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We are constantly hearing complaints that there are no practical people in Russia; that there are plenty of politicians, plenty of generals, that any number of men of all sorts can be found at a moment’s notice, but that there are no practical men – at least, everyone is complaining of the lack of them. There are not even efficient railway servants, we hear, on some of the lines; it’s not even possible to get a steamship company decently managed. You hear of a railway collision or of a bridge that breaks under a train on a newly opened railway-line. Or you hear of a train’s wintering in a snowdrift: the journey should have lasted few hours and the train was snowed up for five days. One heard of hundreds of tons of goods lying rotting for two or three months at a time before they are dispatched. And I am told (though it is hardly credible) that a merchant’s clerk who persisted in worrying for the dispatch of his goods got a box on the ear from the superintendent, who justified this display of efficiency on this part on the ground that he lost his patience. There are so many government office that it staggers one to think of them; everyone has been in the service, is in the service, or intends to be in the service – so that one wonders, how with such an abundance of material, a decent board of management cannot be made up to run a railway or a line of steamers.

By the way, just what is the level to which MUJI products aspire, to what extent are our customers satisfied with the products? As a brand, MUJI has neither striking idiosyncrasies nor specific aesthetics. We don’t want to be the thing that kindles or incites intense appetite, causing outbursts like, “This is what I really want,” or “I simply must have this.” If most brands are after that, MUJI should be after its opposite. We want to give customers the kind of satisfaction that comes out as “this will do,” not “this is what I want.” It’s not appetite, but acceptance. Even within acceptance, however, there is an appropriate level. Our goal is to elevate it as high as possible.

In a world in which the motive force is the desire to get the jump on the next person, to reap the wealth computer technology is expected to yield, people have no time to leisurely enjoy the actual benefits and treasures already available, and in leaning so far forward in anticipation of the possibilities, they’ve lost their balance and are in highly unstable situation, barely managing to stay upright as they fall forward into the next step.