In Japanese, there is a phrase called “Hare no Hi (晴れの日/ハレの日)” and “Ke no Hi (褻の日/ケの日)”. Translation, a “Formal Day” and an “Informal Day”.
While “Hare no Hi” means a formal/special/extraordinary day like a New Years’ Day, Christmas, or maybe someone’s wedding where family and friends gather around to celebrate and/or have dinner together, “Ke no Hi” is an informal/ordinary day which is just too ordinary to talk about.
Our lives are mostly made of “Ke no Hi”. Nothing special. We eat the usual meal, or maybe some leftovers from yesterday, wear the usual shirt which we wear several times a week, go to work or to school, drop by the supermarket on the way back to buy milk because it was out of stock this morning, or maybe to a bookstore to check if there’s a new book, go home, eat some simple meal, take a bath and go to sleep.
Boring? Maybe yes. But without ordinary, there are no extraordinary.
Ordinary days are precious. “Ke no Hi” is precious.
At the same time, someone’s ordinary can be someone’s extraordinary. Like the way foreign cities are exciting just the way it is, like the way foreign foods are stimulating with their original flavors, foreign ordinaries are always unique and interesting from the outside.
Kenohi Log provides you information from Japanese daily lives.
It may be about seasonal fruits, daily photos of some shopping district, new cosmetics on sale, some trendy diet method making buzz, or maybe just some information on how to arrange white rice.
Please enjoy our website as a way to access the real lives of ordinary Japanese people. Who knows, you might find an unique idea for a souvenir. We know you’ve already tried all those classic items. They’re not bad but everyone wants something out of the ordinary, and out of the ordinary comes from someone’s ordinary; Ke no Hi.
Hope you enjoy it!
Kenohi Log
2021.