Tokyo Heart

White Hearts

 

(Photo: our little ceramic village on our patio table)

It's always amazing to those who are from areas of the world where snow is common to see the chaos a bit of snow raises in Tokyo. The city is just totally unprepared to even the smallest amounts of snow. Drivers get confused, trains stop running, shops close early, people stock up (gotta have that toilet paper!), and numerous injuries - even deaths - occur.

Last Saturday (Feb. 8, 2014) though was an exceptionally heavy snow day. Some parts of Tokyo had as much as 10 inches of snow, a 45 year record, and that pretty much brought the city to a standstill. Roads were closed, trains were stopped, and hundreds of flights were cancelled. Over 1,000 we injured in snow and ice related accidents and 7 died. On a positive note, this is the first time I've seen so much cooperative effort to clear the snow from sidewalks and even roads (Tokyo doesn't seem to have any snowplows). I even saw a man in our neighborhood clearing part of the street with a dustpan and a lady in a kimono clearing a path from her house to the main street with a dustpan too. Guess neither of them had shovels.

It's snowing - so far lightly - again today and I've already heard people talking about going home early, and by early I mean 9:30 in the morning - so they don't get stuck in the city if the trains stop running. So far though, the snow is not sticking on most of the streets, and the actually snowfall seems to be pretty light. However, the memories from last Saturday seem to be stuck in everyone's mind and people are overly cautious. It's good to be cautious, but some do go overboard.

(Photo: path cleared with a dustpan)

Washi This

Washi is handmade paper and is typically made from the fibers of one of three types of bushes; gampi, mitsumata, or paper mulberry.

KOZO BARK READY FOR PROCESSING

Washi is actually amazingly tough, even more so than paper made from normal wood pulp. It's used in a variety of items such as Japanese kites, lamp shades, woodblock prints, and even clothing.

The production of washi is similar to regular paper. It's normally made using very cold water to prevent the bacteria that causes decomposition of the fibers. The branches of one of the bushes, kozo (paper mulberry), are most often used to make washi. After boiling the branches, the bark is stripped off, and then boiled in lye to remove the starch. After that the fibers are bleached then beaten. Wet balls of the pulp are placed into a vat of water and a sticky liquid made from the tororo plant.

 

The pulp is lifted from the vat using a special screen. The screen is dipped into the water several times until enough of it is spread across the screen to make a sheet of paper. Each sheet is stacked on top of the others to form a thick pile. The tororo liquid has special properties to keep the sheets from sticking together. Each sheet is then separated and spread on a dryer to complete the process.

If you'd like to try your hand at making washi a good place to do so is in Washi-no-Sato (washi village) in Higashichichibu in Saitama. See their English website for information and directions.

If you want to buy washi products in Tokyo there are many shops selling them. One good place is Isetatsu. They have some beautiful washi, nice papier-mâché articles, furoshiki (large wrapping cloths) that can be tied into handbags, and framed artwork. All would make a nice gift or reminder of Japan. To read more about the area where Isetatsu is located see my article on DeepJapan.

See the video for a live demo of a craftsman at Washi-no-Sato making a sheet of washi.