"Chew in the Good, and Spit out the bad"

This phrase has been used on my MSN personal message for a while. I really admire this phrase because it really reflects the really essence of human evolution.

A few years ago, I have read "Taiko" by Eiji Yoshikawa that talks about Toyotomi Hideyoshi who was the second great man in the Sengoku period in Japan. In this great book, it talks about the many foreign influence that Japan has encountered during Oda Nobunaga's era(Tensho period).

At the time, the Japanese merchants were concerned about the impact of the influxes of foreign goods and foreign cultures into the Japanese society. In the book, it talks about a conversation in between Oda Nobunaga and a well known Japanese Merchant. In the conversation, Nobunaga was amazed by sugar which was brought in by the "Gaijins" to Japan. When Nobunaga was enjoying some desert made with sugar, the merchant points out that the sweetness of a dessert has been greatly increased with the application of sugar and there maybe some harmful effects on the human body if the dessert was to be consumed in a long period of time.

After listening to the merchant's observation, Nobunaga used the phrase "Chew in the Good, and Spit out the bad" to describes the Japanese should hold when they accept foreign influence into their traditional cultures and values. In other words, the Japanese needs to learn from the west, to adapt the best from their foreign business partners and then innovate from what they have learned.