My mom was telling me about how in the Japanese language, there is more than one word for beauty, each defining a different type of beauty. One of them is the beauty of imperfection. This is expressed in much Japanese art, including pottery. Often in Japanese pottery, even in mainstream dishes for the general public, each piece is made purposely slightly different, as opposed to America, where each thing is made identical with machine-like precision to the thing next to it. Whereas we see beauty in perfection, younger skinner bigger better best, the Japanese see beauty in the imperfection, the different, the old.