On Sunday, November 10, 2024, the Seto Folk Crafts Museum, a museum of craftsmanship and lifestyles, held a meeting called "A Tour of Folk Crafts," where participants learned about folk crafts of the past and considered their future.

This is a group run by Mizuno Yusuke, the eighth-generation successor of Seto Hongyo Kiln, who creates products with a focus on the philosophy of folk art, Asakura Keiichi of Yawaya, and Minami Shintaro, representative of Hitotsuchi, and has been held once a year since 2023.

The Chubu area is not very familiar with folk art, so we started this event with the hope that it would serve as an entry point for people who are interested in folk art .

The first event was held to commemorate the opening of the Seto Folk Crafts Museum, a museum of Seto craftsmanship and lifestyle, on the grounds of Seto Hongyo Kiln. This time, a talk event was held to commemorate the publication of " Mingei as it remains unknown " (Sakuhinsha).

The guests included readers of the book, Rika Asai, the fourth-generation owner of Cafe NISSIN in Seto City, Aya Tanaka, owner of Book Hitoshizuku, Takehide Sawada, representative of design company studio point, and myself, Minami Mirai from Hitotsuchi, who also joined us to speak on stage.

"Mingei: A Story We Don't Understand" is an essay about folk art that Asakura has written with the intention of talking about it "through" folk art, rather than "about" folk art, and is filled with his own personal thoughts.

What exactly is Mingei? The term Mingei was coined about 100 years ago, in 1925. It began when Yanagi Muneyoshi and others named the everyday household items produced by nameless artisans "Mingei" (folk crafts), proclaimed that they possessed a beauty that rivaled that of fine art, and said that beauty was found in everyday life.

The "source" of folk art is the distinctive lifestyles of each region. Concerned about the disappearance of the culture of "handcrafts" in various parts of Japan, they sounded the alarm against the easy trend of equating modernization with Westernization, and pursued a better way of life through the folk art movement.

What is folk art that lives on in the modern age?

There are several memorable scenes in this book. One is at the end of a summer when Asakura was living in an apartment in Takayama City before moving into his current old house. Asakura was about to close the window of his home, his eyes were caught by something. The mountains, town, and countryside were all bathed in the pale golden color of the setting sun.

At that moment, he says, "It dawned on me that the folk art and history of the town, which I was so interested in, the nature in front of me, and our lives are all connected in a single thread." He then realized something else important.

"I realized that the wallpaper, soft flooring that looked like hardwood, and mass-produced table in my apartment, which I had thought would be perfectly fine for living, were completely unrelated to the golden color that had colored the room and even my heart, and that they existed uncomfortably without blending in with each other. (Omitted) The choices I made 'for the time being' were choices that had nothing to do with living a beautiful life." (From the text)

However, there was one thing that stood out as beautiful: a scratched old low table and a small yellow Seto teacup from Seto Hongyo Kiln placed on it.

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And the other story is about crying after eating pork cutlet.
Asakura describes this book as "a book like a katsu sandwich," and it contains stories about tonkatsu restaurants at the beginning and end.

After attending a Kintsugi class in Matsumoto City, he was hungry and looking for a good restaurant. At that time, he came across a restaurant that looked like it was not a restaurant if it weren't for the noren curtain, but he was drawn in and went inside. He said that when he passed through the noren curtain, he felt as if he had entered a movie. It was clear at a glance that the restaurant is carefully cleaned every day, and the kitchen was neat and tidy, just like a stage play.

"The female waitress who brought us tea ordered a pork fillet cutlet set meal. An elderly man who seemed to be the chef took the meat out of the refrigerator and put a knife into it. With practiced hands, he coated it in batter and then submerged it in oil. Next to him, a young woman expertly arranged a tray, prepared a small bowl, poured in pork soup, and served rice. The freshly fried pork cutlet was sliced ​​with a satisfying crisp sound. It was a flawless set meal." (From the text)

The tonkatsu that day was folk art.

Living with folk art

The reason it feels so comfortable may be because many of the things there are made from nature, such as wood and earth.

By reading the book and speaking with Mr. Asakura, my perception of folk art has changed from something lofty to something more familiar.

When we asked Asakura questions about folk art, his answers developed into conversations about daily life, and we ultimately came to the conclusion that what is important is family.

Yanagi believed that the "health" that was the source of the beauty of folk art was not supported by the strength of individuals to survive independently, but rather by a life of mutual assistance in which people belong to a group and help each other. 

People live in communities, helping each other and sometimes causing trouble amidst the hassles that are unique to each community. Within this, the family is the smallest unit of community. It is fine to incorporate folk art into daily life in a way that makes the family feel comfortable.

Mingei is a word that was coined a hundred years ago, so naturally the historical context is completely different.
However, what Yanagi wanted to preserve and discussed thoroughly with the local community has been passed down and preserved to this day. I think that's an amazing thing.