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The author Karen Kingston was born in England and lived in Bali Island from 1990 to 2000. She has studied feng shui and space clearing for many years and pioneered purification of buildings’ energy. The book’s first edition was published in 2002 in Japan, so it is an introduction to clear up things before Konmari comes into the world.

Speaking of feng shui, Trump, now the President, when he built Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York(completed in 1997), he invited a feng shui master from Guandong Province, China and asked advice.

By the way, according to Oxford English Dictionary, clutter means a lot of things in an untidy state. And, such things that you don’t need influence people negatively as follows.
*Feel tired and lose your energy
*Keep you shackled to the past
*Weaken your body movements
*Tend to delay everything
*Cause disharmony
*Ashamed of yourself
*Slow down development of your life
*Make you feel depressed
*Get desensitized
*Can’t think on what is important

The book also describes as follows.
Here are a few clearing clutter methods that people have tried.
*Leave it to nature (alias: give up decision). A method that you keep them in a place that they will go rotten naturally.
*Wait until you die, and your relatives get rid of them. This method has been most commonly used for centuries.
*Clear them by yourself responsibly. I suggest this method!
The most difficult thing is that you start clearing. Once you start it, you will be energized quickly, so you will be able to continue naturally.

To be sure, even if I don’t feel like clearing, but once I started, I feel motivated. This year, I would like to make a habit of clearing even one drawer at a time. (H.S)

English edition

Karen Kingston（From her official website）

I think that this is one of books English learners should read. This website GEN also provides English version, so as the person in charge, I am still an English learner. The book's first edition was published in 1988. I thought that I once understood the content but I forget gradually, so I should reread sometimes and want to imprint it on my memory. The author Mark Petersen came to Japan in 1980 as a foreign student. Since then, he has studied Japanese literature and now teaches British and American literature and comparative literature as a university professor.

When I first read the book, the part about article was startling. Because I was able to sense its notion directly for the first time. Following are excerpts from the part.

[ 'a' is not an accessory for nouns]
-The difference between Japanese without article and English that article is the basis of a logical process-
For example, there is a sentence as an opening line as follows.
"Once upon a time, there were an old man and an old woman. The old man…."
In English, they never say, "Once upon a time, there were [the] old man and [the] old woman…" In Japanese, we use "ga" or "wa" as particle that plays the same role as article. When native English speakers speak and write English, noun doesn't give a category of meaning in advance, but presence or absence of article does.

Come to think of it, sometimes I see native English speakers say like, "I ate a…a…a rice ball." In other words, article comes first and they recall nouns come next.

As Mr. Petersen wrote in the book, I also feel that English-language education in Japan has not taught the essence of article even though I don't know the current situation. It isn't a bad thing to focus on English conversation and good pronunciation, but I keenly feel the need to learn such a fundamental sense of English first. (H.S)