OK before I start this blog I'll have to admit that I was reluctant to watch this series of short Japanese episodes because back then I didn't have any interest in watching The Way of the Househusband anime. Then earlier this week I was looking for something to watch as I got soooo bored with watching stuff on YouTube and I thought 'why don't I put on Netflix and watch this The Ingenuity of the Househusband just for a laugh.' Well I got more than a laugh out of this series live-action series as it contains hints and tips on how to keep the house clean. Let alone learned that other cultures have different ways of keeping house.
So this series follows Kenjiro Tsuda, who is the Japanese voice of Tatsu in the The Way of the Househusband anime going through a domestic daily life such washing, cooking and cleaning etc. So now we got the synopsis out the way I'm going to tell you how Kenjiro
kept house in each episode.
Episode 1:
He starts off his day by making Bento. To put it simply about what a Bento meal is that it is a Japanese-style packed lunch usually in a special box with separated parts or containers inside. Kind of like what we have everyday at school or work.
However whilst Kenjiro was making his Bento he noticed that his knife is dull. Can’t chop anything with a dull knife can you? So he starts to clean and sharpen it.
In order to clean and sharpen a dull knife you need three stones:
· A medium stone
· A finishing stone
· A stone fixer
First polish the medium stone with a stone fixer. If using a whetstone that isn’t completely flat, the blade will end up being dull. Use a stone fixer on the whetstone every five uses.
The next step is sharpening the knife and to make the shape. Use the medium stone to bring out burrs. Hold your knife at a 45-degree angle against the whetstone. To match the knife, look for an angle where the knife slides well. Place your left hand on top and move the knife back and forth. It’ll reduce the knife’s thickness. The black residue will be proof that the area is sharpening. The metal starts sticking up at the other end. Keep polishing until those burrs appear. But then Kenjiro realised that he should of made it flat earlier. And in order to do that is to use the stone fixer.
Finally it’s time to use the finishing stone. Use the same action. Sharpen until the knife shines. When the end of the blade shines it means the knife is sharpened properly. After sharpening the cutting edge and made the base it’s time to sharpen the microbevels. In order to prevent the angle from changing use minimal force on the edge and push it away slowly without moving back and forth. Use too much force and both the whetstone and blade will become dull. Focus on the precision. The more you sharpen it, the better it cuts. Even if it rusts, a sharp blade still remains on the inside. The same goes for people.
After making his Bento Kenjiro decided to make a cup of coffee. For a consistent coffee brew, measure it out precisely. Place a filter paper on top of a jar or measuring cup and pour water to remove the filter’s paper odours and warm up the coffee server. Otherwise you will lose neat when your coffee drips. By the looks of it Kenjiro must have boiled his kettle and poured hot water. Place the grind coffee beans into the paper filter. The trick is to level it. Pour the hot water onto the beans as evenly as possible. First, prepare before actually brewing. Pour one-fifth of hot water onto the coffee beans. Make the water pass through the coffee grinds. Once you finished pouring it, agitate it. Kenjiro looked like he was using circular motions. Whether you’re sharpening a knife or brewing coffee, you must master the secrets. Add another one-fifth for a second pour. The pre-infusion has finished, so pour quickly. Leave for the water to filter the coffee before adding the remaining three-fifths for the final third pour. And don’t forget to agitate it. And then you wait until the water has filtered through. Kenjiro likes brewing at this ratio. In both sharpening and dripping, living a precise, meticulous life is a pleasant thing.
Grinding the beans tip:
Make an even grind. The more uniform the grinds are, the more reliable and even the extraction will be when hot water touches the beans.
Episode 2:
In this second episode Kenjiro was having a quiet moment alone, drinking a cup of tea. But was interrupted by a constant flapping of a torn shoji screen door and ended having no choice but to fix it.
In order to fix a shoji screen door please do it outside and make sure you have the correct paper. First make the paper sufficiently wet. Dampen it for 5mins and it’ll peel off easily. Please be careful or else too much water will distort the wood. When ready peel off the paper. If there are old shoji papers on the doorframe, the new paper may not stick. Remove the paper cleanly and dry sufficiently. Patience is a virtue. Precision and speed. Spread uniformly all over. It won’t dry immediately. Stay calm. Kenjiro can do this. He’s never even messed up his phone’s screen protector. He didn’t do his door perfectly but he had patience. And once he did the job perfectly he placed the door back in its place. Then he had another door job to do and that’s to fix its slide. By the looks of it Kenjiro used one end of a candlestick or a stick of wax and waxed the part that makes a sliding shoji screen door slide to make it smooth. By the end of the day he can now relax. That is until his cat broke the paper of his shoji screen door. Just his luck as he has to do it all over again.
Episode 3:
Episode 3 is my personal favorite as I’ve picked up some tips on hanging the washing. Which will come in useful if I ever decide to move out of my parent’s house.
When Kenjiro found a stain on his grey t-shirt he identify the stain coming from old animal oils and proteins, so it’ll come right out if he soaked it in enzymes and sodium percarbonate before washing. Using citric acid to get rid of the alkaline ammonia smell and getting rid of stains by using substance with an opposite nature can be effective. That’s a good tip. Stains have all different qualities, so mix cleaning agents that match the stain accordingly. When he picked up one of his white shirts he found that the cuff of its sleeves has gotten dark. Natural oils caused that and other physical stains and it comes out easily when you pat them out with a toothbrush. When he picked up another shirt I was shocked at the amount of paint stains that was on it and thought ‘that’ll never come out.’ Kenjiro believes that it must be acrylic paint. You can dissolve paint resins by using alcohol. He did receive some really strong alcohol. So he decided to try soaking it. Laundry detergents that are used at home should be chosen based on their strength: weak, medium, or strong. Use neutral detergents for washing delicate and trendy clothes, liquid detergents for everyday clothes, and powdered detergents for thoroughly getting rid of stains. The important thing is to think of which one to use based on the clothes’ condition and fabric. The trick to washing clothes cleanly without harming them is using the corrects detergent and sparing no effort.
There was one point during this short episode Kenjiro was reading his The Way of the Househusband script whilst drinking either coffee or dokudami tea he nearly spilled it on his nice clean white shirt when the washing machine finished cleaning his clothes. Phew that was too close for call.
Dokudami Tea:
Dokudami herbal tea is made from the dried leaves of the plant and is generally drunk in Japan for detox purposes. It is often used as an ingredient in kampo medicine (traditional Eastern medicine, which is regulated in Japan by law). It is effective against:
· Gastrointestinal disease
· Food poisoning
· Diarrhea
· Constipation
· High blood pressure
· Arteriosclerosis
· Stroke
· Heart attack
· Anemia
· Stiff Shoulders
· Sensitivity to cold
Soaking and washing his grey t-shirt was a complete success. Instead of using pegs to hang his washing, Kenjiro uses coat hangers to hang his washing on the washing line. Now that’s a nifty idea. If you don’t have any pegs use coat hangers instead.
Patting and washing his white shirt was also a complete success too. Fold the shirt gently and beat it before hanging it. The collar and cuff stand out. Pulling on them will prevent wrinkles. Oh unfolding the collar increases the surface area, maximizing air contact and drying it faster and secure it on the coat hanger by fastening the top button. And as for the shirt with paint stains, well let’s just say if the stain doesn’t come out, it is what it is. Just think of it as a kind of design.
Before hanging towels, shake it to make it fluffy first. Once you hung up the towels, go through the towel’s fabric with your hands.
For hooded jumpers hang them upside down on one of those little airier dryer hangers that you use to hang your socks on as the trick is to increase air contact. Now that’s a clever idea. Hanging hooded jumpers like that will keep it from overlapping.
For trousers, jeans or any legwear turn them inside out as air can get into the pockets and dry them easily.
Alternate between thick and thing items. Place longer items on each end of the washing line. If you hand the smallest items in the middle, air gets through more easily and dries things faster.
As the wind started to pick up Kenjiro manages to grab one of his washing before it was blown away whilst knocking over his washing line in the process. Which meant he have to do the washing all over again.
Episode 4:
This episode is my second favorite because not only he cleaned a baseball but Kenjiro also cleaned the bathroom mirror in an extreme way.
For cleaning a baseball, you must rinse it briefly before scrubbing it with detergent in hot water. This shouldn’t take very long.
Kenjiro polished a frying pan by using white powder. Add baking soda in a glass bowl followed by adding water and mixing the baking soda and water together. Microwave the baking soda for 1.5 minutes. After the microwave is done, rub the warm baking soda onto the burn parts of the pan by using your hands. Then wrap the pan in clean film to keep the moisture in. While it soaks, take a break for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes scrub and clean the baking soda off the pan and it’ll be nice and polished. For polishing big objects made of brass, place it in a fish tank, fill it with water. Vinegar and lemon will work well on that but using a lot of them would make you feel bad. Citirc acid, a tricarboxylic acid, is an organic compound found in citrus fruits, used in food additives, medical products and for cleaning bathroom fixtures. Kenjiro also used white powder too as it’s sodium bicarbonate, also know as baking soda. And it’s really useful, not only for cleaning the house but also in removing odors in the fridge and trash. And it also helps exterminating cockroaches and ants. It’s basically harmless.
For cleaning the bathroom mirror put on some rubber gloves, mix citric acid with potato starch. And once you’ve dissolved it in water, the citric acid becomes a gel. Spread the gel on the mirror and then place clean film over it. Leave it for 1 hour. Once the hour is up take off the wrapping, ball it up and polish the mirror. And don’t underestimate the plastic wrap! It’ll clean mirrors surprisingly easily. Finish the mirror with your rubber gloves before rinsing it with the shower head. If you noticed lime scale you can either try something that takes lime scales off or you can do what Kenjiro does by using an electric sander. That’s a bit of an extreme idea but it works for him.
Episode 5:
In this final episode it was the day after Kenjiro’s birthday and it looks as if he and his friends went a bit overboard. Even his cat agrees with me. So what was Kenjiro going to do first? Why do a bit of recycling of course.
All you need is set of cardboard boxes with bin bags clipped onto them. Not sure how many Kenjiro used.
CDs and videotapes go in the combustible waste box. If you pick up a shell and there’s still moisture, dry it well before putting it in the combustible waste. A wooden hanger can go in the combustible waste. But a wire hanger goes in the non-combustible waste box. For food trays and paper cartons are collected at supermarkets as recyclable material. You can give them a wash so that they’re ready for recycling. Throw lemons and such into combustibles after removing as much water as possible. The more moisture they have, the more energy it takes to burn them. so wring it as much as possible. Best do it in a sink. Crumpled bits of paper such as catalogs, wrapping paper, envelopes and other kinds of paper are considered as recyclable paper and sorted as used paper. Recyclables items should be sorted rather than being put into combustibles. Things with oil on them such as pizza box can’t be recycled, so they go into combustible waste. Also things that smell are also considered as combustible waste as they cannot be recycled. Paper cups and plates that have a coating on them are also a combustible waste.
If labels on bottles are hard to remove, it’s fine to keep them on. A plastic bottle cap must go in the plastic waste. but as for the rings on plastic bottles, the recycling factory will be able to remove them.
Dangerous things that may stick out when collecting trash should be held together using tape. Pen tips and the spring inside are non-combustible. So remember the 90% rule! The rule says that if it’s 90% burnable, it’s okay to burn. The metal fixtures on a belt, buttons on clothes fall under that rule. But I think that it might be best to take the pen apart, put the spring and metal parts in with the non-combustibles. And the rest will go in the combustibles. When throwing out your rubbish, please follow your local government’s sorting policies.
After all that cleaning Kenjiro’s house is clean as a whistle. Until his cat starts to give him a bit of chaos.
My dance for this week is:
Zumba's Pa' la Discoteka Bailar
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