What happens when you flip “all you can eat” on its head?

After waking up from an “all you can eat sushi” induced sleep (you know the kind when you’re so full you just can’t move and fall into a strangely uncomfortable sleep), I remembered some lines from a Japanese drama I watched recently.

A famous sushi chef slaps his sushi-chef-in-training son on the cheek.

“Ouch! Why did you slap me?”

“We take only what God* gives.”

“Only what God gives?”

“That’s right. We only catch the amount of fish God gives us. A true fisherman always keeps that in mind when they go out to sea every day. It’s the job of sushi chefs like us to provide customers with just the right portion they need.”

The son looks confused.

“That customer (talking about a customer who came earlier) was already finishing up and was about to leave fully satisfied. But you got carried away after a few praises and gave her another piece of chuutoro (a kind of tuna sushi). You used the tuna’s life as a tool for self-satisfaction!”

The son starts to understand.

“Son, remember to closely observe your customers. Breathe as your customers (become one with them) and know what they want.”

How often do we think of our food that way? What if we thought not of “all you can eat” but “eat only what you need?” How often do we use the lives of living beings as a tool for self-satisfaction?



On a different note, who says you can’t learn anything from TV shows?



*God (kami sama) in Japanese is often used to refer to a larger entity not necessarily with the same meaning as in a Western context.


-- Paper Sheep