Ana Nguyen

“Wabi-sabi represents imperfection and incompletion.” It’s the idea or point of view, where things that are imperfect have an aesthetic value of melancholy and harmony but also wisdom. The American phrase for this is most likely, “nothing is perfect, nobody is perfect” which gives off a different message compared to wabi-sabi. It’s interesting how this philosophy or term is woven deeply into the culture. Wabi-sabi can be seen in a sand garden, art, stories or even in a person. Despite all of the phrases telling people here that everything isn’t perfect, our culture has many perfectionists and the imperfect things aren’t viewed positively all the time. A broken jar in Japan may be looked upon as wabi-sabi but in the U.S it’s seen as a useless.