Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan | Lisa Katayama

Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan | Lisa Katayama | More useful than you can possibly imagine!

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Urawaza: Secret Ev...

	Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan Lisa Katayama Chronicle Books, 2008 - 144 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Japan has a way of thinking that is just . . . different. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Tokyo-born journalist Lisa Katayama's collection of urawaza (a Japanese word for secret lifestyle tricks and techniques). Want to turbocharge your sled? Spray the bottom with nonstick cooking spray. Can't find someone to water your plants while you're away? Place the plant on a water-soaked diaper, so it slowly absorbs water over time. The subject of popular TV shows and numerous books in Japan, these unusually clever solutions to everyday problems have never before been published in English until now! Urawaza collects more than 100 once-secret tricks, offering step-by-step directions and explanations in an eye-catching package as unconventional as its contents.

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great book

This book is so neat. We've tried a lot of the little tricks already. Very interesting, and also gave us a laugh on a few of them :)

More useful than you can possibly imagine!

It's certainly about time we had something from Japan that goes beyond the famous "101 Useless Japanese Inventions" (funny, though). Now we have "Very useful Japanese tricks." I really like how Lisa tells us why the tricks work as well. And the vignettes for how the situations might arise are so funny!

I've had this book for several months now, and it only gets more and more useful and fun. It's improved my quality of life in so many areas -- in the margins, but it's these little things that make it so fun. The other day I spilled wine on some white clothing. No problem. I impressed my grandmother and family to no end by cleaning up their coffee and tea-stained cups and coffee-maker with orange peel and salt. My wife dropped an egg on the floor, and it was so easy to clean up the mess. In our household, "what does it say in the Urawaza book?" is now the standard first response to many situations. In the office, warmed-over coffee never tasted so good. I don't need to worry about garlic breath after lunch. And my plant is thanking Urawaza for saving its life, since it stayed home without me but didn't dry out.

I just wish I could hold more of the urawaza in my head so I'd be prepared for all sorts of contingencies on the road too. I've recommended this so many of my friends, who immediately rush to go get their own copy after I've recited some of the great tricks.

Definitely one for every household. This also makes a great gift! (I'm set for this Christmas season - I always have trouble finding something that's fun and useful)

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Ancient Japanese secret, huh?

Everyone knows how to cure the hic-ups, or to get wine stains out of white clothing right? There are all sorts of little household tricks and tips handed down via word of mouth, or from a helpful friend or parent in a time of need. The Japanese term for these is "urawaza", a word with a sly feel to it meaning a little secret that only you know about, something you discovered about a product that the producers didn't intend for you to know. Its main use is with videogames, referring to cheat codes left in by programmers who never intended them to become public knowledge.

This book is full of urawaza's, little "cheat codes" for common household objects like potatoes and old sales receipts, things that would normally never be used for more than their intended purposes. For example, magically clearing up a stuffy nose by shoving the white root section of a scallion in your nostrils, or rubbing a little egg white on your glasses to prevent them from fogging. Each tip is accompanied by a short explanation of why the process works, showing the molecules and process involved that accompany the magic.

The strange thing is, the tips actually work. I haven't tried all of them, but the ones I have given a shot work just as advertised. You might feel a bit strange at first rubbing a cut potato across your bathroom mirrors to make them fog-free, but you can't argue with the results. Want to know how to keep your bathwater from going cold using only orange peels, or how to make your dull hair glossy? "Urawaza" has what you need.

The only disappointment with this book is the lack of any real Japanese connection, aside from the title. There are a few little asides at the start of each chapter talking about the author's personal history or a few cultural notes, but that is about it. There was a good opportunity to include some Japanese vocabulary for each entry, just a few words here and there relating to the subject, and make this a language-learner along with its helpful and fun tips. Unfortunately they didn't go that route, but if you aren't studying Japanese and just want a cool and useful little book, then that isn't really an issue.

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Fun Tips for Better Living

This book is like a fun version of Hints from Heloise...little tricks that you're surprised work, that make your every day life a little smoother. I like skimming the book, and I've gotten some good ideas from it already. Another nice thing is the explanation of why each tip works...I picked up some lite science while reading. That said, the book is a little layout heavy, with only one tip per page. If it was more packed, I think I would've given it 5 stars. Even so, it's a fun book to have around when you just wanna thumb through.

An excellent introduction to Japanese cleverness

"Urawaza" is a word with a long history in Japan. In martial arts, it means "from the back", an unexpected or tricky move that only experts might know. In the computer gaming world it means programmers' back-doors that let players gain points, levels and advantage by doing something unexpected.

In society in general it represents frugal and clever household techniques. There's been a show on Japanese television for nine years where ordinary people share their tricks with other people. UTube is a great source of videos often taken from this show. The sound is often in Japanese, but the tricks work without sound. I've learned to perfectly fold a tee shirt in a few seconds, for example. An even more amazing video shows how to make babies stop crying by breathing on them after drinking a bit of red or white wine.

This book is an excellent introduction to the genre. The ideas work -- I tried the shallot trick for a stuffy nose and I was cleared up in a few seconds -- and the illustrations are excellent and amusing. Each of these Urawazas comes with a technical explanation of why they may work. The philosophical approach is a commentary on the loss of ingenuity in an era of specialized products, many of which don't work very well.

If you enjoy reading the cooking shortcuts in cooking magazines or the shop hints in "Popular Mechanics", you'll find this a real adventure in human ingenuity.

Robert C. Ross 2008

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reviews: page 1, 2

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