The primary world champion in shoe shining, Yuya Hasegawa, has change into a little bit of a celeb in his residence nation Japan. Newest proof of that may be a 50 minute lengthy documentary aired on the Japanese public service broadcasting firm NHK, now accessible to view with English voice over for 2 weeks time, together with a quick interview with myself.
It’s a part of a documentary collection known as The Professionals, which I consider is aired on prime time on one in every of NHK:s channels in Japan. It portraits varied folks with roughly particular professions. It’s fairly bold documentaries, although no large funds venture. Within the documentary about Yuya Hasegawa, with the subheading “A life that shines from the footwear up”, we get to know the way how he began of as a reasonably common shoe shiner on the streets of Tokyo, how his competitiveness made him need to study all he might and based one of many pioneering shoe shining bars (these days he has a number of of them) in Japan, and the way he has labored to boost the standing of shoe shining in Japan and overseas. A part of it, in fact, was when he gained the World Championships in Shoe Shining 2017 on the London Tremendous Trunk Present.
Yuya Hasegawa within the documentary. The highest image exhibits his profitable shoe on the planet champs in shoe shining.
The 50 minutes documentary is form of divided into three elements, first following his precise career when shining footwear, the place you get a number of of sensible recommendations on shining and get to see how he works. Then Hasegawa’s private story from rising up in Chiba outdoors Tokyo, and his strategy to the shoeshining career. And final third follows the on a regular basis life in one in every of his outlets, with give attention to how one in every of his employees struggles to cross the check they’ve earlier than being allowed to work on buyer footwear. As with all of the episodes of this documentary collection, they take the career the portrait very significantly, the identical approach as Yuya Hasegawa does.
As talked about, additionally, you will se me briefly, in an interview they did right here in Gothenburg, Sweden, the place I talked in regards to the world championships in shoe shining and Hasegawa’s win within the first contest.
The documentary might be considered right here at NHK’s worldwide website, with English voice over, till June 28.
