20130126, Minutes, Taichung by Jane Cheng
Topic:
Decluttering: Self-Cultivation by Subtraction
The attendants: Jane (the host), Tzong, Jasmine, Harries, Coach, John, Kevin, Fiona, Justine, Leah, Angela, Lisa, Edward
It’s 210th Taichung Happy English gathering and Jasmine brought us a mouth-watering chocolate cake to celebrate it. It’s really delicious!! We felt blessed and were thankful for all the previous and present officers who have been being devoted to our weekly gatherings for more than four years. The stable attendance indicates that our friendship has been growing and deepening as weeks went by. Well done, all Taichung Happiers!
What is danshari, some even haven’t heard of the new notion which now became trendy in Japan. It is translated literally as refusal, disposal and separation. The philosophy urges people to refuse to acquire unneeded goods, to dispose of excess possessions and to separate themselves from their attachment to those possessions.
Question 1: Are you a tidy or untidy person? It’s very interesting to know how others think about themselves. When I said I was an untidy one, it seemed a little surprise to our teammates. It’s because I thought ‘constant calls to organize and put things in order create needless pressures and sap energy and vitality.’ Generally speaking, It’s more about one’s personality: some tend to be laidback while some may feel secured being in order.
Question 2: Have you had a quarrel with any close one just because you had different habits and ways about tidying up stuff? This question puzzled our young and single teammates who haven’t had much experience to live and share stuff and space with others. However, In Taiwan, traditionally, women are supposed to be the one who are responsible for cleaning and tidying up the house. But time has changed. Edward thought when a couple live together, they share almost everything. And men and women should also share housework. They will eventually work out the way how to share it because of their love and understanding for each other.
Question 3: Boxes. Jasmine suggested putting away things in different boxes. It’s a good way but it’s troublesome to sort stuff and keep too many boxes for me. To save my energy and reduce boxes, I will prepare a box which I name Asabulu to store miscellaneous items. We also agreed that we should allocate these boxes by the utility priority of the stuff it store. Kevin has an apartment in hsinchu where he works and his mum often comes to clean and tidy up the house. How lucky Kevin is!
Question 4: Jasmine remembered her deceased father used to collect men’s socks. They asked him why he collected socks and he answered that it’s because socks were hidden under the shoes and pants so no one would notice them. How strange attachment it was! My husband is collecting DVD and Blue-ray movies. However, as long as my house still has enough space for his collections, I won’t bother.
Question 5: Edward is an organized person. He sold unneeded stuff to second hand stores when moving house and discard the useless straight away. He quite admired the way holding a garage sale to get rid of redundant items. But due to the superstition of the older generation of Taiwanese, they believed if the previous owner had bad luck, the bad luck will pass down to the new owner; therefore, they won’t approve buying second hand goods, Jasmine commented. What a shame!
Question 6: Only Jasmine and I in our team had watched it. The story did scare me and I started to sincerely view this problem – the corporations have controlled the world and made us become their captives who live in a stressfull lifestyle -- go shopping, throwing out stuff and go shopping new stuff again, then work longer and harder in order to make our contribution to the economy of our society,. The aftermath is that we cut down all the trees on the planet, run out the resources as soon as possible and live in a polluted environment full of allergens and carcinogens. I felt very sorry for our next generation and was shameful for what I have done. I decided to cut down all unnecessary waste at all possible.
Question 7: I was a bit surprised that not many people among us had heard of the danshari notion. We all thought we had a good lesson of it but keeping the balance of life was also important. Exaggerating the notion of danshari may be too idealistic and dampen some joys of life. As for whether Taiwan would follow the trend after Japan, we didn’t think it would happen soon because Japanese were well-known for their being particular about tidiness. Nevertheless, I thought Taipei dwellers may follow suit because of their limited living space and soaring real estate prices. Taipei city council also enforces the law on collecting the exclusive garbage bags which are sold by the government. Although Taichung city council has been planning it too, we doubt if the regulation can be carried out soon.
Jane Chang
