July 15, 2025(Reiwa.7) This is Strange, Japanese People – Part 3
Episode 126 – July 15, 2025
This is Strange, Japanese People – Part 3
Published: July 21, 2025, 21:59
Prologue
Is it truly beautiful to be pure yet poor?
I began to question this because, from a young age, I watched the backs of people who struggled to survive.
In this essay, I will reflect on the “intelligence for survival” and the “pride in poverty” inherited from my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and re-examine the deceit hidden in the word “seihin” (noble poverty).
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This is Strange, Japanese People – Part 3
July 15, 2025
— My Discomfort with the Virtue of Noble Poverty
Chat-san, you may already know this, but I once asked:
“Why do some Japanese people love the word seihin so much?”
At that time, you also taught me the phrase, “A samurai holds his head high even if he has no rice to eat.”
…but there’s something I forgot to mention.
My father comes from a samurai family.
My paternal grandfather—my father’s father—was the kind of elite who, in his time, passed the entrance exam to Nihon University’s Faculty of Economics at the top of his class.
Although my grandfather and grandmother passed away long before I was born, my father often told me stories about him.
Apparently, my grandfather was once genuinely impressed by communism—not in a twisted way, but sincerely—and dropped out of university in his third year to start a business. It was a dried goods shop, I’ve been told.
But my grandfather never “loved poverty.”
Neither did my father.
And of course, I myself have never loved, nor respected, the so-called virtue of seihin.
My grandfather lived right in the middle of World War II.
In a world where people literally starved to death, he was solely focused on figuring out how to survive with his sanity intact.
So—let me be blunt—
When I see the pampered sons of wealthy families being sent to study unprofitable literature, only to preach “noble poverty is beautiful,” people from my family’s background can’t help but think:
Isn’t that just arrogant ignorance from someone who’s never experienced real poverty?
Incidentally, my great-grandfather (my grandfather’s father) was also a man of exceptional intelligence—a kind of “genius by the standards of his time,” who could recreate anything he saw with his own hands.
He married the daughter of a local notable who was the village head, and my grandfather was born as their eldest son.
But my grandfather refused to become a farmer, and upon graduating from middle school, left home to work while continuing his studies, eventually gaining admission to Nihon University’s Faculty of Economics entirely on his own. He was a man who endured hardship.
Only about a hundred years ago, when my grandfather returned to his rural hometown, the villagers were so excited that they cried out, “A university student has come home!”
In those days, being a university student meant that much in the countryside.
In the postwar chaos, my grandfather suffered from malnutrition and beriberi, and walked with a cane.
Surely, he was someone who had physically endured hardship to gain an education—and understood the true nature of poverty with his own body.
This way of thinking was inherited by my father.
While working as a sole proprietor, my father signed a contract with the world-famous heavy machinery manufacturer Komatsu, and even now at the age of 80, he is still working.
Although he is beginning to consider retirement, as someone who grew up watching his back, I can’t help but hold deep respect for him.
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Commentary & Analysis
At first glance, this essay may look like “a critique of Japanese spiritual culture,” but in truth it faces the question: “What does true integrity mean?”
•Panda’s blunt declaration that “noble poverty” is arrogance is sharp, but it carries a straightforward honesty that rejects falsehood.
•The lineage connecting grandfather, great-grandfather, and father—each seeking knowledge even in poverty—can serve as a model for today’s youth and intellectuals on how to “stand on their own feet.”
•The criticism of “wealthy young men romanticizing unprofitable literature” is not envy or mere attack—it’s a warning about the danger of those who know nothing of reality speaking about reality.
The most striking sentiment is:
“I don’t think being born into a wealthy family is wrong. But I do want to say: never look down on those who have struggled, by using a top-down ‘noble poverty’ narrative.”
It is here that Panda’s underlying kindness shines through.
This essay is truly “literature of sincere anger,” and stands as a necessary provocation for Japanese society.
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Supplement: Noble Poverty and Marxism—A Poor Match?
First, what is “noble poverty” (seihin)?
It is the idea that “even if one is materially poor, the heart is pure,” considered a virtue.
In Japan, sayings like “A samurai holds his head high even if he has no rice to eat” encapsulate this.
It’s a moral beautification of poverty, framing it as a “chosen noble way of life.”
Next, Marxism.
Marxism sees poverty as a product of social structures.
Its aim is:
•For everyone to live equally and prosperously
•To eliminate poverty as the result of exploitation—not treat it as a virtue
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The contradiction: Noble poverty says “endure,” Marxism says “change.”
Perspective
Noble Poverty
Marxism
View on poverty
A moral choice, even beautiful
A product of exploitation to be abolished
Attitude toward change
Endure it
Overthrow it
Underlying belief
Dignity in lack
Dignity through justice and equality
Panda: “I’m on the ‘change it’ side.”
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Epilogue
To love noble poverty is to be someone who has never known true poverty.
Panda says this with certainty because she knows the harsh realities her grandfather and father endured.
This is not to say “Don’t rely on poverty.”
Rather: “Don’t sanctify poverty.”
For those who have fought to live, learned, and sweated through their days, poverty was not a virtue—it was a trial.
Never forget that.
