Urawaza, Japanese Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks by Lisa Katayama

Posted by Alex in Neatorama Only, Video Clips on April 22, 2009 at 2:38 am


Hi, I'm Lisa Katayama — I write a blog called TokyoMango, and I'm also a freelance magazine journalist and editor at Boing Boing Gadgets.

Last year, I published a book called Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan. It's a collection of 108 quirky and (usually) useful life hacks that are meant to solve problems and entertain people. It was inspired by a two-page spread on a Japanese TV show that I wrote in Wired Magazine's October 2006 issue — a couple months after the story came out in Wired, I met with an editor at Chronicle Books and we put together a book proposal, and the rest is history.

Urawaza is about applying nuggets of wisdom passed down through generations to every day problems that we still have trouble solving, like getting wine stains out of a white shirt or showing off to our friends by swimming backwards.

Here are three samples from the book, with accompanying videos made by friends and family:

1. How to clean up spilled egg yolk

Dilemma: The egg was supposed to crack in the pan--not on the floor.

Solution: Sprinkle some table salt on the spilled egg and wait ten minutes for it to soak in, then sweep the egg yolk right off the floor with a broom.

Why this works: The salt dissolves the lipoproteins in egg yolk, which changes its texture from gooey to nongooey, making it easier to clean.

2. How to make a baby stop crying

Dilemma: Sure, the baby's cute. But why won't he stop crying?

Solution: The secret to stop a crying baby lies in making the sound you produce during the mouthfeel stage of wine tasting.

Why this works: When babies are still in the womb, the noises they can hear are limited to those in the 6000-8000mHz range. The sound you make when you slosh the liquid behind your lips during wine tasting takes place at about 7000mHz, reminding the baby of a time when the world around was peaceful and the whirs and stirs inside Mommy's tummy soothed him back to a sleepy state.

[Update 4/22/09 - correction in the second printing of the book] Why this works: The sound you make when you slosh the liquid behind your lips during wine tasting reminds the baby of the noises they hear when they're still in the womb.

3. How to prevent body odor

Dilemma: Soap keeps you feeling fresh for a few minutes out of the shower, and deodorant masks the smell for a few hours thereafter, but by the end of the day, your armpits smell like a funky mix of sweat, dust, and fake baby powder.

Solution: A natural deodorant made of baking soda and lemon juice works better than almost any over-the-counter stick. Just dust some baking soda on your pits, rub some lemon juice on top, and pat dry for natural-stink-free crevices.

Why this works: Baking soda absorbs moisture and kills odor-causing bacteria, and the acidity of the lemon changes the pH balance of your skin. Because bacteria don't do so hot in high acidity, they tend not to proliferate in a lemony environment.

You can read more about the book here.

__________

[By Alex] As you can tell, the post above is a guest post by Lisa Katayama. Her book, Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan (illustrated by Joel Holland) is filled with strange lifestyle tricks and useful techniques that we've come to expect and love from Japan.

If you are an author and are interested in plugging your book for free on Neatorama, let's talk!


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20 comments to "Urawaza, Japanese Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks by Lisa Katayama"

  1. GQ
    April 22nd, 2009 at 4:51 am

    Right, I'm sorry but that last one? Just buy deodorant!

  2. angstrom
    April 22nd, 2009 at 6:19 am

    erm, you say : "[babies]the noises they can hear are limited to those in the 6000-8000mHz range"

    I very much doubt that!
    the human hearing range is from around 30hz to about 20 kilohertz

    a megaherz is a thousand times the frequency of a kilo hertz, so according to you babies can hear frequencies far far above the human hearing threshold?

    our top frequency is 20,000 hz and babies can hear
    6,000,000,000 hz ? really?

    I'd guess that womb sounds are between 600hz and 800hz

  3. Patrick Nice
    April 22nd, 2009 at 8:35 am

    Daddy drinks because you cry.

  4. anotherguy
    April 22nd, 2009 at 9:31 am

    If you had the time to make your own deodorant out of lemon and baking soda, you could just take a shower...

  5. Tonberry2k
    April 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 am

    If that's you in the picture at the top, I just want to say you're gorgeous.
    And the book sounds interesting, too. :P

  6. Geekazoid
    April 22nd, 2009 at 11:07 am

    There's several of these types of advice books and informercials I've seen that were pretty cool. It's always neat to be able to use household items and non toxic stuff for everyday use.

  7. Lisa Katayama
    April 22nd, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    @#2: You're right, this info is wrong. We actually ran a correction in the book, and it should be changed here soon, too. Thanks!

  8. Benny Lava
    April 22nd, 2009 at 12:14 pm

    Can everyone with babies please work on that tip #2 starting right now, please? kthx

  9. Gauldar
    April 22nd, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    @Benny Lava

    So you would prefer to be in a room of women swishing spit around in their mouth in unison while babies are crying, then to just be in a room with babies crying?

  10. SenorMysterioso
    April 22nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    I thought it was advising parents of crying babies to drink wine

  11. MightyCow
    April 22nd, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    I've done the volcano experiment. Mixing baking soda and acid equals foaming mess. I'll take deodorant over rabid armpits (good name for a band) any day.

  12. santamontana
    April 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    So lemon juice in my tennis shoes will keep them fresh and all?

  13. Beelo
    April 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    HI! Lisa!! I've watched a TV show in Hong Kong talking about the method of stop BB crying. It seems work cos I tried once with my nephew. hahhahahhaa

    Anyway, thanks for the useful information. They make life easier..

    Keep Going!!

    Beelo

  14. kevin T
    April 22nd, 2009 at 7:24 pm

    i hear your editor at chronicle was really foxy.

  15. shecky
    April 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 pm

    Having tried baking soda, I found the effect very curious. Used alone, it does seem to keep BO at bay. What it does not do is absorb any moisture. In fact, it seems to make me perspire more! While it will work in a pinch, my regular unscented deodorant/antiperspirant does a better job overall.

    The baby crying tip seems kinda weird, too. If a baby won't stop crying, there's likely something wrong. Making odd noises might distract for a while. But I'm not convinced that babies harbor any nostalgic feelings about being in the womb, or the sounds to be heard there.

  16. Brammi
    April 23rd, 2009 at 12:38 am

    Maybe I'm just too much of a self-taught chemist/physicist/biologist, but when I finally got my grubby hands on this book, I was a bit disappointed.

    I'm so sorry. I feel terrible saying it. There was a good thing here and there, but whatever I didn't already know by websurfing, I knew by understanding the physical properties of the things around me. :(

  17. GQ
    April 23rd, 2009 at 6:16 am

    "So you would prefer to be in a room of women swishing spit around in their mouth in unison while babies are crying, then to just be in a room with babies crying?"

    YES!

  18. Starving Artist
    April 23rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    A better way to clean up eggs is with a piece of bread and you don't have to wait 10 minutes!

  19. ed894956
    April 25th, 2009 at 7:39 am

    And after you can also make some lemonade. :)

  20. joiseybill
    April 26th, 2009 at 5:12 am

    An even better way to clean up eggs off the floor is to get a dog. This works with just everything that's edible and even a few non-edible items! Of course, there's a slight problem when you drop something like your rib-eye steak; unless you grab that steak within 2 seconds, it will already be half digested! We got around this by teaching the dog not to eat food from the kitchen floor without a verbal command. We taught our dog using the phrase "Clean up on aisle 8!".

    Result is a clean kitchen floor with no effort on your part; spilled food, drinks, crumbs are gone along with dust (hey, it's fiber, right?) and sometimes even one of our cat's hairballs will disappear as well!


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