Dear S,
Hitachi’s “Wind Iron,” which I mentioned earlier… its design, its quietness, its energy-saving technology—a truly wonderful product… I am convinced that even someone like you would be moved when you put a blanket into it and it comes out feeling as soft against the skin as if it were brand-new.
Incidentally, since purchasing this washing machine, I have also been freed from the time-consuming chore of taking my dress shirts to the cleaners.
All I have to do is toss them into this wonderfully beautiful product whenever I please.
And that is not all.
Unlike you, who return home from work to find your wife, who presumably came from a respectable family, waiting with a delicious meal prepared, I find myself wondering what to eat today… I do not want to eat alone… and so on, eventually wandering around the neighborhood of my usual restaurants… I am not in that mood today… I just want to eat alone in silence, and so forth.
Over these thirty years, the money I have spent on meals alone… would probably buy three mansions at today’s prices… Having contributed far more than you to expanding domestic demand, I resolved to cook for myself to avoid drinking too much and smoking too much, and purchased Panasonic’s top-of-the-line cooking system, but this product, too, can only be described as a masterpiece.
Every single part of that equipment… the oven, the grill, the dishwasher, the induction cooktop—into all of them went the utmost intellect and technology, fitted within the dimensions of a Japanese home… It would be no exaggeration to call it the best in the world.
On my way home from work, I stop at Hankyu Department Store and buy a saury fresh enough to eat as sashimi, and simply by putting the whole fish into the grill, it comes out cooked to a standard that only a chef who has trained for at least ten years at a first-class traditional Japanese restaurant could achieve.
However much of a blockhead you may be, you would be moved… Unless, of course, you say that you have no interest or pleasure in eating… and consequently no interest in the lives of the people.
At any rate, everything is wonderful… Panasonic really is the best when it comes to home fixtures and equipment, I thought, and, determined to replace everything in the rest of my home, including the bathroom and toilet, and remedy the inconveniences I had endured through many years of living in an ordinary apartment, I asked an acquaintance to go to considerable trouble for me and undertook a major renovation.
Panasonic’s bathroom and toilet are also moving creations… I am grateful for them every day.
The magnificent craftsmanship of the hallway door… the smoothness and delicacy with which it opens and closes.
I categorically reject a world in which these great corporations, which can even move people and of which our country should be proud before the world, are driven into difficulty or disappear because of the many absurd things brought about in markets dominated by the cunning and the greedy.
Mr. S, you are nothing more than a ringleader among those who sully what matters most in this world… the spirit of craftsmanship.
I despise you.
I despise even more the media and politicians who give you such prominence.