{Inter} Cultural Japan

First I thought “extreme ironing” was an example of the fanatism some Japanese bring to their hobbies, but now it appears the sport originated on that other island of eccentrics, the United Kingdom. Who else would carry an ironing board and battery-powered iron to a remote location, say a mountain top, just to iron a few items of clothing?

The sport was “invented” in 1997 by Phil Shaw from Leicester, who could not make a choice between ironing his shirts or go mountain climbing and therefore decided to combine the two activities. He become so hooked on this outrageous combination that he followed it up with a worldwide promotion tour. Now “extreme ironing” has spread not only to English-speaking countries but also to Germany and Japan.

[Screenshot of the website of Extreme Ironing Japan]

Ironing a shirt on a mountain top is only one example. Practitioners of what in my view perhaps should rather be called a performance art than a sport do it in dense forests, while skiing or snowboarding, in a canoe shooting the rapids, on a bicycle in busy traffic and even under water. Evidently, it is not without danger, which may be why Matsuzawa Hitoshi (37), who has set up the group Extreme Ironing Japan, suggests to start practicing open-air ironing in the safety of your balcony.

The Japan Times features an interview with Matsuzawa. He speaks enthousiastically about the “iron calm” that comes over him when he takes out his iron at an impossible location and starts attacking the wrinkles in his textile. He also believes doing something that seems meaningless can become the spice of your life.

His group consists of 10 persons, including three women. I guess that the seven “extreme ironing men” are probably the hardcore of men who ever do household cores in Japan - Matsuzawa first touched an iron when he studied in Australia.

As a surfer, who loves many types of sports, it hurts him that ironing is seen as a women’s activity. This might also be due to the cute types of irons sold in Japan - a supply of more sturdy tools could perhaps close the gender gap.

He ends the interview with a plea for recognizing Extreme Ironing as an Olympic Sport - after all, he says, we also have oddities as synchronized swimming and curling, so why not extreme ironing?