Thursday, August 2, 2012

Jiro dreams of sushi...




I recently found out that Jiro Dreams of Sushi is playing in select cinemas in Singapore.

It's a documentary on 85-year-old Jiro Ono, who is said to be the world's greatest sushi chef.

Somewhat hidden in a Tokyo subway station is Jiro-san's 10-seat sushi only restaurant. Dun be fooled by the simplicity of the restau. The place was awarded a 3 star Michelin. From what I read, the sushi is really expensive and one has to book several weeks in advance just to be able to get a seat at Jiro's sushi bar.

I watched the trailer, and he talks about "shokunin." It refers to someone who is skilled at his profession. The way Jiro described it though, it's not just about being skilled. It is about constantly striving to achieve perfection in what one does.

So it probably means that it may refer to anything, yeah? Whether you're a business tycoon or a street cleaner, you can "achieve" or strive to be shokunin.

In the movie The Last Samurai, the character played by Tom Cruise wrote in his diary about the people in the samurai village that captured/adopted him, "From the morning they wake up until the end of the day, they (referring to the people) do nothing but strive to be perfect at what they do." Or something like that...

What I'm trying to say really is I couldn't help but admire this kind of discipline of the Japanese.

I want to be Japanese in my next life. LOL!

Kidding aside, I hope to be able to catch this docu while it's still showing here in SG.

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