Putting money where your mouth is — the Japanese concept of mottainai

Naturally there are a lot of things I worry about with respect to the upcoming birth of Naoko and I’s first child. Probably nos. 1 and 2 on this list (they’re really tied for number 1) are the worrisome state of the Japanese education system, and how Naoko and I are going to financially provide for the child. This post is about the latter worry.

My mother-in-law (and my wife for that matter) loves to throw out the Japanese word mottainai, which Iwanami Shoten’s Kojien defines as “A regrettable situation in which something is wasted without its value being fully utilized.” This is actually one of those Japanese words (or perhaps more accurately, concepts) that I hear at least once a day. (Another is shoganai — roughly “it can’t be helped”). So if I suggest that the bathtub cover should be replaced because it’s actually broken (yes, they have bathtub covers in Japan so the hot water doesn’t go cold in between family members’ baths), my suggestion is met by “mottainai” by my mother-in-law (never mind that a new bathtub cover can be bought for around 750 yen, or about $6 USD and some change).

Now, I’m pretty much on board with the concept of mottainai (and to prove it you should know that as I type this I’m sitting here in bundles and bundles of clothes and blankets, wearing a muffler around my neck, and can see my breath when I exhale, all in an effort to save on electricity costs!). But sometimes, I think some Japanese view it all too obsessively, and tend to lose perspective (witness my previous post about family finances and my wife’s efforts — for naught — to save 20 yen on a bottle of honey).

At any rate, recently my mother-in-law had the opportunity to put her money where her mouth is, so to speak. Obviously, with the baby due in a little over 3 months time, there are some things that we need to buy (some things, hah! a lot of things!), including a baby crib and a stroller. These items don’t run cheap in Japan, but our local department store (the same store I got my $70 wool suits a couple of months back) has a sale on at the moment, with a baby crib running 10,000 yen ($80), with another 10,000 yen for the bedding to go along with it. Naoko and my mother-in-law were all hot to trot. Kaou? Kaou? (Should we buy?) But I put a damper on their bargain shopping love-fest when I suggested, “What about all the recycle shops in the area? Surely there must be some cribs in those places, considering that a crib is not something you need to keep around the house forever.”

“Dame jaan (that’s no good),” said my mother-in-law. “The baby should have new things. You can’t buy a crib at the recycle (second-hand) shop. Kitanai yo (It’s dirty)!” My response? You can probably guess it: “A new 10,000 yen crib is mottainai.” She did not like this answer. And I fully admit that internally I was doing a little dance and shouting “touche”. But beyond gleefully catching my mother-in-law in a trap, I was serious. Why spend a lot of money on something that we’re going to use for a couple of years (and perhaps twice, if we’re foolhardy enough to have a second child after this one)? As long as it’s not in danger of falling apart, why not buy one of these at a recylcle shop if we can find one. I have been to the recycle shops in this area on more than a few occassions, and I can tell you one thing, there are some serious bargains to be had, especially on furniture. Just the other day I was in one, and saw a brand new wardrobe, beautiful looking, huge, and sturdier than anything in Ikea’s dreams. Price tag?: 4,000 yen (about $32 US).

And buying secondhand would be symbolic as well. I see it as helping the child start off on the right foot, so to speak, even though he/she will be clueless that they’re sleeping in a recycled crib. To me, there’s nothing wrong with buying from secondhand stores, in fact I see it as the opposite. And I want my child to feel the same.

You see, I feel strongly about this because after my parents divorced when I was 11 years old, with alimony payments and what not there wasn’t a lot of money to go around (we lived with my father). My brother and I both had paper routes, and with the money we made from this we were expected to pretty much pay for our existence, save for food and shelter. And so all of our clothes were bought at swap meets, or from the Goodwill or Salvation Army stores. In fact, I don’t think I bought a brand new item of clothing until I was in my lates teens, when vanity and the search for girlfriends impelled me to upgrade my wardrobe. It wasn’t just clothes. On the rare occassion that we went out for dinner, we always made sure we ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, not because of pressure from my father but because we ourselves felt that as a family, we couldn’t afford it. (My favorite story from this period was when my brother Kimo and I were visiting my grandparents in Houston, and my brother accompanied my grandmother to the doughnut store as she needed to buy some doughnuts for a church function. My grandmother asked Kimo — who was around 13 years old at the time — if he wanted a doughnut, but he declined, saying it cost too much money — probably only .40 cents or so. The shop clerk was so taken with my brother’s refusal to have money spent on him that she gave my brother a free doughnut).

And so yesterday, Naoko and I went to a secondhand store specifically for children’s stuff in Urawa, working off a tip from one of Naoko’s co-workers. Hah hah hah, I think I just found my new favorite store! Car seats, tons of childrens clothes, bibs and diaper stuff, strollers, children’s books and toys, they seemingly had it all, at fabulous prices. And yes, they had a crib, in very good condition, with exactly what Naoko required (storage space underneath the bed, can convert to a changing table, has casters so we can wheel it around). Price tag?: 2,980 yen ($24 USD). Hmmn, let’s see….that’s a savings of 7,000 yen, or $55 USD, from the on-sale department store model. (You can see a fair approximation of what we bought via this item at Amazon, which is selling for $99.) Did we buy it? You bet your bottom dollar we did. The look on my mother-in-law’s face when we brought it into the house was bemused, but the look on her face when we told her how much it had cost was priceless.

However, I’m not sure she’s fully with the program yet. We also bought a backpack for carrying all those baby accessories, you know, bottles of milk, diapers, toys, a brand new backpack which was only 298 yen (original price 3,000 yen). Rather that being impressed that we paid ten times less than the original price, my mother-in-law seemed most pleased with the fact that it was new, and in it’s original packaging. “Atarashii wa ii desu ne,” she kept saying (new is good, isn’t it?). Ah, but the point had been made, and I couldn’t help but feel very satisfied that our first big purchase for the child (of MANY to come) was such an ii kaimono (“smart shopping”) experience, and to my mind, fully in step with the concept of mottainai.