When the Japanese decide to master something, whether it’s cars, cameras, animation, knives, or yes, whiskey and craft cheese - they will perfect it into its final Platonic form. How do they do it? Obsession with kaizen (continuous improvement). And they will apply themselves relentlessly - without ego - to incremental refinement. This is in contrast to the attitude of “Cha bu duo" (差不多), a Chinese phrase that means "close enough” or "more or less," which leads to cutting corners, a mindset and attitude that is common in China. In contrast, the cultural default in Japan is that “good enough” is never good enough. The Chinese concept of 差不多 is a result of the Year Zero Mao introduced and decades of brutal communism, but it does lead to faster innovation compared to the slower kaizen method. These days, the Japanese beat Scotland at the whiskey game, make the best pizza, and their cheesemakers in Hokkaido win the top global awards. The Shokunin spirit (craftsman mindset) infuses Japanese culture with a respect for becoming a true master of one thing. You see this whenever you visit Japan. A 21 yr old baker in Osaka might spend 10 years just learning how to shape croissants before he’s allowed to touch the dough at a top shop. That level of apprenticeship and pride in technique is rare elsewhere. It’s not just Japanese autism but Japanese neuroticism that makes them obsessed about supply-chain control and ingredient quality. They’ll fly in Piemonte flour for pizza, Isigny butter for viennoiserie, or specific Scottish peat for whisky, then control every variable (water source, barrel toasting, humidity in aging warehouses) to a degree that’s just detrimental to profit margins. We should thank the Japanese for their cultural operating system. It enriches everything it borrows from elsewhere, and then masters it. This is why the world loves traveling to 🇯🇵