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The story
An event held at LUCUA Osaka on the first day of a five-day holiday weekend — called “Ultra Polishing” and consisting of nothing but 90 minutes of polishing a stone — reportedly saw such a rush of applications that its 45 slots filled up almost instantly. By deliberately turning “wasted time” with no payoff into a product, the event has drawn attention as a contrarian response to the “time-performance” (taipa) mindset that prizes efficiency above all. On the 5ch thread, many commenters shared their own experiences of getting absorbed in simple repetitive tasks, while others clashed over how to even interpret the term “taipa” itself.
On the 19th, the first day of the five-day “Silver Week” holiday, an unusual event called “Ultra Polishing” — in which participants do nothing but polish a stone for 90 minutes straight — was held at LUCUA Osaka, a commercial facility in Osaka’s Kita Ward. Despite being plain and offering no reward whatsoever, all 45 reservation slots reportedly filled up almost as soon as registration opened.
In an era of efficiency-obsession where terms like “taipa” have taken hold, this event deliberately throws down a challenge with the idea that “wasted time is the ultimate luxury.” We visited the venue to find out just what draws so many people to it.
(By Seira Unekouchi)
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Nice writing — is that a byproduct of all that mud-ball polishing?
I'll carve a skull out of quartz then…
Exactly! Everything in this world is just a way to kill time until we die! If you can't enjoy free time, you might as well go check out the afterlife!
Isn't that value-performance rather than time-performance? That sounds more like "cospa" territory.
Meditation is like defragging your mind — you sleep great afterward.
Children polishing and stacking stones at Sai no Kawara — "stack one for father, stack two for mother" (a nod to the old Buddhist legend of children piling stones on the riverbank of the afterlife).
Isn't the point that you can brag about it to other people afterward?
I used to polish mud balls (dorodango) — is that still a thing kids are into?
Everyone here already shines without any polishing.
I want to switch to a job like that. I'm exhausted.
Those days spent hunting for the Muramasa blade in Wizardry…
Wait, they're charging people money to do this?
Japanese people have really warped their understanding of the Zen spirit — the moment they get free time, they suddenly can't sit still.
A crystal skull, huh. I hear there are quite a few quartz collectors out there, so it might actually sell.
Manage your "taipa" carefully, crank out a bunch, and cash in.
Probably just burn it away listlessly. By that point their dopamine's already run dry anyway.
Apparently the logic is that watching dramas and anime at 2x speed lets you get through twice as many. Though they also admitted they barely remember any of the content!
Being a middle-aged guy myself, I totally get why this would be soothing.
If something has meaning, then there's room for failure and success — like figuring out how to polish more, more efficiently. People probably just got sick of all that.
Background and Key Points of Debate
“Taipa” (short for “time performance”) is a term that spread mainly among Gen Z starting in the early 2020s, describing behavior — like watching videos at double speed or consuming summarized information — that prioritizes satisfaction per unit of time. This event stands out for deliberately turning its opposite, “wasted time,” into a product, and the fact that applications flooded in for a mere 45 slots speaks to just how much it resonated. On the thread, many comments approvingly compared getting absorbed in simple repetitive tasks to meditation or sutra-copying, while others pushed back, arguing that rejecting “taipa” outright is itself a form of not thinking things through — so opinions on the taipa mindset are far from unanimous. Some posts also drew an easy connection between stone-polishing and Zen practice, but it’s worth noting that the article itself never frames the event as Buddhist training — it’s presented simply as a way to let people experience the benefits of “wastefulness” firsthand.
*This article is compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Deliberately ignoring “taipa,” all you do is polish a stone for 90 straight minutes… “Immersion” and “savoring wastefulness” turn out to have a healing effect.”
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