POP UP GLASS SHOW at the Den on Laurel Street Sept 3rd & 4th

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July 21, 2022Events, Workshops and Webinars

We have exciting news San Diego and the World!
Mark your calendar for the Labor Day weekend when Entoten will welcome Japanese glassblower Inoue Naruhito from Taketa in Oita prefecture, Kyushu.

GLASS SHOW with Inoue Naruhito
September 3 & 4, 2022
11 am – 5 pm
At The Den on Laurel Street
205 Laurel Street, #104
San Diego CA 92101

The city of Taketa is famous for bamboo and, appropriately, Inoue-san casts his “Kaguya” glass series in cured bamboo molds. The series is named after the bamboo princess Kaguya, who was born from a segment of bamboo in the old Japanese folklore, “The Tale of The Bamboo Cutter (竹取物語).”

These stunning bamboo cast plates resemble huge morning glory blossoms. We look forward to sharing plenty of stunning glasswork by Inoue-san this September at The Den.

Lesser Heat
Approximately July 7th – July 22nd

By:

Ai Kanazawa

July 7, 202272 Seasons Essays Chieko (Calligraphy)

The scrolls are read from right to left and the dates are approximate
Lesser Heat (Shosho 小暑)
Warm winds arrive ( Onpu itaru温風至）July 7-11
Lotus blossoms (Hasuhajimete hiraku蓮始開) July 12-16
Falcons learn to fly (Taka wazaonarau鷹乃学習) July 17-22
Calligraphy by Chieko

Falcons learn to fly

Before our family moved to Singapore in the spring of 1980, we lived in a cluster of apartment buildings called danchi, in suburban Chiba. The complex, which was completed in 1972, housed approximately 2000 families, and although this sounds like one of those terrible soulless mass housing projects of the 20^th century (they were almost identical to the Soviet style Khurushchyovka), it was actually wonderful to live there as a young child because there were so many other children to play with. Each building housed 20 families on 5 stories with 4 apartments on each floor, and there were no elevators.

Our family lived on the second floor of a danchi, right above my grandparents who lived on the ground level apartment with a small garden. They were my father’s parents, and would have been around 80 years old when we lived together. Their front door was usually unlocked so, often after school, my sisters and I would simply barge into their apartment like it was our right. They were always happy to see us though, so we spent many hours sitting together sipping tea, watching sumo, and eating rice crackers.

My grandmother was an introvert who mostly stayed home, cooked, did some needlework, and watched TV. She occasionally practiced shamisen that she wasn’t particularly good at and made delicious home-made pickles that she shared with my family. She was also a constant guardian to my younger sister, who spent a lot of time at home because she was often sick.

My grandfather was a very tall man for someone born in the Meiji period, and he was active in the community as the president of the senior citizens club of our danchi. I often spotted him cycling around the neighborhood and chatting with people in the community park. He also had a myriad of hobbies that he practiced seriously, including oil painting, poetry writing, singing, and gardening, all of which he picked up after retiring from running a soba restaurant across the street from Komazawa park in Tokyo.

“Grandpa used to be very strict, but he is so gentle with you grandkids,” my father once said, “my friends never wanted to come to my house because they thought grandpa was too scary.” I remember feeling thankful that my grandfather had mellowed before I arrived in this world because it was terrifying to imagine someone who could intimidate my father, who frightened us with his thunderous temper from time to time.

My grandfather sometimes allowed me to sit and watch him paint in the dark tatami room that smelled of turpentine, mixed with the smell of incense from the modest wooden buddhist alter he had in the same room. Many of the paintings that he made were of some distant mountains or fields. He said they were paintings of Nagano, where he grew up before moving to Tokyo.

Once, when my grandfather was painting, I told him that I wanted to learn to draw, and this made him very happy. He immediately flipped a piece of advertisement paper and used its blank back to show me how to draw a mug that was sitting on the table. “Cups are three-dimensional,” he said, as he started to pencil the outline of the mug. “And to depict that, you draw shadows.” I was about 6 years old and couldn’t even write Japanese alphabets properly, so ‘three-dimensional’ and ‘depict’ were big words for me. I remember I paid as much attention as I could because I understood that he was sharing his passion with me wholeheartedly.

My grandfather was never cynical about my ability, and I loved that about him. If I live to be 80 years old, I hope that I’d still be the person that can share my own passion with anyone without contempt, just like my grandfather.

My grandfather died in the spring of 1990 when I was a senior in high school. I was studying abroad and only found out about his death after I returned that summer. My parents said that they didn’t call me back because he wouldn’t have wished to interrupt my study.

In the corner of my messy workroom in San Diego, I still have the square paper board with a tanka poem that my grandfather wrote for me before I went abroad. It reads: –

Granddaughter,
Off to a school in distant Canada
The old hide their tears, and send her away

Many years have passed since he left us, but I think of my grandfather often. There are many things I would have liked to tell him and many questions that I wish I had asked. I never wrote to him when he was alive, but I want to write a letter to him now. There is no question that he would send me a reply, if only he could.

Summer Solstice
Approximately June 21st – July 6th

By:

Ai Kanazawa

June 20, 202272 Seasons Essays Chieko (Calligraphy)

Self-Heal Withers

I don’t know if it was a common practice to use Self-Heal, the medicinal plant, for ailments in Japan in the 1970s. No one around me used it, but I imagine that it would have had a pungent smell and strong flavor, just like the many herbs that appeared on our dining table that were “good for health” throughout the seasons. The annual herb roster started with butterbur (fukinoto) and angelica tree sprouts (taranome) in the spring, to Japanese ginger (myoga) and heartleaf (dokudami) tea around this time of the year.

It baffled me that adults liked these terrible tasting weeds. They also firmly believed in the old proverb that “good medicine is bitter to the mouth,” and there were many bitter plants and medicines that made life miserable for children growing up in this era.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to suffer much of the consequences of these old-fashioned convictions because I was the healthiest of my sisters. Apart from regular cuts and bruises, I had no health issues. My two sisters weren’t as lucky. They both had asthma and my younger sister had weak kidneys and bladder, so she was frequently in and out of the hospital.

Children were outside most of the time and nature seemed abundant that I often forget that the air we breathed and the environment we played in was quite polluted in a rapidly developing Japan. Like my sisters, many children had asthma, and I remember watching the news about Minamata disease (mercury poisoning) and Itai-itai disease (cadmium poisoning, so called because the victims suffered acute and constant pain and “itai” is an exclamation to pain in Japanese) that were caused by massive industrial pollution during this time.

Over the counter medicines that we used were a mixture of western and herbal kinds. We had a small lacquered wooden chest decorated in Kamakura-bori on the kitchen cabinet that was our “medicine and first aid box”. As soon as someone pulled out one of its small drawers, the distinct aroma of Seirogan wafted in the air. Seirogan was a popular herbal anti-diarrheal medicine that came in a brown glass jar and topped with an orange cap with a symbol of a bugle. Its militaristic packaging scared us and the bad smell that took over the entire medicine box was revolting. Despite its repulsiveness, we had to depend on Seirogan occasionally because its soft black pills, which resembled charcoal pellets, stopped diarrhea and stomach pain very quickly.

For other bitter medicines and strange herbal powders, Oblaat came to the rescue. Oblaat is a clear and extremely thin layer of edible film made from potato starch that is used to wrap medicines. Even though the word “Oblaat” sounds western, it is a Japanese invention that was a staple in the medicine box. This thin, circular film was also a great toy for me because when it was placed on the palm of my hand, it constantly curled and unfurled like it was alive. You may know Oblaat as the edible wrappers of the citrus flavored Japanese rice candy called Bontan Ame that are sold in Asian supermarkets here in the U.S.

A while back, for this essay, I chatted with my younger sister about the herbs and medicines that we grew up with. I told her that I still have vivid memories of her crying and protesting about taking her medication. My sister chuckled and said, “once I screamed at father that I didn’t want to take it.” My father was authoritarian and hardly ever allowed his children to contradict him, so she was expecting to be scolded for yelling. “But then he quietly replied, “I know, I don’t want to give it to you either,” my sister said, “his melancholic words caught me by surprise, so I shut up and took the pills.”

Showa was a silly time when parents had to be invincible and didn’t casually share their own worries and tender emotions with their children. But in moments like that we understood that our parents were just as distressed about us being sick, and that they only wanted us to get better.

Grain Seeds are Planted
Approximately June 6th – June 20th

By:

Ai Kanazawa

June 6, 202272 Seasons Essays Chieko (Calligraphy)

Praying Mantises Hatch

June marked the beginning of a busy hunting season for me and my friends. As soon as I arrived home from school, I would throw my backpack in the hallway, grab a cage, and quickly run out of the apartment to join my friends that were waiting outside to catch insects together. We caught all kinds of bugs, like grasshoppers, butterflies, and beetles, but I most vividly remember catching praying mantises, probably because many grown-ups were scared of them.

To capture a praying mantis, you must move slowly from behind to stay out of its sight and quickly pinch its long green thorax where their forelegs are attached. By holding it there, you can keep your fingers safe from its powerful legs and mouth while moving it into a cage. I liked peering into the eyes of these green captives, which had tiny black dots that seemed to stare straight back at me.

My sisters, however, were not interested in bugs and my mother hated them. “My grandmother used to make me pick up leeches on the way home from school. I had to carry home these tiny leeches in a glass jar, and they wiggled. They were so disgusting!” my mother exclaimed. Apparently, my great-grandmother often used leeches to alleviate shoulder stiffness, which was a common practice in Japan. It was a traumatic experience for my mother. She said she was so relieved when the leech shop closed soon after the Second World War.

Despite my mother’s objections, my passionate pursuit of bugs continued and the balcony of our apartment slowly turned into a mini insectarium. Then one day, while trying to hang laundry on the balcony, my mother tripped over a cage. “This is intolerable!” she said frustratedly, and banned me from bringing back more insects.

After I was deprived of my hobby, I sulked for a while, and then came up with the brilliant idea that perhaps it was time to ask for a pet mammal in exchange for giving up my insect hunting. I had been wanting to have a pet for a while, and my heart was set on a raccoon. This was because at that time, in 1977, I was watching an anime called “Washing Bear Rascal,” adapted from the book, “Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era” by American author Sterling North. I was enamored with the story about a young boy in a foreign country (Wisconsin) who had a pet raccoon. Raccoons are called Araiguma in Japanese, which literally translates as “washing bear,” because raccoons washed their food in water. How amazing, I thought, that an animal was smart enough to wash their food before eating!

The anime started with a melodious theme song of an image of a boy cycling down a clover-filled meadow with a raccoon in the front basket:

When the white clovers bloom
Let’s arise and go, Rascal
Through the road, where the June breeze blows
On an expedition down the Rock River
Thank you God for giving me a friend
For letting me meet Rascal, for letting me meet Rascal
Thank you for letting me meet, my friend, Rascal

Japanese anime songs from the era had simple and beautiful lyrics, and many were about traveling to distant places and looking for adventure, just like this one. I imagined going on an expedition with my pet raccoon in my bicycle basket, although I didn’t know where Rock River was.

As you might have guessed, my plea to get a pet raccoon was immediately shot down by my mother. She allowed me to get a goldfish instead, which didn’t quite live up to my expectations. It’s quite funny to imagine how flabbergasted my mother was when I asked for the raccoon. Many years have passed since I’ve gone on a bug-hunting expedition, but I can still hear my mother’s voice yelling “don’t bring anything home!” as I impatiently closed the apartment door to meet my friends. And, even now, when I stroll through a field of white clovers, I catch myself humming the cheerful Rascal song in my head.

Early Growth Abounds
Approximately May 21st-June 5th

By:

Ai Kanazawa

May 20, 202272 Seasons Essays Chieko (Calligraphy)

The scrolls are read from right to left and the dates are approximate
Early Growth Abounds (Shoman 小満)
Silkworms Start Eating Mulberry Leaves (Kaiko okite kuwao kuu 蚕起食桑）May 21-25
Safflowers Bloom (Benihana sakau 紅花栄) May 26-30
Barley Ripens (Bakushu itaru 麦秋至) May 31-June 5
<Calligraphy by Chieko>

Barley Ripens

When the loudspeakers in our neighborhood blared the song “Seven Baby Chicks” at 5pm, it was time to return home for dinner:

Crow, why do you caw so?
Because up in the mountain
I have seven adorable baby chicks…

I really disliked this song because I always wanted to play outside longer and had very little interest in going home to eat. Decades later, I was amused whenever my nephews and nieces fell asleep at the dinner table because it confirmed that apathy for eating ran deep in my family during infancy.

But occasionally I was excited about food, in particular when my mother made us barley rice, called mugigohan, which was a mixture of white rice and rolled barley. A rolled barley looks just like a whiter rolled oat and it is flat with a line running down the center. When I spotted these telltale faint brown lines mixed into the rice, I would exclaim with joy. I picked the barley out with chopsticks and popped them individually into my mouth to enjoy their chewy texture. “Mugi is healthy, but a politician once said it’s food for the poor people,” my mother would often say as we ate our mugigohan. This made me think that “politicians” are nasty if they were telling poor people what to eat.

The word mugi in Japanese means wheat or barley. A rolled barley is called oshimugi, and barley tea is called mugicha. The other mugi that we grew up with was mugiwara boushi, which means straw hats. When we were young, many parents made us put on straw hats during the summer and because of this, they are synonymous in our minds with carefree adventures and summer holidays. So, anime fans, it is no coincidence that the protagonist “Luffy” of the popular anime series, “One Piece,” wears a straw hat as he continues his adventures while building friendships.

Straw hat also reminds me of the advertisement for the movie “The Proof of the Man” which was widely broadcast on TV in the summer of 1977. The movie was adapted from a popular murder mystery book written by Morimura Seiichi. I was too young at the time so I actually never saw the movie or read the book, but I vividly remember the commercial that started with an image of a straw hat falling into a ravine. The scene was accompanied by a poem by Saijo Yaso, called “My Hat,” somberly read by the voice of a young man:

Mother,
I wonder what became of my hat
The straw hat that fell into the bottom of a ravine
On the way from Usui to Kiritsumi
That summer…

I think most Japanese children who grew up in this era learned the beginning of this poem thanks to that TV commercial. It was, when I think back, the first time I heard a poem read aloud and experienced how words can evoke feelings.

I felt great sympathy for this man without his hat because I thought about the terrible feeling when I lost something and of the woefulness of having to tell mother. Once, probably a few months after watching the commercial, I lost my water bottle at school and my mother asked where it was. I said in a solemn tone, “mother, I wonder what became of my water bottle…,” at which point she burst out laughing. “You are just impossible,” she groaned, and laughed until tears were streaming down her face.

Beginning of Summer
Approximately May 5th – 20th

By:

Ai Kanazawa

May 5, 202272 Seasons Essays Chieko (Calligraphy)

Frogs Start to Cry

When I was a little girl, I never saw my father during the week because he left for work before the children woke up and came home after we went to sleep. When he was home on the weekends, he was always very tired. If my sisters and I begged him to play, he would often suggest, “sure, let’s pretend to nap,” at which point we immediately refused and ran off. When we returned, we found our father snoring on the tatami mat with my baby sister on his side. She was a constant victim to his scheme because she quickly fell asleep “pretending” next to my father.

I think many Japanese salaryman fathers in the 1970s were just like mine, overworked and exhausted, because, it seemed, they were on a mission to contribute to Japan’s rapid growth and industrialization. My father couldn’t play with us often and, ironically, that’s the reason I vividly remember the times when he did. We played badminton in the car park and the Reversi board game that was popular in Japan at the time. These times were fun, but out of all the things I did with my father, I enjoyed singing with him the most.

My father had tuberculosis when he was in high school that almost took his life, and he lost a part of his lung through an operation. A big scar remains across his back that always surprised people when we went to the swimming pool together. When we were very young, my father told us that the scar was made by a big cat that clawed at him in a dark alley. So we never went into dark alleys.

After spending two years in the hospital, the doctor suggested to my father to take up singing as therapy to improve his lung capacity and breathing. My father obediently joined a choir for several years and because of this, he loved to sing and taught us many songs.

The Frogs’ Song (kaeruno uta) was one of the first songs that everyone, including my little sister, could sing because it was simple and short. Like the song “row, row, row your boat”, the song is sung in a round and as a child I thought that we really sounded like a group of frogs when we sang the “gwa gwa” part together. Until recently, I was convinced that this song was Japanese in origin but discovered to my surprise that the melody is from a German folk song from the 19th century called Froschgesang.

For my father’s work, our young family moved to the suburban areas of Kanagawa, Fukuoka, and Chiba in a span of a few years. In Chiba, there were many rice paddies close to our apartment. In the early summer when these fields were filled with water, a massive chorus of frogs could be heard. These frogs laid eggs that looked like delicate strings of beads covered in jelly.

Once, my friend and I went to look for tadpoles in the rice paddies after daycare. We loudly sang the Frogs’ Song in an endless loop as we walked in our rain boots because this never-ending song was perfect for our childish persistence, and we were happy that no adult was telling us to stop. When we arrived at the rice paddies, we saw many tadpoles swimming in the shallow warm water.

Some tadpoles had already started to grow legs. We gently scooped a few in our hands and flipped them to look at the spirals in their bellies. We were completely absorbed in our play until my friend tried to take a step and lost her boot in the mud. We pulled and pulled to retrieve it, but the suction of the mud was too strong. Soon the boot disappeared completely into the mud, and we had to give up because the five o’clock song played from the loudspeakers and this was the time that we had to go home.

My friend used my shoulder to hop on her single booted foot, so we trudged very slowly. As darkness began to fall, we started sobbing quietly as we walked. I felt responsible for her boot and hoped that her mother won’t scold her for losing it. I was also worried that my mother would be angry when I got home covered in mud.

I can’t remember my friend’s name now, or what happened after we got home that evening. Shortly after the incident, my friend moved away because her father had to work in Kansai. My father also stopped singing because the opportunities simply disappeared from our lives as we grew up. Now when I hear frogs cry, I think about singing the Frog’s Song with my father, and the little orange rain boot stuck in the rice paddy field.

Essays for the 72 Microseasons with Calligraphy by Chieko

By:

Ai Kanazawa

May 5, 202272 Seasons Essays Chieko (Calligraphy)

2022 marks the 10th anniversary of my small business. I was so excited to embark on this endeavor after waiting 8 years for a green card that finally allowed me to work in the US. For this anniversary year, I wanted to push myself to write more as I find the whole writing process difficult. So I was delighted when I found the perfect literary enkindler: the 72 microseasons of old Japan.

When Meiji Japan replaced its calendar in 1872 as it sought to modernize and catch up with the rest of the world, many of the seasons expressed in the traditional version were no longer used in the new Gregorian calendar. In the old lunar calendar called kyureki, the year was divided into four seasons with each season sub-divided into three mini-seasons called sekki. But the most curious aspect of the kyureki were ko or microseasons that further divided each sekki into three, making a grand total of 72 microseasons in a year.

“East wind melts the ice” microseason marking the beginning of spring around February 4th-8th calligraphy by Chieko

The 72 microseasons are fascinating because they have names like “east wind melts the ice” and “barley ripens” that literally depict subtle but distinct phenomenon in the surrounding nature. They are a testament to our farming history and how our ancestors lived close to the land that they depended upon. These days most Japanese have never heard of these microseasons, but in the last decade there has been a renewed interest with numerous books and online content published on the topic.

These microseasons have had the profound effect of triggering my memories in unique and personal ways. From childhood, summer has been my favorite season of the year and since today, May 5^th, marks the start of summer in the Japanese calendar, it is the perfect day to begin recounting them. I hope that you will find my stories interesting and in some way intersect with your own experiences because I feel that it is my lifework to create deeper connections by communicating delicate gradations and subtleties of thought that transcends culture and language.

My essays will be accompanied by the vivid calligraphy of the 72 microseasons by Chieko, the mother of a good friend, who is a contemporary Japanese calligrapher currently residing in Kanagawa prefecture. Chieko first put ink on paper more than 70 years ago and her talent was soon recognized by her teacher who encouraged her to pursue the art form. She later studied under Kumagai Tsuneko (1893-1989), a renowned contemporary calligrapher at Daito Bunka University, who also taught calligraphy to the Japanese Empress Michiko.

Kanamoji calligraphy by Chieko
Hananoirowa utsurinikerina itazurani wagamiyonifuru nagameseshimani
by Ono no Komachi (9th Century poet)
100 waka poems by 100 poets

Some of the100 poems by 100 poets karuta in kanamoji by Chieko

Chieko’s love is for kanamoji calligraphy, a graceful and unique writing style using Japanese alphabets that were developed during the Heian Period (794-1192). However, for this 72 microseasons project, I requested Chieko to write the seasons in Kanji using regular to semi-cursive script, so that they will be legible and entice many people, even beginners learning kanji, to engage.

In creating the 72 microseasons calligraphy, Chieko used three kinds of ink: chaboku (brown ink), seiboku (blue ink), and kuro (black ink), which are rubbed on wet stone to release the pigments. Each piece is created quickly and deliberately because calligraphy is an ephemeral art form with no opportunity to make changes later.

For Chieko, the brushes are extensions of her hand and her work expresses her heart. Her immense focus lets the brush move freely, creating work that powerfully provokes strong emotions.

Calligraphy, while intrinsically imbuing meaning, leaves space for the imagination of the viewer that actual landscape photos do not. It is not necessary to be able to read the characters. Instead, please enjoy the flow, contrast, composition, and grace of the strokes, just like you would enjoy a painting.

Continue to read the 72 microseasons essay “Beginning of Summer” ->

Tsutsu Tea Bowl, Ohinasama Dolls, and the Rhythm of Seasonal Delight

By:

Ai Kanazawa

February 18, 2022Topics Tea (Chado) Mitch Iburg

Ceramics by Mitch Iburg in our shop ->

During the month of February, a narrow and deep tea bowl called “tsutsujyawan” is used to prepare thin tea in Chanoyu, the Japanese Way of Tea. The word tsutsu means cylinder, and I was told that the reason for using this type of tea bowl, whose design makes it near-impossible to whisk and create good foam, is to retain the heat of the tea so that guests can enjoy it hot at the coldest time of the year.

Although I’m skeptical how effective the shape is for keeping the tea hot, the tsutsu tea bowl symbolizes “mid-winter,” and also implies that spring is just around the corner. And getting people into the spirit of the season through the use of seasonal utensils is an important aspect in Chanoyu.

Thinking about tsutsujyawan made me a little sad because I realized that I have not been able to practice tea with my teacher for the past two years because of Covid. Another year will pass before I’ll be able to prepare tea in her beautiful Mishima tsutsujyawan, an ash glazed bowl with white slip inlay decorations that comes out of a little paulownia box only once a year.

I’m surprised to catch myself feeling this nostalgia because, when I was growing up, I thought all this seasonal stuff was such a waste of time, especially the Ohinasama dolls decorations that come out of boxes in February to celebrate Girls’ Day on March 3^rd. Families with daughters display dolls depicting a married couple in celebration of the Peach Flower Festival, which is also known as the Doll festival.

My parents originally had a simple Ohinasama comprised of a dressed-up couple already glued in position side by side in a glass case with a fitting box. Then my mother won a spectacular nanadan kazari (seven-tiered Ohinasama) in a giveaway by a radio station in the late 1970s. I still clearly remember the day she won it. We were having breakfast before going to school when the radio host started reading a letter from a mother of three daughters who could not afford a nanadan kazari…, at which point my overjoyed mother screamed, “that’s me!”

A few months later, several large boxes arrived at our house containing the nanadan kazari. The decoration was huge with a total of 15 dolls, equipped with miniature furniture for the bride, and because it took up most of our living room, it was totally incongruous. We were all excited to decorate them for the first few years, then gradually lost interest, except my mother. Her enthusiasm for the hard-won Ohinasama continued and she insisted that we take the whole set to Singapore when my father was transferred there for work several years later.

Nanadan Kazari Ohinasama in Singapore in the 1980s

Year after year, the Ohinasama came out of the boxes in tropical Southeast Asia and went back into the boxes promptly on March 4th. This is due to the superstition that daughters will not be able to get married for a long time if the dolls are left out past March 3^rd. I think I was not alone in questioning if a happy and early marriage should be my primary goal in life, but more than that, I dreaded the task of boxing and unboxing these dolls and wished that they stayed in their boxes forever.

These days the Girls’ Day spirit of the season does not arrive unless I step up to the task of taking out the Ohinasama. My older sister in Japan inherited the nanadan kazari for her daughters, but whether they are out of boxes right now is unknown and I dare not ask.

Amazake, sweet beverage made from rice and malted rice; and sanshokudango, three-colored mochi sweets are some of the foods eaten for Hinamatsuri. I have yet to meet a child who likes amazake.

When I pull out my own little Ohinasama and put it on a shelf, I think back to the time we decorated the nanadan kazari. We could never remember where all the dolls went, and it was fun figuring them out with my sisters. Many friends came over to our apartment to take pictures in front of the dolls because few people had such a display. Over the years, the Ohinasama evolved into a marker of the coming of spring and its subsequent gatherings.

Which brings me back to my Tea teacher’s tsutsujyawan. The winter tea bowl is just one example of many utensils that are taken out and put away throughout the year, just as with my family’s Ohinasama. Like Christmas lights in December, these symbols give support to the traditions that anchor us and provide stability and comfort. I think that perhaps the Way of Tea is also a training in resilience to repeat these traditions. Through the simple act of preparing tea, we are learning to step up and to bring people together. I’m keenly looking forward to resuming the practice with my teacher, which shouldn’t be too far away now. She has been hanging the lights patiently for over 50 years.

That Delicious Steam

By:

Ai Kanazawa

February 4, 2022Ceramics Tokoname Yamada Yutaro

Tokoname clay teapots by Yamada Yutaro in our shop->

Tokoname flat kyusu and hohin teapots by Yamada Yutaro

Tea consumption goes up 5 fold during the winter in my house. Hot tea for warmth is only part of the reason, because I’m also in pursuit of the delicious steam during these coldest months of the year.
New Tokoname teapots by Yamada Yutaro for your tea and steam in Entoten shop today.

Tokoname teacup and teapot by Yamada Yutaro

Traceable Cedar Chopsticks from Fukui for The Festive Table

By:

Ai Kanazawa

November 28, 2021Wood Food and Craft Style Of Japan

Cedar chopsticks by Style Of Japan in our shop->

Traceable cedar chopsticks from Fukui prefecture (plate by Kazu Oba)

I have only been to the Japanese coastal prefecture of Fukui once when I was still a university student. Having plenty of time but not much money, I remember being excited discovering a cheap pop-up soup shop in a fish market where they served isaza, the small, clear fish that turns white when they are cooked whole in miso soup and served piping hot. That spring was the last time I got to taste the delicious isaza soup because like many regional dishes in Japan, you must be at the right place at the right time to enjoy them.

Fukui is most well known for its nature and dramatic coastal scenery, a nuclear power plant, the high-quality eyeglasses of Sabae City where the titanium type was first produced, and for the chopsticks of Obama City; the kind that are coated with urushi, with patterns created from eggshells and seashells. You may faintly remember that Obama City appeared in the international news in 2008 when the then senator and later 44th U.S. President found support and connections in unexpected faraway places.

You may also wonder why I brought simple cedar chopsticks from the region famous for urushi. It is because I find coated chopsticks slippery and difficult to pick up food, and I also prefer being able to feel the texture of wood that gets obscured by coating.

I was therefore very excited when I discovered Style of Japan (SOJ), a Japanese company that produces chopsticks in Obama, a region where 80% of coated chopsticks in Japan are produced. The local chopsticks are known as Wakasa Nuribashi, but almost none of them are completely made in Fukui. Wood milled abroad but processed in Japan can bare the label “made in Japan” and little is disclosed about where the imported wood comes from.

“We’ve been shifting to source local wood from Fukui for our most popular product lines, mainly by incorporating wood harvested from local forests through conservational thinning and management”, said Omori Kaz, the President and CEO of SOJ. Their popular “OEDO” line of coated chopsticks use wood certified by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), an international organization that promotes sustainable forest management.

PEFC certified wood harvested in Fukui prefecture. Photo Courtesy of Style Of Japan

This past summer, SOJ introduced the “Yu” line of cedar chopsticks through Makuake, a Japanese crowd funding website like gofundme. The project was fully funded and the chopsticks went into production. “Yu” chopsticks are made using traceable local cedar that are PEFC certified, and they also go further by providing certificates with information such as the age and size of the tree, the region and timing they were harvested, and the woodworker and nushi, the crafts specialist who applies the coating to the wood. “We want to make chopsticks with more transparency in the process, by utilizing local wood and by providing the names of woodworkers and nushi, and also the wood source and the coating material,” Omori san explained.

For me, Yu’s design and finish are its most profound and appealing aspects. The end of a Yu chopstick is square so that it sits comfortably between the index finger and the thumb. The section held with the fingers is octagonal, providing a comfortable grip. The tip is tapered to a circle making it easy to pick up the tiniest pieces of food. They are also coated with beeswax, which I think is the best type of protective coating for any wood used around the table that retains its texture, the most exquisite and often overlooked property of wood.

Applying beeswax to chopsticks. Photo Courtesy of Style Of Japan

Omori san observed that, “as Japanese people now regularly use knives and forks [in addition to chopsticks], I believe that families that mainly use knives and forks will also start to regularly use chopsticks in the future. When that time comes, I hope that people will choose our chopsticks that are sourced responsibly and produces less carbon emissions.”

In Japan, people often use new chopsticks for their new year’s feast so I’m looking forward to opening a new pair of Yu on New Year’s Day that is just a few weeks away. And dream about Fukui’s isaza soup that I hope to taste once more when we can again travel freely. I wish you all a healthy and happy 2022!