Begin Japanology
Season 6 Episode 2 - Bathroom Scales
Bathroom scales are a part of everyday life in Japan. Men, women, babies, and children all use them. There are even scales specially designed to weigh your pets. In samurai times, accurate scales were made by artisans who specialized in fine work, like comb-makers and engravers. A relentless quest for ever more accurate weight measurements was behind a shift from analog scales with springs and needles to digital scales. But today's scales measure more than just weight. They can collect information on various aspects of your health. Thanks to dogged data-gathering efforts by researchers, these high-tech scales can quickly measure body fat percentage or basal metabolic rate. Meanwhile, research is now underway into making accurate body weight measurements in space. On this edition of BEGIN Japanology, our theme is bathroom scales. By looking at bathroom scales in Japan, we'll take the measure of how Japanese lifestyles and ideas about health have changed over the years.
Episodes in Season 6
Sumo
28 min
Bathroom Scales
28 min
Enka
28 min
Small Factories
28 min
Japanophiles - Azby Brown
28 min
Japanophiles - Ernst Seiler
28 min
Japanophiles - Yasokichi Konishiki
28 min
Ume Plums
28 min
Storehouses
28 min
Wagyu
28 min
Uniforms
28 min
Rice Cookers
28 min
Burial Mounds
28 min
Stationery
28 min
Bread
28 min
Pine Trees
28 min
Parcel Delivery
28 min
Pro Wrestling
28 min
Strawberries
28 min
Calculators
28 min
Television
28 min
Lake Biwa
28 min
Expressways
28 min
Beer
28 min
Japanophiles - Mike Harris
28 min
Japanophiles - Karl Bengs
28 min
Japanophiles - Kenny Omega
28 min
Shakuhachi
28 min
Convenience Stores
28 min
Used Books
28 min
Women's Nylons
28 min
Remote Islands
28 min
Characters and Mascots
28 min
Grapes
28 min
Makeup
28 min
Ukiyo-e
28 min
Buses
28 min
Parties and Gatherings
28 min
Conveyor Belt Sushi
28 min
Pets
28 min
