A simple way to treat the epidemic of buying things

A picture of Yamashita Hiteko's living room where she uses the danshari concept.[Photo provided to China Daily]

As the annual shopping carnival takes place on Singles Day, many Chinese worry about a growing problem. It is the tendency to buy too many things because of the discounts and soon there is very little space to store them at home.

China, due to rapid economic growth, is entering a period that Japan entered 20 years ago.

Economic progress increases people's desires and they want to buy more things.

"Often, it is not because they need them. They just buy things to fill the hollow in their hearts, and accumulating things indicates the heavy burden they carry in their minds," Yamashita Hiteko, a Japanese self-help writer, told her audience at a lecture in Beijing's 798 art district on Sunday.

"Instead of a place for relaxation, the home becomes a place with too many useless things that people do not want to throw away. It then turns into a garbage dump. Such a situation affects one's psychological state," she says.

"So the first thing we need to do is to throw away some stuff," she says.

Hiteko is famous for her concept of danshari, which is summarized and developed from making the house neat and from yoga. It is practice of junking unnecessary things and separating oneself from the drive to have and own things.

By cleaning up, one gets rid of both physical and mental junk.

Her book Danshari published in China in 2013 has become very popular.