INTRODUCTION OF JAPANESE CULTURE

EDOGAWA(Tokyo) Tradition Industrial Arts

In EDOGAWA-KU many traditional industrial arts artisans are operating. They've been observing tradition from long time ago but many of them have became old and have no successors. The main reason for this, people in Japan today are not interested in traditional thing. Therefore it became very hard for artisans to earn enough profit to bring up successors. Also most of them are not interested in marketing as they are very typical real master artisan.

From my experience to communicate with overseas people I found out that people in overseas have much bigger interest about Japanese culture than Japanese people. Actually some of my friends asked me about shops or places that they can buy Japanese traditional handicrafts but I couldn't find any web site that they can order overseas. So "This is what they can try to protect their brilliant tradition". I thought if people in overseas can be their customers, they can continue their work for the future. And it might bring Japanese people back to be interested in our culture. I know it's very big project but I don't want to lose our identity so I decided to action.

I talked to the ward office of EDOGAWA about my idea and they told me that they made a special team of promotion traditional industrial arts in 2003 and worked on that. However they don't have any idea how they can sell thier works to overseas. So the ward office of EDOGAWA requested me to help to sell thier works. I'm really proud about it as I might be able to protect Japanese culture.

We're planning to sell traditional industrial art works in the future but for now we started to introduce what's like. So please introduce this page to your friends or talk about it in some forums. It's gonna be a great help!!

PLEASE CLICK EACH PICTURE TO LEARN ABOUT THEIR ART WORKS.

About this "EDOGAWA Traditional Industrial Arts"page, there are only explanation about works now, no shopping page. But EDOGAWA artists and I are preparing for selling art works in the future. They don't have skills to sell their works to overseas on line so we'll help them to sell with using OTOKICHI web site. We'll announce when we open the "shopping page" so please wait for a while.

WHAT'S NEW

18th/MAY/2007 "KATAKOMON(Fine Patterning)" shopping page is opened.

<1> SUMO WRESTLING SUMO is the national sport of Japan. SUMO has a long history from EDO period(from 1603-). In these days public populality of SUMO in Japan has been decreased as there are no Japanese STAR WRESTLER. In the other hand audience from overseas has been increased very much. I'm a big fan of SUMO since I was young so I beleive that you can enjoy SUMO a lot. Watching SUMO is equal to watching history.

	From 9:00 Preliminary bouts These are bouts between new sumo trainees yet to be official ranked.(no photo) From around 9:30 Jonokuchi-Makushita division bouts The real bouts begin from Jonokuchi(the lowest rank), moving up inseniority to makushita (junior grade).
	From around 14:35 Juryo wrestlers ceremonial entrance Decked out in ceremonial aprons(kesho-mawashi), the intermediate division(juryo) wrestlers enter the ring. Fighters at this rank and above are considered full-fledged salaried sumo professionals.
	From around 14:50 Juryo division bouts Wrestlers at this level range from young hopefuls aiming for the higher division promotion to weathered veterans of the circuit. These bouts are followed by a short interval known as the nakairi.
	From around 15:50 Makuuchi wrestlers ceremonial entrance The wrestlers from the senior division step into the ring in their vividly decorated ceremonial aprons(kesho0mawashi), turn to face the crowd and form a circle.
	From around 15:55 Yokozuna Grand Champion ring entrance The Grand Champions(yokozuna) each make a ceremonial entrance in the ring, accompanied by two attendants. The Champions clap thier hands and tamp thier feet, drawing spirited calls from th e crowd.
	From around 16:05 Makuuchi bouts Battles between the highest division wrestlers begin at last. The bouts featuring the wrestlers at the top ranks generally bigin from about 17:30.