| "We may simply have lost our appreciation for | | | | about two a day by one man including most of the |
| handmade goods." Igarashi san has been making | | | | painting. However some truly huge ones have left |
| chochin paper lanterns in his small shop for his whole | | | | the Igarashi shop over the years - his biggest was a |
| life. His father too, and his grandfatherand great | | | | matsuri monster measuring 5 shaku (1 shaku = |
| grandfather and even great, great grandfather. The | | | | 30.3cm in the old Japanese measuring system) in |
| tools & equipment that surround him today, in | | | | diameter with an intricate year of the rabbit design |
| fact, have outlasted his ancestors, their wooden | | | | on it. The old lantern maker is realistic about the fact |
| surfaces worn smooth with age. Since the start of | | | | that people want cheaper, mass-produced, plastic |
| the Meiji era (1868 - 1912) Kanazawa citizens have | | | | covered lanterns these days - he even sells them |
| been buying Igarashi chochin from the store, in the | | | | himself - but he is confident in the knowledge that a |
| heart of old Kanazawa's merchant district, near the | | | | well-made paper lantern is a lovely thing, superior in |
| back of the castle. The shelves are stacked high with | | | | many ways to these garish modern impostors. "You |
| beautifully decorated lanterns - vibrant bursts of | | | | can repair a good chochin," he tells us, "you can |
| colour peppering the dusty confines of the little | | | | replace one rib or fix a hole in the paper no problem." |
| workshop. Chochin lanterns have a fairly long history | | | | "Plastic lanterns have no internal frame and can't be |
| in Japan - there is evidence of them being used in | | | | patched." A paper lantern no matter how well made |
| temples in the 10th century - and were used primarily | | | | lasts only about a year (natural beauty is always |
| as a portable means of lighting. Only occasionally used | | | | fleeting) whereas a plastic one might last twice that |
| inside, they customarily hung outside a house, temple | | | | and cost half as much. On top of that, we as a |
| or business or else in the entrance, ready to be | | | | society may have simply lost our appreciation for |
| suspended on a pole and carried before anyone going | | | | handmade goods. Price has become our main |
| out at night. Igarashi-san reckons that at one time | | | | motivation as customers. We do not care to know |
| they were so widely used there would have been | | | | how things were made nowadays, or who made |
| around 40 or 50 chochin shops just in Kanazawa. | | | | them, or else Igarashisan would be the prosperous |
| Nowadays there remain only himself and one other | | | | head of a chain of shops. The walls of the Igarashi |
| local craftsman in the trade and the other fellow | | | | Chochinya and his ready-to-hand scrapbook sport |
| (Matsuda-san) has long since diversified, making | | | | innumerable monochrome pictures and press clippings |
| traditional umbrellas his mainstay. Making a chochin is a | | | | showing a proud, broad-shouldered young man with |
| fiddly, fairly delicate procedure despite the | | | | strong, thick arms and a fetching grin showing off |
| attractively simple appearance of the end product. | | | | elegant paper spheres with matsuri lights glimmering |
| And, when asked what are the most important | | | | in the background. Humbly showing us them, his |
| qualities in his profession Igarashi-san replies, his bright | | | | warm, friendly smile only slips slightly as he tells us |
| eyes dead serious, "patience and concentration." The | | | | that he will be the last of his family line making |
| average sized lantern according to Igarashi-san, at | | | | lanterns here. |
| about 30 cm across, can be produced at a rate of | | | | |