“How Do We Live with Tradition?” By Hiraku Ogura
Climate, Culture, and People: A Chain of Crafting Techniques
Few words are as worn out through repeated use as “tradition.” It is often invoked as a burden that must be protected, or as a signboard used to keep outsiders at bay. Yet after reading this book, the contours of the word become remarkably clearer.
Having spent years exploring traditional fermentation cultures across Japan and beyond, the author divides tradition into two forms. One is “Tradition with a capital T”: a tradition elevated into authority, where people compete over what is considered “correct.” The other is “tradition with a lowercase t”: a chain of techniques rooted in the local climate and environment, continuously sustained through the act of “making.” If the former is an application, the author suggests, the latter is the operating system quietly running beneath it.
Georgian wine, koji used in sake brewing, Okinawan yachimun pottery, and cormorant fishing on the Nagara River—the places the author visits throughout the book reveal a common attitude among their practitioners: “I am not the one who makes it.” Instead, they entrust the process to the invisible work of other beings—plants, microorganisms, soil, and birds. The author argues that this receptive stance is precisely where the essence of tradition lies. Yet this does not mean that humans are alienated from their environment. In a sake brewery, fermentation cannot occur without human hands. The author describes this sense of human beings and their surroundings blending together as “Te-loire” (a play on terroir and te, meaning “hand”).
Using the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer as a conceptual guide, the book presents a striking paradox: the past is not something to be correctly understood and preserved. Rather, it speaks to the present through its very “ungraspability,” generating new forms of creation through moments of discomfort and uncertainty. Moreover, the author argues that these responses do not come from the past itself, but arrive from the future. What does this mean?
The author redefines the role of tradition—not as preserving existing forms unchanged, but as creating forms that have not yet come into being. This argument becomes convincing because it is grounded in the author’s extensive encounters with actual practitioners and places of making.
What moved this reviewer most was the author’s portrayal of tradition as a force against exclusionary nationalism. Rather than retreating into narratives of “Japanese uniqueness,” tradition can instead become a foothold for trusting the person right beside us. This is why the author calls out: “Do not face each other; stand side by side.” It is precisely expressions born from deeply pursuing one’s own individual “likes” and passions that can cross cultural boundaries and take root in the hearts of people far away. (Price: 1,056 yen)
