Wabi-sabi: Neither the swishing- food- around- in- hot- water technique of Japanese cooking (that's shabu-shabu) nor the bright-green horseradish sauce that comes with sushi (that's wasabi), wabi-sabi is a basic principle of traditional Japanese aesthetics. It's related to the Zen Buddhist ideas that nothing is permanent, nothing is perfect, and nothing is complete. In terms of design, wabi-sabi means that an object will be simple and probably slightly irregular, and will evoke natural processes like growth or erosion (no factory chic here!).