Wild vegetables have long been served at the Japanese dining table. With their great variety and low calorie count, they have recently become popular as health foods. But they also play important roles in long-established annual and seasonal rituals. In the 18th century, during a period of famine, one feudal lord realized that although crops were not sprouting, wild vegetables were. He commissioned a guidebook that gave people life-saving advice on how to gather and eat plants found in the wild. Wild vegetables don't only grow in the wilderness; some people enjoy gathering them in urban areas. There are even schools that share traditional knowledge about wild vegetables with their students. On this edition of BEGIN Japanology, our theme is wild vegetables. We'll see how Japan's food culture has embraced what nature has to offer.

In Japan, stress is a part of life. Giving and receiving massages, particularly shoulder massages, is a Japanese institution. And over the last several decades, the massage chair has become an equally important part of Japanese life. The world's first massage chair was invented in Osaka in 1950. Its creator was an amateur inventor who wanted his frail daughter to be able to have a shoulder massage, even when he wasn't around. Since then, massage chair technology has come a long way. The latest models can massage the whole body, and they use technologies like computers, optic sensors, and pneumatic pumps. On this edition of BEGIN Japanology, our theme is massage chairs. We look at their state-of-the-art Japanese engineering and their little-known history.