How do the Japanese polish their balls? (13 photos)

The Japanese have again come up with an activity that no one has thought of, and even if they did, no one has needed it for a hundred years.





The Japanese, of course, are big entertainers! What are these crazy TV shows worth? For example, have you seen the “Slippery Staircase”? Several people are diligently trying to climb the steps to the very top - whoever is first wins. And several buckets of gel-like lubricant are periodically poured onto the stairs from above, and the leader of the race, amusingly floundering in it to the laughter and hooting of the spectators, slides down, often dragging other participants with him.

Or the super popular TV show in Japan "Guess the Wife". There, male participants must recognize their spouse among several women by their buttocks exposed through special slits in a cardboard wall. I will not describe how the “recognition” process occurs, so that Zen does not block the article.☺



A still from the Japanese TV show "Guess the Wife."

Therefore, it is not at all surprising that it was a Japanese, or rather a Japanese jeweler, who came up with an idea that no one else in the world could think of: rolling balls of aluminum foil and polishing them to a mirror shine.

And following the jeweler, the entire population of the Land of the Rising Sun suddenly became obsessed with rolling and polishing such balls.





I think that you, my dear readers, will definitely ask: “Why are they doing this?!”

I really want to answer with the words of Lieutenant Rzhevsky from the joke about ostrich eggs. Remember?

Lieutenant Rzhevsky is getting ready for a ball and calls his orderly: “Vanka, tell me some story so that I can show off my erudition at the ball.” “Okay, sir, lieutenant, here’s a story about how the aborigines in Australia catch ostriches. The aborigine shave his head bald and buries himself in the sand, leaving only the shaved top of his head on the surface. An ostrich running past sees something round and shiny, thinks that this is his egg, and sits on it to hatch. Then the hunter grabs him by the legs." Rzhevsky comes to the ball, gets drunk and begins to tell his story: “Gentlemen, do you know how the aborigines in Australia catch ostriches? They take a savage, shave his head bald and bury him in the sand, leaving only eggs on the surface. He runs past. The ostrich sees the eggs and thinks that they are his eggs. He sits on them, and then the savage slams a spear into his ass!" There was a heavy silence. And then Natasha Rostova asks: “Lieutenant, why are they shaving his head bald?” “Who the hell knows, Natasha! Savages, sir!”

It is with this last phrase of Rzhevsky that I want to respond.☺

However, the Japanese certainly cannot be called savages. And the reason why in Japan, young and old roll and polish balls is very simple - people relax by perfecting the shape and shine of their ball. JAPANESE!!



Foil ball.

I think that aluminum foil balls are a kind of development of an ancient Japanese pastime - rolling and polishing balls of earth and water. These mud balls are called DORODANGOS.

Here they are - dorodango. Beauty! Is not it?



Dorodangos are polished balls of earth and water.

But let's get back to the foil balls. Below are some photos of the manufacturing process. What if you want to repeat it and join relaxation and meditation in Japanese?

We take a 16-meter roll of aluminum foil, unwind it and form a spherical lump like this:



Then, armed with a hammer, we try to give the lump the most correct shape possible:



After just a few hours of meditation, the lump of foil turns into a ball:



Then we begin to grind this ball with fine sandpaper:



gradually bringing it to perfection:



Next comes polishing time:





After several dozen hours of hard work relaxing over the ball, we get this ideal result:



Do you think you could spend a few days and make one like this? Or is this only available to Japanese?