Working: Writer Hannah Kirshner on Japanese Artisans and Immersive Reporting

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3.8 • 546 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, host June Thomas talks to Hannah Kirshner, author of Water, Wood, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town. In the interview, Hannah explains how her original plan to write a cookbook turned into an immersive reporting experience, where she practiced and documented multiple artisanal disciplines, like sake brewing and wood turning. She also discusses what it was like to be an outsider navigating the norms of rural Japan. After the interview, June and co-host Karen Han talk about the difference between appreciation and appropriation when reporting on a culture different from one’s own. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Hannah talks in greater detail about working at a sake brewery. Then she explains the care and discipline that goes into growing rice. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Part of the reason that I wanted to do the research in the way that I did where I actually did the thing with my own hands,
0:17.0	I would notice like, oh, the pink of the sunset is a little bit different today, or this
0:21.9	flower is budding that wasn't yesterday. That was the point, but nobody told me that was the point.
0:30.1	Welcome back to working. I'm your host, Karen Hahn. And I'm your other host, June Thomas.
0:36.0	Hi, June. Hey, Karen.
0:37.9	So who did you talk to this week?
0:40.0	So the voice we heard at the beginning of the show belongs to Hannah Kirshner.
0:45.1	She's the author of Water, Wood and Wild Things, Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town.
0:52.2	And the book is a really engaging account of the time Hannah spent
0:57.0	in the rural Japanese town of Yamanaka, working alongside various artisans and learning from them.
1:04.8	It's an appreciation of traditional arts like sake brewing, woodturning and duck hunting, to name just three, and a
1:13.5	meditation on why people choose to do those things.
1:16.7	Oh, wow.
1:17.4	Well, I can't wait to hear the interview and I can't wait to hear the Slate Plus segment
1:21.5	this week either.
1:22.4	What did you guys talk about?
1:24.1	So I asked Hannah if there was one of the 10 or so different fields that she learned
1:28.7	about that she really connected with. And we talked about the chapter that really stuck with me,
1:34.6	which was when she cultivated rice naturally using hand tools and without any agricultural chemicals
1:41.2	and how that changed the way she eats and she appreciates her food.
1:46.0	That's incredible. So listeners, if you haven't already, why not join Slate Plus and listen
1:51.6	to this fascinating new segment. As a member, you'll get no ads on any of our podcasts,
	...

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