QUICK EDIT: please do not eat the chalk 💀 👈 Clickable LINK to the exact product is on my channel above the subscribe button 😊 🔗 Or type jo.my/chalk into your browser 💙 Thanks for watching! I'm a one-man team so a like and subscribe will always mean a ton to me
I couldn’t agree more. Those are actually my favorite kind of products and why I originally made this account: everyday products that aren’t as fancy or eye-catching on the surface, but instead deliver reliable, outsized value to one’s life. Things like this chalk, kitchen utensils, towels, fans, pens, watches, scissors, chairs, lamps, etc. Unfortunately, the current product review meta on social seems to one-liner descriptions of cheaply made unitasker-type products that have more flashiness than function 😕 not that those products or content don’t also deliver value, but imo often tend to veer more into the territory of “impulse purchase that only gets used once or twice” rather than “this is a quality product that will take care of you if you take care of it”
I recently got a Uni Kuru Toga Advance mechanical pencil. The core, the part that holds the lead, spins as you write to keep the pencil tip sharp no matter what. Japanese stationery and office products are over-engineered, but worth every penny.
A lot of Japanese products are like this because of generational manufacturers. One family will do the same type of work for hundreds of years, so they have made every improvement you could ever think of!
Yep, it's for exactly this reason I love fountain pens. The design is simple, but that's what left room to make it complex however their designers wanted to
As a Korean, it's EXTREMELY touching to find out that the Japanese owner handed his company and secrets off to a Korean to carry on us legacy. With all the negative history between us, it's wonderful to see the ones who work hard to rise above all that animosity and build a new relationship with one another.
I was gonna say that as well! I'm hoping that relations continue to normalize and get better. United in friendship, the countries will surely thrive together.
@@FrixworksKorea and Japan have, in recent years, lent more focus on an "Enemy of my Enemy" mindset. Both nations despise China and North Korea far more than they despise each other, though many Japanese see Koreans as lesser and many Koreans see Japanese as barbarians. On an individual basis, there's hardly an issue, but on any scale above that, it becomes an issue.
@@omni0414 that was used on chinese subjects their bad blood comes from the korean occupation from the 1910s-1945 and the invasion after the sengoku jidai
why r u guys acting like it’s small and insignificant? isn’t it expensive, rare & going extinct lol? i mean, it was discontinued. like being gifted polaroid film.
@@samaraisnt It's not very expensive actually. It was discontinued because the guy who made it retired, but he passed the formula on to another guy in S. Korea and he has continued making it with the old recipe. So you don't have to stockpile rare, limited amounts anymore - you can get it straight from the source. :)
@@lxmesodathese are grad students we’re talking about to be fair. They subsist off beer and the lie that they only have one more year to go until they finish their PhD.
You know the man felt immense pride knowing just how important his chalk was to the academic community. There was a large group of university professors all stockpiling enough of the chalk to last the rest of their careers the moment they found out there would be no more produced.
@@Legendendear It wasn't going to be produced anymore. But after seeing the outpour of support and desperation to hold on to lifetime supplies by mathematicians, the owner ultimately found a professor that he trusted to carry on the legacy after he retired.
I remember my Calculus professor, during first introduction class. Was not teaching first syllabus but instead give this story about chalk (after story about himself). But i kinda understand the importance of this chalk after hearing his story He told us that essentially, teaching is also an art. Not only rely on how good our knowledge are, but also how good our media are. It might be a skill like public speaking or language. But he also notice that small things, like the chalk is also very important. That is why he brag having this Hagoromo chalk and even demonstrating the difference between Hagoromo chalk and ordinary chalk.
A little sidenote, the specific reason why the owner of Hagoromo passed his legacy to a Korean math teacher was because he showed dedication like no others. Several Japanese companies contacted the owner for buying the recipe, but the owner insisted on keeping the name and recipe unchanged - which, as you see, got turned down and broke the deals. This "random" math teacher out of nowhere, however, kept on pleading the owner to pass his legacy saying that "the good things should always be the last to disappear" (Teacher also accepted all the conditions, including keeping the name and recipe unchanged). After long contemplation, the owner finally decided to pass everything to the teacher, and this is basically how Hagoromo is still in business!
I can’t believe just how much better it is. I thought something as commoditized as chalk would be flushed out by now, but they seem to have the recipe locked down.
Bad chalk and bad blackboards are the only reason why I hated to go to the board at school. It was such frustrating to press a lot to write some stuff not pale enough. If I were a teacher or still went to school, I would even buy myself a pack of this chalk
AND PEOPLE SAID I WAS CRAZY!!! I told *everyone* "this chalk doesn't write like when I was in school" and this is exactly the difference!!! years of confusion finally validated. thank you. vindication feels good.
What gave it away for me was the fact that it sounded different! The good/old chalk has such a smoothness to writing but also the sound it makes. The new stuff sounds fake 😂
@@MissyCeleste Crazy, I was Crazy Once They locked me in a rubber room. I died there. They buried me six feet under. Daisies grew and tickled my toes. I laughed so hard it drove me... Crazy, I was crazy once. They put me in a room with padded walls I died there, they buried me six feet under Then the bugs came. Bugs. Bugs drive me crazy. Crazy, I was Crazy once… 3 days have passed I left it all behind I slowly lost my mind It's nowhere that I can find Maybe it's in the ocean Feeding all the plankton Feeding all the sharks For display in our parks Is that a daisie? those drive me crazy Crazy, I was Crazy once. that's the song i was taught when i was 7. a few decades ago haha.
I remember my old art teacher back in, 2004 or so? He talked about colored chalk once. He talked about how new chalk sucks because each year they add less pigment to the chalk to save money. He took a brand new box of chalk and drew a line on the board. Red. ...ish. Like just the average red we were all used to seeing when a teacher used red chalk. And then he very carefully took out a box of old chalk, no idea how old, but it must have been from the 80s or something. Looked ancient. He very carefully drew a single line of red chalk on the board and put it away again, to be used again next year for the next year of students. And wow was that the most vibrant red chalk I ever saw. I had no idea chalk COULD be vibrant. It was gorgeous. That single red line of chalk will haunt me for the rest of my life. Screw that pale stuff they do 20 years ago. I don't even want to know what kids these days have to suffer between their zoom lessons when they actually pick up chalk. Give me VIBRANT CHALK.
Unfortunately, alongside just using less pigments, the most vibrant of reds is usually only achievable with heavy metals. You definitely do not want to be inhaling that in dust form. But the color lover in me understands. It feels like the quality of things is rapidly decreasing all over the place. It hurts so much to watch.
@@NeoNovastar I started making chalk during the pandemic as we were in lockdown and the kids from neighbouring homes would spend a lot of time drawing on our long driveway. I used plaster of paris and PVA glue to make the chalk and tried a few different ways of adding colour. It took so much acrylic paints or stamp pad inks to create fairly pale tones (I wouldn't call them colours). Luckily, I had kept some samples of colour dyes from when I work for a cleaning product manufacturer. That stuff is so concentrated, one drop would be enough to colour 2-3 litres of water vibrantly. I over did it with the first batch and while the chalk was awesome, it would stain your hands after a few minutes of use. Black was impossible to make, I used all the black ink and charcoal I had and could only manage a medium grey.
Most schools don't do chalkboard anymore. Not even regular whiteboards. Schools use Digital/interactive whiteboards. This is coming from a former student who went through all three.
@@zacholmschenk4775props to you for looking it up rather than just correcting them without knowing. ik a lot of people just say crap on here without ever double checking
I guess this explains why no one just stole the recipe and mass produced it. As good as it is compared to normal chalk that kind of production rate becomes a big problem in mass production.
i love this story. i’m so glad he entrusted someone with his secret recipe. it’s so wholesome. i love special mundane items. chalk. who would’ve thought
@@benita5912it probably isnt exactly the same, when you do something for decades, its more than just the recipe going into the craftsmanship. you learn and adjust a bunch of minute details because you know the subject of what youre making so well. but its still got to be better than your usual walmart chalk and i believe that in the years to come, the new owner will gradually learn these tiny adjustments and improvements, so the chalk will get better as time goes on
A lot of my professors told the story of how they panicked to buy the special chalk, sometimes even stealing stashes from each other. My university’s buildings are old and still had the big old school chalkboards all over the place with no signs of them being replaced with dry erase boards anytime soon, so good chalk was invaluable
Why not just share the recipie? Make the world a better place. Quit hording knowledge. Capitalism and IP holds humanity back. Some people would have documented the entire process and shared it with the world and declared it public domain. Those are the real heros. It's selfless
@@Cara.314 Capitalism and IP, really? Shows how much you know... You can literally go to Google, look up the Patent and find the secret recipe. This is because Patent Law, requires DISCLOSURE to protect IP. As Patents only carry a 20 year protected term, this both incentivizes the sharing of innovation, and the dissemination of it in tot he public domain. Without IP law and Capitalism, information would be held secret, and there'd be no incentive to share it besides altruism - And somehow, I feel like you'd like to eat a dinner you cooked before the entire rest of the world gets an equal portion. Without Patent terms, there'd be no reason to undertake the risks and research costs that lead to innovation. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PURPOSE: To obtain an easily erasable chalk giving a clear mark even in wet state, by compounding a gypsum base material with titanium oxide powder at a specific ratio. CONSTITUTION: The objective chalk is produced by compounding 80W90wt.% of a gypsum base material with 10W20wt.% of titanium oxide powder. As an alternative method, 80W90wt.% of a calcium carbonate base material is compounded with 10W20wt.% of titanium oxide powder. COPYRIGHT: (C)1989,JPO&Japio 1988-02-09 Application filed by HAGOROMO BUNGU KK ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hording knowledge is what happened before Capitalism and IP law. For example, take this passage from the Chang-tzu or Zhuangzhi, one of the foundational books of Taoism. My physical copy advocates 'burning books and keeping the learning in the hands of the few, keep the peasants low as grass so they may be easily harvested'... but this online version paraphrases pretty much the same thing: Destroy the jade and shatter the pearls, then petty thieves would not appear; burn the accounts and rip up the contracts, and the people will return to simplicity; break up the weights and the measures and the people will no longer argue; obliterate the laws of the world the sages have made, then the people can begin to be reasoned with. Throw away the six tones, destroy the pipes and lute, block the ears of Blind Kuang the musician, then every person in the world would for the first time be able to hear properly. If adornments were abolished, the five colours cast away and the eyes of Li Chu glued shut, then everyone in the world would be able to see clearly for the first time. Shatter the template and plumb line, discard the compass and T-square, break the fingers of a craftsman such as craftsman Chui, then for the first time everyone in the world will have and use real skills. ....... This is how China was run before the modern era. How did that work out?
Growing up in Japan, most of my teachers used hagoromo. I was in high school in 2015 and I remember my Classical Japanese teacher panic buying them, just like the professors in the video. I miss her, she's still the most passionate fan of Hagoromo I've ever met. Edit: Classical Japanese is a school subject where we read old Japanese language text (~7th to 19th century, basically a different language). Quick correction since I reread the comment and it looked like I was trying to say she's a "classically Japanese" person or something 😂 Fun fact, the name hagoromo is also derived from the angels in classical Japanese mythology. It's the fabric they wear to float in the sky, hence hagoromo chalk is supposed to write like you're gliding through the clouds. Heavenly, so to speak.
As a mathematician, when I found out about this chalk I proceeded to buy a hundred-dollar chalkboard from someone in the countryside. It was your typical high school size chalkboard, I then went and hung the chalkboard, bought the chalk from Korea and now I use it every single day of every single class period. Best decision I ever made! Update: OMG thank you for all the likes!
@@parrotshootist3004 It's funny you make that joke, many of my students from last year are jealous I have the board now. XD It's almost like they want one of their own.
My dad is a professor and teaches theoretical physics at a university. I gifted him a box of this chalk and he was so happy. He told me a story about a professor he had as a teen, who had fancy chalk and how this was actually how he envisioned being a professor was. Mind you, he is one for many years now, but apparently I helped him complete his vision. This is also how I know even my super accomplished, 60yo father is still figuring out how to adult. Which is a very calming thought.
@@mydearriley Ah, it's for her, not for them. I also got my dad a little tube to carry a single piece of chalk in for the lesson and he was over the moon (he was worried he'd forget the box of chalk in the classroom, because ADHD, so I looked for a solution).
Yeah because it's not just chalk. It's like saying chocelate milk is THAT good of milk, ... . If you use normal chalk correctly it's also very good, I never brake it and it's easily readable and much more sustainable as it's not shipped around the world and full of chemicals.
As an artist, I understand the obsession and panic completely 😂 it really sucks when your favorite supplies get discontinued. I was trying to buy certain pencils my friends swore by but I couldn’t find a pack of 12 because the company decided not to offer the pack of 12 pencils in one color anymore.
IKR? I’m still looking for the rare Pentel Side Fx because Pentel hasn’t been making that type of mechanical pencil for years and I’m freaking out that i might never be able to get spares…unless i pay 100 times the cost to get it shipped from Canada to Indonesia. And i have no reason to give the customs guy another BMW.
As a craftsman with pride in my work, there is no such thing as over engineered items. It's either quality work or trash. I primarily work with wood and like my teacher said, it's either good or it's kindling.
Same as a cabinetmaker. Personally hate working with chip/particle board because it's cheap, MDF is ok if you're gonna coat it well with long lasting paint given MDF is very easily shaped.
Yup. It's either you build TALL or WIDE. QUALITY or QUANTITY. Japan and Germany famous for their TALL/QUALITY mindset. USA, China, etc famous for their quantity mindset. Low quality stuff. They spam-produce their products. They dont care that much about qualities. Quality can get your life so much easier&better, but quantity survive more. Because it's easier to replace. And this quality vs quantity is for every fields. Even in animation, game.
It is an item indeed, but items that are made with care basically transcend just being an item and become an art piece to be appreciated as well as used. Functional art is truly priceless.
I mean how is this different from any other country’s family owned businesses? Every been to an Italian owned restaurant? If the owner doesn’t come out to interrogate the whole table on how the food is, then it ain’t real Also small businesses in Taiwan have this mindset too, the amount of pride everyone seemed to take in what they do there was awesome to see
@@patrickt101 Just a bit of background on why Japan is slightly ahead of others when it comes to quality control: In 1950, Dr. W. Edwards Deming a renowned quality-control expert was brought to Japan by General MacArthur, who was frustrated with a war-ravaged Japanese industrial base where he couldn't even count on being able to complete a phone call. At the request of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers, Deming began to train the Japanese in his total quality-control principles. Deming taught the Japanese fourteen principles and a basic core belief that is the foundation of virtually all decisions made in every successful, major, multinational Japanese corporation to this day. The core belief, simply, is this: a constant, never-ending commitment to consistently increase the quality of their business every single day would give them the power to dominate the markets of the world. Deming taught that quality was not just a matter of meeting a certain standard, but rather was a living, breathing process of never-ending improvement. If the Japanese would live by the principles that he taught, he promised them, within five years they would flood the world with quality products and within a decade or two become one of the world's dominant economic powers. Many thought Deming's proclamations were crazy. But the Japanese took him at his word, and today he is revered as the father of the "Japanese miracle." In fact, each year since 1950, the highest honor a Japanese company can receive is the National Deming Prize. This award is given on national television and is used to acknowledge the company that represents the highest level of increases in quality of products, service, management, and worker support throughout Japan.
My school started buying this brand of chalk this year instead of whatever brand we were using before. It's soooo nice and there are so many packs in every classroom.
This makes me happy, knowing that the original maker got to know that even if he had to shut the company down, his work was appreciated and it's been continued
Thank you for that history moment that I almost forgot. I was in high school at that time and was laughing about the chalk apocalypse when reading about it.
I teach in a classroom first used in 1921. The chalkboard is 20 feet long and made of four 5 foot lengths of slate. It’s beautiful. I buy Hagomoro chalk with money out of my own pocket because that chalkboard deserves it.
I have absolutely no need for chalk. So, WHY do I want that Japanese chalk so badly now. I'm actually trying to convince myself I could possibly use it and must have THAT MAGNIFICENT CHALK😂❤😂.
We have the power to keep businesses in business. Even if you don’t use the chalk that often (or even at all), giving the company your money will help them continue making a product that people love
Woe hopefully by his stripes or who ever strips we peoples are healed by the stripes of Child protection services new testament? And not roots as in Alex haley! Violence like that doesn't give God or a saviour to expose such? I as peoples have family's that goVonor and Can prove a homosexual hate Crime useing created law!
My biology teacher uses this chalk! Apparently all the other science teachers steal it from him because it's the "nice chalk" and he just ended up buying each of them a set lmao
I had taught English for 6 years in Japan and I can definitely vouch for the quality of this chalk as well! It's much sturdier and does not fragment as easily when making long, broad strokes. Though I don't use chalk boards anymore, I would definitely go to this brand if I ever need to again.
I tried it a few times in the math building of my university and hoooow boy, smooth like butter and pleasent to the ear. I was surprised that something common and simple as a chalk could make me smile
This answered one of my childhood questions that I had in life. Some of my teachers had regular light chalk, and some of them had thicker, more visible chalk. I was always confused as to why that was but now it makes sense.