from Noto : November 2016

26/11/2016

Two years, ninety-three posts and counting…

It is now just over two years since I started writing this blog. I would like to thank all of those who have been good enough to read it and sincerely hope that you have gained something from it, whether it be about Wajima and the Noto Peninsula or about Japan in general.

Having lived in the country for 24 years it is like a second home to me and actually I do not really know which to put first, England or Japan.

It therefore gives me a great thrill to be able to pass on what I have learned about my adopted second homeland. I hope, too, that my insights into the culture as a whole and in particular about the craft, history, architecture, climate and life style to be found in Japan and the Noto Peninsula have fostered a deeper understanding and interest in Japan and its people and culture.

To date there have been some 10,888 page views. Of course it is wonderful to have so many people taking the trouble to view the blog but it is quality rather than numbers I have been aiming for. Still, if nobody was reading it…..

So far readers who hail from 19 countries have accessed the blog. This has been partly due to readers sharing the posts on social media, for which I must be grateful.

Access has come from Japan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Australia, Argentina, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, Belarus. Inevitably many of the readers are from Japan and the UK.

I have every intention of continuing to write the blog and hope that there will continue to be people out there who are interested in reading it.

Many thanks to you all.

Bill Tingey

The newspaper clipping is from the Hokkoku Shinbun, written by Hiroyuki Kitayama for this regional newspaper published on 26th November, 2016

Do feel free to pass on the address of this blog to anyone you think will be interested. Or share it on a social media site. Should you wish to leave a comment, please do so by clicking on the comment mark at the bottom left of this or any of the other posts. If you have found this blog interesting, why not become a follower. Thank you.

16/11/2016

Haiku and Design

This natsume—a caddy for the finely ground powered green tea used at a tea ceremony—epitomises winter. Natsume by Mr. Wakashima who lives and works in Wajima.

Understanding the code

Can any parallels be drawn between haiku poetry and decorative motifs?

Haiku have become quite well known beyond the borders of Japan, either in translation or written as an English language from of poetry.

Simply speaking haiku is based on a sequence of five-seven-five syllables of the Japanese language. Although the subject matter is unlimited much of it comes from nature. What all haiku poems do is to encapsulate a juxtaposition of time and/or events. They may also deal with phenomena and common truths to form powerful imagined or remembered vignettes designed to awaken the emotions of the reader in an almost predetermined way. That at least is my understanding of what haiku is. But that is not all.

I see haiku as being written in a kind of code. And, just like the dots and dashes of Morse, the code needs to be understood by both transmitter and receiver, or in the case of haiku by the writer and the reader to realise its full potential. Some people will dispute this idea I feel sure but it works for me.

Let us say, for example, that a haiku is about a hot, humid evening just after the sun has gone down. A small bat bursts from its day-time roost to be silhouetted agains the glowing limpid sky, still radiant with light and the colour of pale pink coral. The setting is, of course, in Japan. Having experienced many evenings like this I would find any haiku extolling such a moment especially touching. The memory of such an evening as a total bodily experience—the temperature, the level of humidity, the smell on the warm air, the stillness, the colours and many other things—would all serve to enhance my understanding of the haiku.

Having lived in Japan, a haiku based on these conditions would seem very real and plausible. But could it really strike a chord with someone living in a hot dry climate in the Middle East, for instance. Reading such a haiku would no doubt resonate with them but surely there would always be something lacking—they would not have the benefit and pleasure of being fully acquainted with the circumstances or the intricacies of what is suggested and no experience of the real situation.

But the question is, could a piece of design or a decorative motif have a similar effect? Is there a similar kind of message in code?

This natsume—a caddy for the finely ground powered green tea used at a tea ceremony—epitomises winter. Despite being an abstract motif, the spiral represents wind—a rough one—and the graded, roughly rendered and restrained dull red spiral on a dark background stirs feelings of anxiety. There is a feeling gloominess—a leaden sky, heavy with snow, like those that sweep in across the Japan Sea in winter to assail the Noto Peninsula where its creator, Mr. Wakashima lives and works.

For me, this decorative effect is as brief as a haiku and yet carries a powerful message, all be it in a kind of “code”. But what would it mean to me if I had never lived in Japan, if I had never encountered such a day to tease and stimulate all my senses, and if I were not able to recall as a total bodily experience the reality of such and event?

So, if haiku can be seen as a code, why not decorative effects.

Bill Tingey Photo © Copyright

09/11/2016

Ceramic Roof Tiles Two—In Noto

In bright June sunshine, the roofs of the buildings of this small farming complex shimmer. In the winter the glass-like surface will cause settled snow to slip off.

Toward Black

Historically the burning of kindling with which to cook or to heat bath water always heightened the risk of fire breaking out in Japan’s communities both large and small.

Imagine what could happen when an earthquake struck just as food was being cooked over a naked flame. Constructed of combustable materials, the collapse of a timber building could easily seed a massive fire. The wind could then fan the flames and in no time at all the sparks would fly.

Although far less vulnerable than reed thatch, boards of wood or roofing shingles were an improvement but what was really needed was a non-flammable roofing material.

For a long time, however, tiles were more than common folk could afford. While the aesthetic value of ceramic roof tiles should not be overlooked, they have helped inhibit the spread of fire for centuries. They have also provided a sense of secure shelter. To do that their durability, too, has always been important.

This was a major consideration in the Hokuriku region of which the Noto Peninsula is part. Tiles made their first appearance here during the seventh-century on Buddhist structures.

They were, however, only biscuit fired and not glazed with a hard finish and were not therefore particularly durable. Difficulties with production and problems sourcing sufficient amounts of wood to fire the kilns contributed to a decline in their use.

The gate at Agishi-honseiji temple is tiled with reddish brown tiles. They were one step in the development of a shinny, hard-wearing tile.

By the beginning of the sixteenth-century basic glazes made from ground up minerals mixed with water were a step in the right direction—more durability was the result. Subsequently a much more hard-wearing reddish brown tile was produced by adding iron oxide to the clay. Local Noto clay was not suitable however, as it contained pumice.

Why was a more suitable clay not imported into the area? The mere idea of transporting either the raw materials or the finished article was unthinkable at the time.

Consequently it was not until the end of the nineteenth-century that a more appropriate glaze containing manganese was used and a double firing technique was employed to produce a hard-wearing roof tile of real quality. The result was a tile that was robust and durable and more suited the requirements of the region.

The manganese in the glaze produced a shinny, reflective glass-like coating very similar to the tiles which are being produced today. An assured durability was not their only asset.

During the 1920s these lustrous black tiles were being sold in Kanazawa and as far away as Nagoya in central Japan. By then transportation was so much easier.

The glossy black finish may not have been to everyone’s taste but their reputation soon spread to other regions of Japan where, like Noto, it was winter’s cold and heavy falls of snow that needed confronting. Simply speaking the bonus was that snow soon slid off a black shinny roof.

Here too the roofs reflect the sunlight, which is reflected by the water in the newly irrigated paddy. The regularity of the recently planted rice plants is matched by the methodical way in which the grass has been cut. So much of the farming in Japan is orderly and tidy. Surely it has contributed to the way so many Japanese people lead their lives.

The black mirror finish of the roofs of the vernacular architecture of the Noto Peninsula is as distinctive as the lustre of Wajima lacquerware—both treasures in their own right.

Bill Tingey Photo © Copyright

I am most grateful to Michihiro Ura from the Department of Culture in the Wajima City Board of Education for providing detailed informaion on Noto’s black tiles.

02/11/2016

Ceramic Roof Tiles One

As the status of merchants rose during the Edo period (1600-1868), they expressed their wealth in the way their store-cum-dwelling was adorned. Exaggeration of roof ridges and gable ends was common.

When fires bloomed

Recently a devastating fire in the city of Exeter in southwest England has once again highlighted just how dangerous a conflagration can be even today, especially in a built up area and more significantly, in a seat of history.

(http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/why-the-royal-clarence-hotel-fire-hasn-t-yet-been-announced-as-extinguished/story-29855973-detail/story.html)

Although not the source of the fire, the Royal Clarence Hotel has been gutted. With so much wood used in its construction, this 300-year-old structure has become a shell, which may never rise from the ashes.

Historically fires have always been a problem in urban areas in Japan, nowhere more so than in Edo, as Tokyo was called before 1868.

Walls of merchant stores in particular were protected from both the weather and fire. Here the lower tiles are permanent protection against both. The hung wooden “shuttering” above, however, is added protection of the more or less fireproof plastered wall behind. This shuttering would be easily removed should a fire break out near by.

Records held by the nation’s fire department show that fires were a constant threat to the city especially during the winter months when the air was dry and any fire could be whipped up by the seasonal winds that encourage dusty swirls across farmland and rattle the shutters of many of the traditional timber built houses and commercial properties that still stand in secluded corners of the capital to this day.

In 1609 the population of Edo was 160,000 meaning that the chance of loss of life was high if any fire was allowed to get out of hand. However, that threat increased dramatically as the population swelled. By 1693 a census recorded 353,500 people lived in this capital of wood.

The city had an organised network of fire-fighting groups and the introduction of a basic pumping engine invented in 1754 in Nagasaki must surely have helped. It was charmingly called a “water spewing dragon”, Ryudosui (http://www.gakken.co.jp/kagakusouken/spread/oedo/06/haiken1.html).

Sadly, however, fires still raged, so often fanned by wind or exacerbated by the almost exclusive use of timber and paper to build temples, shops and homes as well as castles. Not even Edo castle, the seat of the Shogun, was spared, although luckily damage at the time was minimal. Now there are only remnants of what was once the largest castle in the world.

It is common for roof tiles on traditional buildings up and down Japan have a silver luster. A coating of mica before the second firing of the tiles gives them this distinctive appearance.

The risk of fire and the spread of flame was of course recognised. In 1601 an effort was made to reduce the chance of fire spreading. A directive was issued to replace any thatched roofs with far less inflammable wooden boards or shingles. This would certainly have helped. However, records on fire prevention during the period between 1600 and 1867 make no direct mention of a compulsory use of roof tiles. Use of ceramic roof tiles by the “common people” was, however, first allowed in 1720. This would suggest that it was more important to shackle the less well off than it was to prevent the spread of fire.

Inevitably temples, castles and houses of the wealthy would have been the first to use ceramic roof tiles, although in rural areas reed thatch was the norm and persists today on some traditional farmhouses.

Although such buildings have disappeared from Tokyo’s streets, storehouse “fire bunkers” like this one in the City of Kawagoe represents how merchants protected their wealth—tiled roofs, plastered walls and interlocking shutters at windows all designed to keep fire out.

Fires were known as the “flowers of Edo”. During the period between 1600 and 1867 there were upward of 550, some causing considerable loss of live and property (Edo Kasai-shi 江戸火災史 A History of Fires in Edo published by Tokyo Horei Shuppan in 1975).

The towns and villages of the Noto Peninsula did not escape damage by fire either. Nevertheless, it was the severity of the climate in the region that saw a development in ceramic roof tiles. More about this next time.