. I
| think I get one of those each month -- it's much more
| expensive to send than normal flyers.
|
| I've started an experiment with these: I just repost them
| in the postbox and see how many times they come back to
| me. You can always put them in the postbox with a 'return
| to sender' on it, but if you leave it as is it seems to
| come back to you like a paper boomerang. I've had one
| round-trip now for UberEats; I wonder at which point
| it'll get taken out of circulation?
| resonious wrote:
| This actually works in Japan too. I'm not sure if there
| are regulators who have your back here but I've been
| using a "no spam" sticker to pretty good effect.
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| That's not a paper issue, that's a legal issue. It should be
| illegal to blanket somebody with unsolicited spam
| xt00 wrote:
| If you go to Japan, check out a place called Tokyu Hands.. tons
| of paper notebooks, pens, pencils, pencil organizer pouches, tons
| of awesome stuff..
| barlog wrote:
| Last week.
|
| Tokyu Hands was acquired by a major DIY store.
|
| don't worry, Business will continue.
| bmitc wrote:
| Muji has several stores in the U.S. and ships within the U.S.,
| and they have really good paper, notebooks, and pens.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Kinokuniya[0] has plenty of locations in the US if you're
| around a major city. The one nearest to me is a small shop
| within an asian grocery store, but the selection seemed
| pretty good for how small the store was.
|
| 0: https://usa.kinokuniya.com/
| samatman wrote:
| Tragically, due largely to Covid, Muji has only one store
| left in the US, in Manhattan.
|
| I'm hoping they can bring them back, though, there's nothing
| to compare to. In the meantime, online shipping works fine
| for what they happen to offer on the website, and that stock
| has increased recently, which is encouraging.
|
| I can recommend their luggage in particular, there's just
| nothing quite like it.
| wayne wrote:
| I still see several Manhattan and non-Manhattan stores on
| their store list, but it does look like they're not in the
| Bay Area anymore, which is a bummer:
| https://www.muji.us/pages/store-information
| execat wrote:
| Tokyu Hands is all over SG too.
| mesh wrote:
| Also Ito-Ya https://www.ito-ya.co.jp/lang/en/index.html
| rococode wrote:
| Itoya is amazing, it's like a wonderland of stationery!
|
| I also highly recommend kakimori, which builds custom
| notebooks that you can select all the parts for (binding,
| paper, cover, etc.). Really memorable experience, and it's in
| a quieter residential part of the city (but still fairly
| convenient/central) that feels very different from the usual
| tourist spots.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Itoya is Disneyland for people who love office supplies. I
| have never found such a store in the US. Itoya is similar to
| Staples in the same way a Tesla is similar to a garbage
| truck.
| Zezima wrote:
| This was 8 floors of heaven last year. Loved it
| bluedino wrote:
| I have no affiliation with jetpens - but if you are into pens at
| all, buy one of their sampler packs.
|
| It's a great way to try out different styles of pens that you
| won't find at Staples or Walgreens (or the office supply closet).
| JohnBooty wrote:
| pens that you won't find at Staples or Walgreens (or the
| office supply closet)
|
| You'll still have to hit up the office supply closet or one of
| those other places for "decoy pens." You leave the decoy pens
| in a cup on top of your desk, while you keep the _good stuff_
| inside a drawer. That way your officemates and /or partner
| and/or housemates borrow (steal) the decoy pens and not the
| good stuff.
| maeln wrote:
| This bring back memory of middle school. I grew up in one of
| the poorest overseas territory of France, and if you left
| anything on your table while the teacher was calling you to
| the board, you had a 50/50% chance of having them stolen
| before you came back to your seat. Therefore, we all got into
| the habit of picking our pencil case with us when we went to
| the board.
|
| Then I moved back to metropolitan France and all the teacher
| and kids where looking at me like an alien when I was picking
| all my stuff up before coming to the board ...
| harlanji wrote:
| This is me bringing my backpack and laptop to the bathroom
| with me at cafes. Nothing has happened to make me do that,
| except knowing how fast things can happen. I leave
| something like a mouse or charger cable behind to show that
| the seat is not abandoned, and that's easier to replace.
|
| Most people just get up and leave it there. Being homeless,
| losing anything expensive is going to ruin my year. It's
| the little things that give our social status away, even if
| we work and shower every day. Status illegibility is a key
| to climbing the ladder; going off on a bit of a tangent
| there, but indeed conformity in things like these is
| rational.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Most people just get up and leave it there.
|
| I used to get very anxious about leaving stuff laying
| around even amongst people I know wouldn't steal things
| (think like a meetup or something) and eventually got
| over it. If I'm concerned I'll ask someone if they can
| watch my stuff. It depends on where I'm at though
| obviously. I think in Columbus where I live most places
| you can do this and 99.9% of the time it would be fine. I
| don't begrudge someone who doesn't trust this though. I'm
| familiar with "if you lose contact with it, it's
| compromised".
|
| > It's the little things that give our social status away
|
| I'm not with you on this one. I don't think a single
| person at a coffee shop is looking at you like you're "of
| low social status" for taking your backpack to the
| bathroom. They probably just think you don't want your
| stuff stolen...
| neilv wrote:
| I now carry decoy pens in my backpack.
|
| It goes back to when someone in the MIT student center asked
| to borrow a pen to fill out an ATM deposit slip, I had only a
| Cross pen engraved with my name and the first project team I
| was on, and I reluctantly handed it over while emphasizing
| that I needed it back...
| myrandomcomment wrote:
| Ordering sampler, thank you.
| hyperupcall wrote:
| I second this! Their explanations of different product SKUs are
| quite helpful, even if you don't end up purchasing from them
| jedimastert wrote:
| I also have no affiliation with jetpens, but they're an
| incredible little company. They also do a TON of writing like
| the article linked.
| cbfrench wrote:
| Been spending (too much?) money there for years. Wonderful
| outfit.
| panda88888 wrote:
| +1 for jet pens. No affiliation, just happy customer who've
| spent more than should have.
| spyrefused wrote:
| I have been using Midori MD notebooks for quite some time, I
| really like their format and paper. I recently purchased a pack
| containing a Kunisawa notebook, it's so nice and well made that
| I'm sad to start writing in it, I'm waiting to start a project or
| idea for something interesting enough to release it. That said I
| also think that there are many things coming from Japan that are
| incredibly overpriced just for the fact of coming from there,
| like stationery and clothes, the prices they reach when they
| arrive in Europe are sometimes even in bad taste, especially if
| you compare them with many local products that are equal or
| better and worth 1/3 of the price.
| Youden wrote:
| > the prices they reach when they arrive in Europe are
| sometimes even in bad taste
|
| You can always import products yourself using a shipping
| forwarder like Tenso [0] or a purchase assistance service like
| Buyee [1].
|
| [0]: https://www.tenso.com/en
|
| [1]: https://buyee.jp/
| m4rtink wrote:
| Used both multiple times - always worked fine, can recommend.
| :-)
| spyrefused wrote:
| I'll take a look at it, thanks!
| hstaab wrote:
| I often want to reteach myself handwriting to be able to write
| like this. Has anyone here had success in doing this? How did you
| go about it?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I massively improved my handwriting with near daily practice
| for a few months. Just the alphabet and various words (stuck
| with print, not script, so limited need to practice hard letter
| sequences). Pretty much just filled legal pads with letters and
| some words until my handwriting was to a level I was happy
| with.
| pwr-electronics wrote:
| I have, using Handwriting Repair by Briem. It was less work
| than I expected, and my handwriting looks pretty cool now. Even
| if you don't adopt the italic style advocated by the book, the
| other advice is still generally useful. I printed out the
| tracing page and did that a few times a day for a few days to
| get familiar with it. After that, it took a while, but it
| eventually became natural to write that way. The italic style
| helps with writing fast.
|
| https://sites.google.com/view/briem/free-books/handwriting-r...
| egypturnash wrote:
| Look for penmanship manuals, there are many out there online.
| They will be full of instructions and exercises.
|
| Calligraphy manuals may be interesting too but that is somewhat
| more decorative.
| [deleted]
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I took a calligraphy course when I was in uni. Interestingly
| enough by a Japanese woman. City I went to school in also has
| one of the largest Japanese communities in Europe and a even a
| few Japanese crafts/pens/office shops. Article definitely rings
| true.
|
| If you have a university close by that's I think a decent place
| to start.
| bluedino wrote:
| I can do it, but it all goes to shit when I need to write fast
| panda88888 wrote:
| It's like playing a piano. Start with slow tempo and get
| everything right. Then gradually speed up while maintaining
| the quality. And at a certain point it is not possible to
| write faster without changing the shapes of letters to be
| more cursive like, and that is ok.
| ink_13 wrote:
| It just takes dedicated and deliberate practise. There's no
| secret method I'm afraid. Oh, except for "go slow".
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| One tip is that you need to train your eye as much as you
| train your hand.
|
| First redo your grip, it probably sucks.
|
| Then relearn the alphabet using that grip to the standard of
| your eye.
|
| Then relearn to see the flaws in your handwriting in
| increasingly subtle ways and keep training to eliminate those
| flaws up to the standard of your eye.
| beermonster wrote:
| I should really buy something from jet pens. Not sure how how
| expensive they are for non-US international orders but I'll have
| to check. It could potentially add quite a mark-up to a cheaper
| item such as the sampler packs someone else mentioned. But those
| packs look GREAT.
|
| You should check out the rest of their posts/articles. I've ended
| up on them before when trying to find out the difference in the
| types of inks and types of pens. I have always been really
| impressed by the quality of their articles. Really want to give
| them some cash so will wander over there in a bit.
|
| Sadly, my writing has got worse and worse since my life has
| become more and more digital. I should really have a goal for
| 2022 to be able to write legibly once again. I can't even read my
| own hand writing any more - it must just be the lack of practice
| and it's very sad as people used to comment on how beautiful it
| was (decades ago). Now it looks like a Doctor's prescription
| order!
| post_break wrote:
| I have some Hi-Tec-C pens I got from them in 2009 still on my
| desk right now. The FOMO is real with their products even if I
| hardly write.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > I can't even read my own hand writing any more - it must just
| be the lack of practice
|
| I still write checks to pay bills (remember?). I have a
| timeline now of my handwriting and notice that it has
| deteriorated in periods of my life when I was under stress -
| sometimes unawares. But it has improved since retiring.
|
| May be a component?
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| Not a pen geek but I did buy some Jetstream Uni 0.5 pens (one
| of the pens in the lead photo on the article) on Amazon for me
| and my other half to use in our home office and they are very
| nice. Price wise it was less than PS10 for 3 shipped from Japan
| - can't argue with that really.
| beermonster wrote:
| This is a shame. I got through to payment and I am presented
| with 'Due to recent changes in United Kingdom's tax laws, we
| can only accept orders over $200 USD to the United Kingdom at
| this time.'
|
| Wonder what recent tax law changes they're referring to?
| sheppard wrote:
| It's to do with the recent changes to VAT e-commerce rules:
| https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/ioss_en
| beermonster wrote:
| Thanks!
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| If you're in the UK then cultpens might be a good alternative.
|
| https://www.cultpens.com/
| fnord77 wrote:
| their prices seem a tiny bit higher than local japanese
| paper/pen shops in my area (SF bay area)... maybe such stores
| are limited to the west coast us?
| prepend wrote:
| I buy my pens from them. They have a very good selection and
| are also cheaper than Amazon even when you factor in shipping
| to the US.
|
| I like the juice up .3mm gel pens that write as well as a ball
| point but with a much finer point and ink that lasts for
| months.
| pryelluw wrote:
| $50 order here. Good damn marketing.
| willis936 wrote:
| I did some research into pens and my preferences 10 years ago.
| I settled on the Zebra Sharbo X LT3 from jet pens. I've gone
| through about 5. The matte paint gets worn smooth and chips to
| the brass underneath, the coating on the stainless steel pocket
| clip starts to come off and irritates my skin, and occasionally
| the the plastic mechanism on the inside melts because it goes
| through a clothes drier. I love it. I flip and write with it
| every day. I got through undergrad and grad with it.
|
| Unfortunately, it does not come in orange anymore. I use 0.5 mm
| graphite, 0.7 mm blue ballpoint (most uses), and 1.0 mm black
| ballpoint. I've considered red ink instead of blue for a long
| time, but I'm not a teacher or accountant.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I struggle to think of any moment in someone's daily life where
| they have to write something down. You'd have to make an active
| decision to make your life more complicated! I noticed that
| even my mom who is 66 years old has terrible handwriting while
| it used to be quite pretty.
| eadmund wrote:
| > I struggle to think of any moment in someone's daily life
| where they have to write something down.
|
| I am finding that life without a smart phone in my pocket is
| palpably more pleasant -- and without a smart phone, the
| utility of a notepad and pen increases quite a bit.
| criddell wrote:
| I don't want to alarm you, but changes in handwriting are
| something that's worth discussing with your doctor,
| especially as you age.
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/978111954448.
| ..
| chupy wrote:
| Is it not also true that if you do not practice at all this
| skill you lose it?
| forgetfulness wrote:
| If you don't have a second monitor then pen and paper are
| handy for work.
|
| I don't like the look of a second monitor in my home office,
| so (yeah, Japanese) stationery are a more palatable
| alternative for me.
| DavidGetchel wrote:
| I just bought some things from them. Great experience! Not sure
| what international shipping is though, but give them a shot.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Stationary from Japan is really something else. Notebooks, pens,
| scissors, etc... They feel great, look great. Even the cheap
| stuff you get from convenience stores is nice.
|
| Many innovative pens and art supply you can find in the west came
| from Japan too.
| mas-ev wrote:
| Midori MD Notebook - A6 Grid Paper, Pilot FriXion Ball Slim Biz
| Gel Pen - 0.38 mm, and sticky notes helped me organize my life
| the last two years.
|
| I never knew an eraseable pen could be so good. Midori paper is
| on another level.
|
| I love jetpens. I'm trying out the Hobonichi Techo Weeks as a
| 2022 journal for more structure. But I'll always have a Midori MD
| for free flowing thoughts or sketches.
|
| They even have an interesting video on how they organize and pack
| orders. https://youtu.be/1Bi2Xys-ces
| zepearl wrote:
| About "FriXion" I love that feature to be able to erase the
| ink, and while scrolling just now Jetpens' site I came across
| this remark:
|
| > _...FriXion ink reappears if exposed to temperatures below
| 14F (-10C), like if it is placed in a freezer_
|
| I just tried that out by putting a scrap of paper into the
| freezer, it worked immediately! Funny & fascinating... :D
| dan-robertson wrote:
| For a slightly contrarian opinion: I just use printer-paper (for
| a _laser_ printer). It works fine with ballpoint or fountain pens
| (some notebook papers _don't_ work well with fountain pens and
| people think they need special expensive paper). Obviously it
| doesn't come in a neat book. I just used plastic document sleeves
| for the first level of organisation (one could then view more
| than two pages at once too) and box files for the second, though
| it wasn't very necessary. I don't have much to write and record
| these days.
|
| I currently use paper for free-form drawings or diagrams for work
| as photographing a paper drawing is the most efficient process I
| currently have for getting such diagrams into emails/our wiki.
| kixiQu wrote:
| I also use laser paper for my fountain pen scratch stuff! The
| premium laser stuff has a nice enough surface, _but_ it 's
| quite thick/heavy once you get multiple sheets together. The
| benefit for the special expensive paper is that you can have
| the same nice usable writing surface, but many, many, many more
| sheets in something thin and light enough to carry around (as
| in a notebook) or mail (as in letter paper). One big difference
| between Japanese and non-Asian paper cultures that I've found
| is that there's much less loyalty in Japan to the [brick-like
| codex aesthetic], so there's more design consideration placed
| into keeping things convenient to carry around -- textbooks
| split into thin volumes, notebooks tending toward copybook
| length even when of luxurious quality, etc. (Also may have
| something to do with diff. writing system facilitating info
| density on pages, etc. but that would need more expertise to
| weigh in on) If you're working at a desk, all that doesn't
| matter, and it sounds like you have a great system for your
| setup.
|
| [brick-like codex aesthetic]:
| https://www.nerdforge.academy/fantasy-bookbinding-course ,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_Wor...
| dubya wrote:
| I mostly agree. I use cheap paper at home, but my work recently
| switched suppliers and the new stuff is fine for printing, but
| bleeds terribly with liquid ink pens. Comes in plain white
| wrapper so I'm assuming it's pretty cheap.
| woolion wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Feng Zhu, and he often recalls asking his
| class "how many of you have a Moleskine notebook? Almost all
| raise hands. How many of you have filled them? And almost
| nobody raise their hands. So, just take a stack of printer
| paper, staple it, and that will be your notebook". With great
| paper comes great expectations, and that prevents you from
| using it. I was gifted a Moleskine notebook, tried to make a
| drawing on one page, it was pretty bad, and I never opened it
| again. I got the cheapest work notebook, and I actually filled
| it with great city drawings during my travels, interspersed
| with some ideas about probabilistic descriptive complexity and
| other stuff I was working on.
| OtomotO wrote:
| Paper is made from (once) living organisms.
|
| It should be treated as such and not taken for granted.
| larsonian wrote:
| OtomotO wrote:
| What is there to "come on"?
|
| I tell you something: most trees are better for the
| environment than most humans.
|
| Many a tree is also smarter than human apes ;)
| quartesixte wrote:
| The first on the list, the Kokuyo Campus notebook, is a favorite
| in Japanese schools everywhere, IF ONLY because it has the words
| "CAMPUS" emblazoned across the cover.
|
| That being said, it's a really good notebook.
| glandium wrote:
| My guess is because it's sold virtually everywhere, especially
| in 100yen shops.
| davidsawyer wrote:
| Relevant 99pi: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/hanko/
| wrp wrote:
| JetPens is by far the most useful web site for learning about
| Japanese stationery. I especially appreciate the customer
| reviews, where you sometimes get more critical analysis than you
| would see in the official description.
|
| It's worth also checking other sellers like www.tokyopenshop.com
| and jstationery.com, especially for older products or things that
| JetPens has run out of.
|
| Shipping out of the USA can be pretty expensive. For larger and
| more popular items, there are sellers operating from Japan that
| sell through Amazon and manage to keep shipping charges more
| modest.
| haroldship wrote:
| This article discusses an interesting topic and is written in an
| engaging style. Nice find!
| romwell wrote:
| I've been ordering from Jet Pens for about a decade now.
|
| Best selection of Japanese fountain pens, fantastic notebooks,
| always a great experience.
|
| Solid article, and glad to see them on the front page of HN.
| packetlost wrote:
| For anyone who prefers mechanical pencils over pens (like
| myself), I have been extremely happy with the pairing of a Zebra
| M-701 and Uni Nano Dia HB 0.7mm on Leuchtturm1917 or Moleskine
| paper.
| gganley wrote:
| Could I interest you in a Rotring 600? Keep in mind I haven't
| used either of those you listed.
|
| review:
| https://www.penaddict.com/blog/2012/3/5/rotring-600-drafting...
|
| jet pens: https://www.jetpens.com/Rotring-600-Drafting-
| Pencils/ct/1109
| packetlost wrote:
| I personally prefer a heftier, thicker pencil as the skinnier
| ones make my hands cramp up a little after a lot of writing
| (something . I do have some drafting pencils from a different
| brand (nothing spectacular) but they're mostly relegated to
| my art supplies drawer.
| srazzaque wrote:
| Reading this makes me yearn for paper/fountain again! But I think
| the convenience of Rocketbook scanning plus reusability has me
| hooked. At least for now.
|
| I recently found myself wanting to source some Japanese notebooks
| en-masse, as I prefer handwritten notes for meetings and general
| "thinking" work. I continually run out of notebooks at the worst
| possible times.
|
| Instead, I ended up buying a Rocketbook. I thought I'd try it
| out, it wasn't a huge outlay (compared to, for example,
| ReMarkable). I've gone through the notebook quite a few times
| now, works quite well.
|
| Rocketbooks definitely aren't perfect. The tactility is nowhere
| near that of fountain/paper. You must use Pilot Frixion pens. And
| you can only buy frixion pen inks in their insanely small and
| wasteful plastic cartridges (you cannot just buy a bottle of the
| ink, as far as I'm aware). I do sometimes wonder if it is better
| to fill up my recycle bin with paper, or fill up my garbage can
| with frixion cartridges.
|
| But, I'm still not sure I'll go back to standard pen and paper
| any time soon for my daily notetaking.
|
| Slightly off-topic but I'd be curious if any of you are
| Rocketbook "expats" or converts.
|
| Edit: spelling, plus further thought on wastefulness.
| authed wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Your account is rate limited. We rate limit accounts when they
| have a habit of breaking the site guidelines, getting involved
| in flamewars, or posting a lot of low-quality comments. You
| have a long history of doing that on HN, unfortunately. And are
| still doing it, unfortunately.
|
| Rate limits apply to all posts, both comments and submissions.
| That's the technical answer to your question.
|
| We're happy to remove rate limits when people give us reason to
| believe that they'll use the site as intended in the future,
| but unfortunately, when I skim your recent posts, I see reasons
| to believe the opposite.
|
| I realize the throttling is annoying, and am sorry about that,
| but it's one of the few crude software-based techniques we have
| to try to dampen the degeneration of this place; something to
| which you've unfortunately contributed more than your share.
|
| If you would review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, take the
| intended spirit of the site to heart, and build up a track
| record of abiding by the site guidelines, we'd be delighted to
| take the rate limit off your account.
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