Five Fascinating Ancient Japanese Traditions Survived Centuries | Still Standing | Insider Business

I love the demeanor of the mochi lady at the shrine. Super impressive of how they kept it going for 25th generations. She looks so happy. :)

$35?!? Holy crap, I know what I'm buying for my next paycheck. That's a whole lot cheaper than I thought it would be. I love artisan stuff like this. I was expecting $100+ per bottle.

What I really appreciate about Japanese culture is that anything can be worthy of patience, discipline, and perfection. Whether it's growing the perfect apple, or crafting the world's best & most precise scissors.

The Japanese soy sauce guy deserves a medal from his government for courage, daring and perseverance to preserve Japanese tradition and culture.

Japanese crafts are on another level. These people are certainly talented.

I had the opportunity to work with a traditional Japanese woodworker over spring & summer while I was in my 20s. It was the most amazing 6 months I've spent in one place: NO power tools, no photos, no interrupting...but the patience, confidence, respect & appreciation for manual skills have stayed with me for over 50 years.

Okay. The lady with the mochi shrine has the most calming and whimsical voice I've ever heard.

0:47: 🍶 Yasuo Yamamoto, a fifth generation soy sauce maker, is one of the last artisans making soy sauce the traditional way in Japan.
6:45: 🍶 The art of making traditional soy sauce and wagashi (Japanese sweets) in Japan.
19:28: 🍡 The oldest business in Japan, Ichiwa, has been serving roasted rice cakes called aburi mochi for over a thousand years and has survived various challenges, including the current COVID-19 pandemic.
25:52: 🔧 A blacksmith in Japan carries on the tradition of crafting Bonsai scissors using ancient techniques.
34:44: 🔧 Crafting high-quality scissors and brewing rare black vinegar in Japan.
44:25: 🍶 Akihiro Sakamoto runs the family business of producing kurosu, a type of rice vinegar, which is highly sought after for its milder and less acidic taste.
Recap by Tammy AI

Having personally purchased that soy sauce, I've been curious since to know it's history. Thank you for featuring the maker of Yamaroku!

We have to give the Japanese people with the most respected of all human being, the dedication, passion, love, hard work, patient and integrity. There is no word to describe the mental focus and with no massive machine. All by hands

Really appreciate artisans who uphold tradition over profit and convenience

Literally all of these people are badasses. To the fullest degree. Especially Yasuhiro. He makes BONZAI CUTTERS, with the techniques of KATANAS. Bro that is awesome!! My family (the Scottish side) is full of carpenters. I hope one day I can retire and at least make wood carvings to carry on at least the tiniest bit of my family's tradition.

Even though the crafts are usually repeated each time in these videos, I still watch every single one.

I love the one lady who says she taught everyone how to do mochi! Dont hog all the knowledge ❤

I am totally fascinated by these Japanese ancient traditions, that are passed to new generations.
Poecelain pottery, special steel knives/swords, food preparations like miso/shoyu, many kinds of art work like bamboo/paper umbrelas, indigo dyeing, wooden utensils, wooden furniture, flower arrangements, origami... wow, the list is long.
This particular story shown here is mindblowiing, the same family doing it for centuries.
Japan, China, Korea, and most Asian cultures preserve these traditions...

The soy sauce is incredible! I was gifted a bottle and use it sparingly, it has a different, nuttier taste compared to regular soy sauce. I truly hope it can continue to be made for years to come.

Regarding the 2nd exposé, the one from Kyoto, the confectioners practice what I believe in: Accuracy is Speed. What I mean is that the confectioners are so precise in shaping their sweet treats that they are fast enough to finish working on a piece before it starts to melt from being held by human hands. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🍬🇺🇸🤝🇯🇵

Love these videos. Japan always amazes me. They know how do do things properly there!

My mom got me a bottle of the soy sauce as a birthday gift one year and it was great. The flavor is a lot more pleasant as a raw topping than other brands, but as far as I could tell there isn’t a huge difference if you cook with it, so it was something that I used pretty situationally.

The lady running the aburi mochi shop is my favorite.

This is one of the best you've ever produced. Thank you.

Crafts can be hard, but that's what makes them so fulfilling. We are wired to make and create. It is our salvation.

I love watching people make stuff, without videos we wouldnt get to see the processes anymore. I miss being a kid and just watching someone make glass or repair shoes, there's something special about watching someone who has muscle memory just silently working away at their craft.

This is a national treasure and it should be preserved as part of their essence, is part of their culture, please to future generations, never let this tradition to die. 😔

Japanese culture is fascinating

fascinating!

The traditional methods produce a very superior product. Due to the knowledge and physical care it would be nearly impossible to replicate this process by machines. It also takes a lot of time to learn how to rely on their senses to know when it is time for the next step.

Would’ve loved links to purchase these products and support the artisans.

ngl 35$ isn't very much for soy sauce, especially if there's a signficant taste difference, and it helps keep a tradition alive.

Barrel aged soy sauce is delicious! It’s like the fine champagne of soy sauce. ❤

wow it is amazing.japanese are so creative and talented.

As far as my budget will allow, I wish to support artisans like this. Clearly they are all Japanese in this video, and I applaud all of them. There are at least one or two products highlighted here that I intend to purchase, but these are not the only ones out there who deserve to be supported.
Regardless of nationality, each and every corner of the globe has dying traditions like these. If you can afford to pay the premium and appreciate the work of the people who uphold these traditions please find a way to purchase their products and support them. Once they are gone, they are gone, and it kinda hurts my heart to think that businesses like those shown here could die and be lost to time due to people not recognizing the importance of upholding the traditional ways of doing things.

My brain just loves these videos.

These are all true labors of love 😊

The traditional Japanese Soy Sauce, the Kyogashi/Wagashi, the Aburi Mochi and the Japanese Black Vinegar look extremely delicious and I want to try them all. 🍡 🏺

Nice video and also first comment

Those barrels are beautiful! True craftsmanship! Bless him for rescuing a dying art! Soy sauce lovers applaud you! The old arts need to be rescued and continued! Today's generation need to learn patience and quality over speed and mass production!

Only 5? Japan is a true artisan community. ❤

A mochi shop that has been in the same family for generations!! They took on debt to keep paying their employees when they shut during the worst of the pandemic!! ❤❤❤❤❤

Of all of these I'd like to try the black vinegar the most.

The cooper soy sauce brewer has my respect. I so want to try his brand.

I was beginning to think either I was going crazy or you were! 😂

it's strange to see giant barrels new when i'm used to see them as old things

Meanwhile all our movies make going into the family business seem like a fate worse than death. I would be honored to be the 3rd generation in a family business, much less the 23rd!!! That would be amazing in my book. Besides that, people need to start appreciating quality and craftsmanship again, keep paying fair prices for the hard work and skill that goes into good products, and stop buying cheap crap from huge corporations

You will swear you haven't ever tasted soy sauce before. It's sooo good.

7:10 anyone see the dunker on that chef

Preserve Japanese culture; avoid ending up like Western Europe.
Encourage the conservation and continuation of traditional Japanese customs, practices, and values.

I wanna taste the fancy shoyu soooo badddd

he said he's gonna pass his soy sauce workshop down to a son 😂 he didn't blink.

have someone the link for the soy sauce?

What's the name of that wagashi store?

I know family and lineage are a big deal and part of the legacy, but its sad to see long standing craftsmanship face extinction because of the modern world and descendants looking to do something different with their lives. I believe they could survive and take their craft into the future by training an eager successor outside the family as a steward of the business, e.g. Sasuke Blacksmiths c/o XYZ (under the care of XYZ). An legal arrangement can be made to where they can keep the business running equitably for them and the family and most importantly the skills alive. Members of the family will always have first priority of succession when the carer takes on a new apprentice. This would allow the business to return to family lineage if a descendant chooses to cary on tradition even if they skip a generation.
There are a multitude of people locally and globally that admire, understand and respect these crafts for them to die.

Don't say Umami flavor. If you want to use Umami, say just Umami. Otherwise say savory flavor like in the normal English.

I would love to have a pair of that gentleman's scissor's!

"Bwown Wice is one of onwy Thwee Ingwediants" lol

Doing a craft that you are passionate ease depression.i know this is out of conversation, but jaon society has many lone people bu doing craft and be active ease depresion and lonely feeling.😢

Let that first guy build the new age tartarus . 🤣

what's the brand name of this soy sauce?

Soy sauce should be a rare and heavily related as champagne with regards to its original making and taste

40.36 little bug in the jar😁🐜

🇧🇷🇧🇷 Most of the Soy Sauce you find in supermarkets are NOT real soy sauce. These wood barrels are NOT easy to make. With modern machinery or not. BRAZIL, by far, has the biggest wood variety in the world and even so, it is not that easy to find the right wood to make barrels that big. The question is: from where the wood to make the barrels come from? Once Japan is composed by volcanic soil and, usually, it doesn't have very tall trees ? 🇧🇷🇧🇷

Yasuo is a soy sauce hero 👏

"the fall"? It's "autumn" for the world outside of North America.

If you want a quality product that is hand made with old traditional ways
The price of$ 35 is cheap

Noooo 😮😢

I like your videos alot, I would like to translate your subtitles into Arabic, If you are interested.

This series is good but they reuse content so much lol

I genuinely hate when the virus* 2020 interfere with a social tradition of a country or tourism.

Would be illegal here in the US because the government doesn't like to allow people to choose their own food.

"Only those who practice this for around 10 years can roast the mochi [skewers] properly." Oh wow, really? 🤨

If we Japanese lost any of thoese rhe tradirions, the tradtion are prity much obiliviated. It‘s not just tradition and goods but history that is nmore than tradirion and Japanese art. MUST TRY things when,vuaiting Japan. Quality over quantity.

Ah yes the traditional steam temperature adjusted steel drum fermentation chamber.....
Black vinegar dude should look into this concept called "climate controlled buildings" and achieve some verticality.

Chonky little puppies. 😊

Such a shame they couldn't just stick to these traditions and decided to invade and absolutely destroy their neighbors back in the day instead.

Don't worry, clones be replacing them and then all be made using machineries.
-Money

I fail to see how the modernization of soy making after WW2 nearly destroyed a business that survived for more than 50 years after the end of the war but yeah.... 2007 was the year that broke a business.. not any year between 1946 and 2006.

The soy sauce is not worth 30$. I tried factory made (10$ bottle) and the 30$ bottle and they they the same.

Oh I’m early

God I bet that soy sauce is sublime

I much prefer the "I will teach this technique to literally anyone who asks" type of artisans, over the "This recipe goes to my children or to my grave" type.

“Why do they call Japanese stuff art and treat Indian stuff another way”
-nobody

Making an inferior product for tradition is so dumb. Plus they are always complaining about being on the verge of failure. They reason they're still doing it like this is because everyone else kept up with the times.

Please not touch with hands though. Not hygienic

EVERY JAPANESE ART REQUIRES 10 YEARS TO PERFECT AND ALWAYS HARD AS THEY SAY LIKE SMELLING THE VINEGAR EVERYDAY. IF WIPING AZZ WAS A JAPANESE ART I WONDER WHAT A STRUGGLE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FOR MANY 😅😂

It would be nice if you didn't mispronounce names all the time...

The reason they have lasted so long is because they were on an island and isolated from invasions of different cultures. Japan had many warring nations, but they were all essentially other Japanese who needed these traditional artisans as they were essential personnel.
Japan invaded mainland Korea and China and decimated the native culture and burned down EVERYTHING they deemed "different." They went on a rampage to DECIMATE Korean culture and historical landmarks for centuries.

I know of this man HES AMAZING

excuse me？？？ even japanese themselves know their culture are from china，nomater food nomatter handcraft no matter cloth no matter house design even words

So much work for a disappointing taste.

0:47 Soy sauce comes from China
6:45 Wagashi comes from China
19:28 Rice cakes comes from China
25:52 Scissors come from Egypt but guess who imported it to japan, China and also the method of making it comes from China
34:44 do i really need more? bonsai trees comes from china
44:25 guess were rice vinegar comes from and were?
and you know the big shocker cherry blosm comes china, katana was copied from tang dao, kimono from hanfu, your infrasture you music, art you hiercal system, karate comes from china hmmm should i go on?
guess were the idea of a samurai comes from? not like the togukawa hiercal system wasent copied from china but the warrior clasess too bahahahah no culture no lanague all copied from china
really piss me off when people steal chinses stuff and say its japanses even the mehod of making these items comes from china. meh but what can you expected when 60% of japanses culture is just stolen cultre from China

These people need Jesus.

I dont mind paying more in traditional japanese process..