If I’ve learned one thing in my twenty years in Japan it’s how to enter someone’s home. What you did is this: take off your shoes at the genkan (porch) and say the following, o jama shimasu (the nuisance is here). Under no circumstances should you copy the de-cluttering Goddess Marie Kondo, who in her new Netflix show begins her transformative mission to tidy an American couple’s junk filled house by kneeling on the floor, falling into a trance, and offering a solemn benediction to the soon to be de-cluttered home.
The petite but perfectly formed Marie, who looks as if she could be neatly folded and placed snugly on a shelf herself, has reached the zenith of subscription television in little over 15 years, since setting up her ‘organising consulting business’ as a 19-year-old student.
She began sorting out other people’s mess as a tidy minded schoolgirl (or annoying busybody – take your pick), volunteering to rearrange the bookshelves while her fellow students were out playing games.
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