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