One of my favourite uniquely Japanese words is Kintsugi. The first kanji (syllable) means gold, and the direct translation is “gold splicing”… when a piece of pottery gets broken, the Japanese fix it, not trying to make the repair invisible, but by making the repair gold, and very noticeable. The reasoning is that they believe that once something has been broken, it has a history and therefore becomes more beautiful and of more value.
I love this. Fitting with the wabi-sabi aesthetic of embracing the imperfect, another Japanese philosophy, it reminds us that just because something is broken it does not become useless or need to be discarded, but becomes unique, and different to any other similar receptacles. Like broken people, broken objects have something intrinsically different to offer, a depth, a richness and a beauty.
Featured image credit here.