some local TV

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8162552.post-1144915209080408292006-04-12T21:59:00.000-10:002006-04-12T22:07:36.066-10:002006-04-12T22:07:36.066-10:00some local TVThe local Japanese channel has a feature each night about some interesting people in Japan. One day, they talked to a grandfather, son, and grandson who collected rocks from streams and then weathered them in sand and sun, spraying with water at appropriate intervals, to bring out the rocks' color and patterns to an aesthetic level. Another time, they interviewed two very young policemen who had a collection of vintage European sneakers from the 70s and 80s, some pairs of which they had paid as much as $750 for. This time, they went to see a Tokyo textiles shopkeeper who had a fondness for tatami mats and used to work finishing the mats-- sewing dark strips of cloth around the edges. He added that of course handwoven tatami mats were the best. They asked him when he had last seen a handwoven tatami mat. He said, "Oh, thirty years ago." Having learned that the best rushes for bingko omote (handwoven) tatami mats are grown in the area of Hiroshima, the crew went there. They went out to a rush grower's plot and learned that last year 5 families were growing rushes, but this year only 2 families were, because it's very labor-intensive and because the winter planting/summer harvesting growing schedule conflicts with crops that are now much more lucrative. They showed the guy scything off an armful of rushes at the ground, bundling them up, and heaving them over his shoulder. Then, they take the rushes to a mud bath, so the rushes stay supple. This is a trough in the ground about the size of a sheep dip filled with liquid brown mud. They slosh the rushes in completely, one bundle at a time, bundle after bundle. Everybody was wearing long aprons like they were working in a slaughterhouse. Even so, they were all sitting around afterward totally covered in mud. The farmer, a skinny guy in his forties, had mud splashes all over his trucker hat and huge glasses. The grandpa was sitting there smoking, half his face plastered in a mud pattern like the rising sun. After asking around, they found that only one person in Hiroshima still hand weaves tatami mats. They approached the house, which was dark brown old Japanese with weathered paper doors and looked very Alaskan with luminously bright flowers by the path, flowers in pots, a couple of dogs, and a bunch of interesting junk lying around in the yard that no doubt was incredibly useful. They looked in through the open sliding paper doors. A little black-haired lady in a white traditional cotton top and dark Japanese trousers was sitting on an old stool at a tall, rickety loom made of what looked like driftwood, weaving rushes into the many, many strings on the loom and working two foot pedals. I would have guessed the lady's age as 60-65, and very spry at that. She's 83. Her name is Fumiko Teraoka, and she's been hand weaving tatami mats since 1940. Her husband died in 1950 of radiation poisoning. She is the last person in Japan who hand weaves tatami mats. She asked her wholesaler once where her mats went, these days, and was told, "You don't need to know." She later heard a rumor from a neighbor about handwoven tatami mats in Himeji Castle (an old samurai historical site, very famous) and went there to see. Her mats were on the floor of one of the princess's dressing rooms. The crew hired her to make a tatami mat. When they went back later to get it, and entered the house, her bare feet were sticking out of the sleeping alcove. Several people rushed over to see if she was all right, and she looked up at them kind of strangely and said, "Well...I'm RESTING..." Judging by her reaction, they paid her a very good price for the mat, the narrator remarking in tears that it was a shame that there are so many living National Treasures (people recognized for their unique arts in Japan), when the last living hand weaver of tatami mats, an integral symbol of Japanese culture, goes unrecognized. She was bowing shyly in the sloping driveway as the crew drove away, a long-haired brown cat yawning beside her. The crew took the mat to the Tokyo textiles shopkeeper, who looked absolutely floored, and then they showed him hand-finishing a handwoven tatami mat for the first time in 30 years.frankysbridenoreply@blogger.com