Nami Matsuoka

Some of Japanese students and I had a presentation about Japanese culture, which we gave other students and teachers brief introductions for Japanese language, martial arts, religion, aesthetic and music. In this presentation I was talking about Aesthetic that Japanese people have as I wanted international people to find the difference of concept of beauty between western culture and Japanese culture. The main topic I had was about Wabi-sabi. I explained it because I thought that Wabi-sabi should be unique and also new concept to most of international people and helps them to understand Japanese culture more deeply. "Western idea was found in symmetry and perfection. On the other hand, Japanese one was found in realistic and imperfection. That's why we feel something beautiful when we find it is fleeting and fragile." When I explained that, they didn't seem that they understood my explanation, however one of my teachers said to me that "It's very interesting and something new. Now I've understood why Japanese people have special sense of beauty." Sometimes the senses of beauty that we have and western people do are very different or even opposite but I am sure that we are fascinated at the difference each other.