Day in the Life of a Japanese Knife Maker

This is the day in the life of a Japanese knife maker! This Nene, 24 years old living in Gifu, Japan and she's just waking up for work. She lives on her own in this apartment. It's pretty common to live with your parents in Japan, even after graduation, but in her case, she moved out shortly after she got her current job. In fact, about 70% of single workers in Japan ages 18 - 34 years old continue to live with their parents. How long does it take for you to wear makeup? Nene loves to cook and she usually makes her own breakfast to get a good start of the day. And I guess this morning she's making a fresh smoothie. For Japan standards, her apartment is quite spacious for someone in their 20s, but it's one of those advantages of living outside of any of the major Japanese cities. She commutes to work by car, in total, 20 minutes door to door. Before working at her current company, Nene studied at a specialized agricultural high school, focused on food production, food science, and overall nutrition. Although her current job didn't align exactly with her studies, when she heard about the opportunity she decided to go for it. So I'm back with another day in the life, I am super excited for this one for this one finally made it outside of Tokyo I'm at the factory right now waiting for Nene she should be parking her car soon good morning did you sleep ohiyogozaimasu did you sleep well? oh are you nervous well let's see how the day goes so Nene works as a knife technician at zwilling J.A Henkels Japan originally a 291 year old German knife maker who eventually set up an office in Japan and later acquired the knife Factory here in Seki city also known in Japan as a city of blades crafting flawless samurai swords and knives for more than 800 years in producing half of Japan's total knives in the city alone today 90 of the company's knives sold in Japan are actually made at this Factory Nene's been working at the knife Factory for five years now in the Kaizen Department Kaizen itself a Japanese term meaning continuous Improvement in a gradual methodical process her day starts with a team meeting where she's assigned specific tasks wow they're checking their hands apparently it's absolutely critical that their hands must be free of cuts or injuries that could potentially flaw the knives [Music] oh she's already on her first task inspecting the sharpness of the knives in Japanese hocho these particular ones are used as the factory resharpens all their knives sent in by their customers and it's her responsibility to verify that the resharpened knives mean all the quality requirements to ship back to their customers so how much paper did it cut? damn the paper didn't stand a chance anyways let's see what she has next as part of the Kaizen group throughout the day she's also tasked with performing random inspections on knives being crafted that day to ensure that each knife meets the factory strict quality standards which also means that she's responsible for knowing the details about each and every knife that's crafted in the factory including the entire build process for that individual knife and the technical requirements each one must satisfy in order for her to fully perform the inspection [Music] okay she's moving on to a different building again you always walk this much so how many people are doing the same task? okay so for your job what's the most important thing? [Music] so what are you checking now naturally being tapped with the responsibility to inspect every type of crafted knife it requires her to continually visit different sections all throughout the factory which could be tiresome for many people but she enjoys the opportunity to engage with other workers outside of her team and welcomes the regular walks so it looks like Nene is going to be taking notes for just a little bit so while she's doing that let's cut out of here and see what we can find [Music] let me quickly break down how a Japanese knife starts okay so I think here this is where they do the heat treatment this is a yakiire day process where untreated pressed steel blades are heated by a specifically designed furnace to more than a thousand degrees Celsius 1832 degrees Fahrenheit oh Elsa look at those frozen blades after the initial cooling the hardened blades are moved to an accelerated freezing state in fact the tempering process of heating and freezing the steel blades restructures and stabilizes it on a molecular level forming a perfect blade that's not only hard but flexible at the same time once tempered the blade tends to come out slightly warped from expanding and shrinking due to the extreme heat and cold hizumitori is a process where the blade is hammered and straightened by hand requiring a true Craftsman to recognize the subtle imperfections in each blade ah okay so it looks like at this place they assemble all the knives by hand so Japanese knives are known to be some of the sharpest knives in the world but historically their handles were not one of their strengths and needed to be regularly maintained however the factory has developed its own specialized techniques to build stronger handles while also doing it by hand before the blades received their final sharpening they're finished off here hi can I talk to you what are you working on? you do it with your gloves on? apparently she smooths out bumps and extra bonding and that's before and after so it's 10 o'clock right now and I just heard a bell ring and all of a sudden people just started turning off the lights and I think they're taking a break now all the workers in the factory get three 10-minute breaks throughout the day it's fairly mandatory as each job requires a significant amount of focus and concentration so breaks are crucial for maintaining performance as well as preventing injury what are you doing now? why is this test important? she's also responsible for testing the knives in the laboratory using various machines tools and even chemicals she says that it was quite a challenge to memorize all the test technical procedures and how to even use machines so it required a lot of effort in setting for her in the beginning to master this part of the job it looks like he's sharp with it now though by the way as a kid do you think you would become a knife technician when Nene was still in high school a friend who worked at the factory told her about working as a knife technician which helps spark her interest enough so that she scheduled the tour of the factory to learn more about it oh now Nene has to go to the monthly improvement meeting she was nervous about this morning apparently representatives from each department review their achievements for that month and discuss how they can improve I'm sure Nene is going to be fine what could go wrong how'd it go? [Music] yay finally lunch time it looks like she's gonna eat with her co-worker kind of interested to see what they're gonna eat what are you making? she says for lunch she often orders the factory provided bento box since it's offered at a reasonable price in fact it's part of typical Japanese Factory culture to offer this type of bento box so that all the employees can eat at the same time while not having to leave the facility and at this Factory at 160 Yen a dollar 18 USD is a deal that's hard to beat so what's in it today oh what's your favorite dish? have you been with the company for a long time? cool so what do you like most about the job [Music] after lunch she performs periodic tests in the kitchen on new knives still in development cutting various foods and comparing it with their existing line of knives as it's one of the responsibilities to coordinate these tests she says it is a great opportunity for her to view the latest knife crafting Technologies first hand before it's ever released so Nene's going to be doing a little bit more testing so you all know what we do let's see if you guys can handle some more exploration okay let's see what else we can get into oh this looks like a store hi what's this shop for? so do employees get discounts? like how much? there's just so many knives here but I think this is not all the knives that they produce here in the factory this is Miyabi one of the world's sharpest knives a handcrafted Japanese knife brand that's only made in this Factory and some marked with its own unique to Damascus style design on the blade that was kind of cool let's see what else they have excuse me can I ask what you do? what are you working on now? oh can I see it? oh maybe it's confidential information how many prototypes do you make for one model? wow that's so many here they designed two products each year one for Japan and one for the international market they create all of their own designs from CAD drawings to designing parts thank you [Music] hello what's this room for? oh you're the factory manager? hot butter cool how long have you been with the company? and what's your favorite knife? why? absolutely that's a really cool knife wow this is a Miyabi red Morimoto knife a collab knife with Iron Chef Morimoto this is so cool look at all of these people sharpening knives finally the knives are sharpened known in Japanese as honbazuke apparently sharpening the knives by hand is one of the most challenging Parts when crafting a knife so much so the factory itself only has nine specialists who have mastered the skill and at the moment only two who are skilled enough to perform kiwami honbatsuke the most extreme and technical knife sharpening possible and this lady is one of them hi can I ask you some questions? so what's the difference between where you were and here so what's the most difficult part of this job? ah what do you like about your job? thank you once the knives are sharpened and finished each one receives a thorough cleaning and inspection depending on the Japanese knife the production process and duration varies some of the handcrafted knives can be completed in a month while some of the high-end handcrafted knives require more than 100 individual processes in more than three months to complete every single detail accounted for to ensure a consistent and high quality Japanese knife is crafted each and every time [Music] [Music] what are you doing now? so Nene is also responsible for inspecting finish knives before being packaged if she discovers even the slightest flaw she sends it back to the appropriate section so it can be reworked every single handcrafted knife must be perfect before it's shipped out what's next [Music] despite being part of the Kaizen group and having a deep understanding of the entire process of how knives must be crafted you must continue to work on her technical skills such as knife sharpening although the thousands and thousands of hours spent on their sharpening technique is never completely forgotten time away from the skill will gradually dull her technique so she always sets aside time to maintain her technical knife crafting skills Nene says that she's proud of all the skills she's acquired over the years and excited every day to learn and improve on her techniques and she takes satisfaction in knowing that the knife she helped hand crap will ultimately be appreciated by someone somewhere in the world all of this keeping her motivated and looking toward the future at the end of the day she has a little bit of desk work and she's also responsible for entering logs for the inspection she completed that day [Music] you still have work to do? [Music] finally done what are you doing after this? so Nene is hosting a Nabe party which is a very typical Japanese home party basically consisting of a group of people gathering in someone's home to sit around a hot pot share food drinks and stories usually in the winter but can also be done any time of the year today they're specifically having sukiyaki oh cool her friends are here wow they're doing it up and having hidagyu beef a wagyu brand from this area do you girls often meet up like this? so what do you do in your free time? what are you girls drinking? oh I see they all drove here I guess it's a weekday so they're keeping it mellow tonight that's gyushi wagyu beef fat it adds a distinctive sweet flavor to the dish many supermarkets offer it for free so it's commonly used in Japan when cooking steaks in hot pot after a full day performing at the highest level she appreciates being able to send her mind away from work to enjoy a home-cooked meal with her good friends all right so there you go it looks like they're gonna finish dinner probably around 8:30 and then after that Nene will go and clean up and then probably take a bath and then finish off the night go to sleep at 11 o'clock that's pretty much a day in the life of a Japanese knife maker if you guys like this video definitely help me out and hit that like button if you guys want to see more videos like this hit that subscribe button on the bell button and I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Paolo fromTOKYO

Views: 3,147,685

Keywords: Paolo, Japan, day in the life, japan day in the life, making a knife, japanese knife making, japan working hours, japanese company, working in japan, japanese knife sharpening, japanese knife, seki japan, zwilling, miyabi, japanese factory work, japan factory work, factory worker, japan life, seki japan knives, japanese knives, japanese craftsmanship, japanese blade, japanese steel, knife, japan knife, life in japan, knife technician, living in japan, japan work culture

Id: Q-8dnpiEePk

Length: 17min 12sec (1032 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 05 2022