Ikigai and other words of ancient Japanese wisdom won't fix your life

There are many things to be learnt from Japan, but don't bank on trite lifehacks in the self-help book section.

- Gearoid Reidy

If you're looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer this Christmas, it's tempting to turn to the self-help section of the bookshop - perhaps the increasing number of tomes claiming to impart ancient pearls of Japanese wisdom.

In the last decade, such books have proliferated, claiming to teach you the Japanese secret to everything: Eat less, save money, be more productive. Ikigai, wabi-sabi or shinrin-yoku will fix what's wrong with your life.

They tend to follow a similar pattern: A word you might not be familiar with at first, with a title that hints at hidden knowledge, the idea that the Japanese are tapped into some time-worn understanding about things modern Western society - too rushed, too online, too whatever - has forgotten.

The growth has matched increasing global interest and travel to the country. Talking to first-time tourists or perusing online forums, I often find astonishment: Why does everything work so well? How else could public safety and famed attention to detail be sustained, if not from some secret knowledge the West has lost?

Don't get me wrong: There are many things to be learnt from Japan. But for the most part, it doesn't come in the form of trite lifehacks.

A Western obsession with so-called oriental wisdom is nothing new: From The Book of Tea in 1906 to the post-war interest in Zen Buddhism, it has long been assumed that the East is home to deep knowledge. It's not just confined to self-help; 1980s Americans became obsessed with Japanese productivity techniques such as kaizen to understand how their companies could possibly beat US ones.

But the current fad for such techniques might be traced to Marie Kondo's 2010 book