Japanese Traditional Culture

Weekly email newsletter “DENKEN-TEST PRESS” No. 13

We are pleased to present you with the 14th issue weekly email newsletter “DENKEN-TEST PRESS”

The top story in this issue is Chu-cyan’s “Go Straight Towards Japanese Traditional Culture” Episode 8: "Non-Round Tableware."

“Warm-up Quiz” will include answers and explanations from the previous quiz, as well as questions on the fields of Tea Ceremony/ Japanese Sweets/ Matcha.

We are also running promotion where 100 people who sign up for the e-mail newsletter by the end of this month will be chosen by lottery to receive the official textbook (https://bookpub.jiji.com/book/b648563.html)! Please tell your friends and family about this campaign.

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table of contents

・ Chu-cyan’s “Go Straight Towards Japanese Traditional Culture” Episode 8: Non-round tableware
・ “Warm-up Quiz” No. 14 (Tea Ceremony/ Japanese Sweets/ Matcha) = "Mizu-yokan"
・News from the DENKEN-TEST Association

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Chu-chan’s “Go Straight Towards Japanese Traditional Culture” 【PART 5】 Sunrounded Dishes

Kondo Chuji = Director of Japan Traditional Culture Testing Association

A uniquely Japanese non-round plate (Oribe ware on the left)

It is the time of year when grilled ayu (sweetfish) is delicious, but most people probably think of a rectangular plate of grilled fish, not just ayu, when they think of serving it at the dinner table.

However, rectangular plates, which are common in Japan, are quite rare on a global scale. Outside of Japan, it is rare to see tableware in any other shape than round. As far as I know, fish-shaped plates are made in Mexico. However, these are ornamental souvenirs, and even if they are used, they are at most used as jewelry containers or something, and I don't think they would ever be used on the dinner table.

However, in Japan, it is common to see non-round tableware lined up in the cupboards of many homes, including not only rectangular plates for grilled fish, but also broken sansho (a small bowl shaped like a split peppercorn) used to serve ohitashi and other dishes, and chrysanthemum-shaped individual plates.

Why are Japanese people the only ones who use tableware that is not round? With this question in mind, we trace history back to the early Jomon period's Ryutaimon pottery, and come across a Sengoku daimyo named Furuta Oribe, who served as tea master in both Toyotomi and Tokugawa governments. The tea bowls he produced, known as "Oribe ware," overturned conventional wisdom up to that point. After all, they were misshapen to begin with.

Since ancient times, the skill of a ceramic craftsman was shown in how well he could make perfectly round tableware. The tool for this was the potter's wheel. Craftsmen trained repeatedly to skillfully use the wheel to make perfectly round tea bowls. However, Oribe was content with tea bowls that were far from perfectly round, as if they had been crushed by hand while the clay was still soft before the bisque firing. Moreover, the bowls must not be distorted in an obvious way. He wanted a distortion that looked as if it had been created by nature, without any sense of artificiality. This was truly revolutionary.

Furthermore, Oribe had abstract designs such as circles and squares painted on the distorted dishes. I believe this gave Japanese tableware freedom in both shape and design. Brothers Ogata Korin and Kenzan beautifully arranged the tableware, which Oribe had gained freedom of shape by distorting it randomly and intentionally, into squares, chrysanthemums, and fans, and painted famous paintings on them. Japanese tableware thus became the most free in the world.

I dream that the non-round tableware that is unique to Japan will surely captivate the world one day. When I say this, many people declare that "non-round tableware will never sell overseas because people don't use it." When you see people in uncivilized societies who don't wear shoes, do you give up and think, "Shoes won't sell," or do you get excited thinking, "There is a huge potential demand for them?" I think it's the difference, but I am convinced that the day will come when people all over the world will use Japan's non-round tableware.

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“Warm-up Quiz” No. 14 (Tea Ceremony/ Japanese Sweets/ Matcha) = "Mizu-yokan"

～伝検公式テキスト（9月20日先行発売予定）のジャンルごとに出題します～

水羊羹

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Question: Mizuyokan is a typical summer cooling snack with a fresh and smooth texture. Which prefecture has had a long tradition of eating mizuyokan in the winter and has made it a familiar winter feature?

[Previous answer and explanation]
Question: The Japan Castle Foundation selected the "100 Greatest Castles in Japan" in 2006, but most of the castle towers that remain today were built after the war (after 1945). How many "surviving castle towers" were built before the Edo period and remain to this day?

Answer: 12

Commentary: Currently, there are about 200 castles that are open to the public across the country, but many were rebuilt after the war, and there are only 12 castles with surviving castle towers that were built before the Edo period. Of these, five castles are designated national treasures: Matsumoto Castle in Nagano Prefecture, Inuyama Castle in Aichi Prefecture, Hikone Castle in Shiga Prefecture, Himeji Castle in Hyogo Prefecture, and Matsue Castle in Shimane Prefecture, while seven castles are designated important cultural properties: Hirosaki Castle in Aomori Prefecture, Maruoka Castle in Fukui Prefecture, Bitchu Matsuyama Castle in Okayama Prefecture, Marugame Castle in Kagawa Prefecture, Matsuyama Castle and Uwajima Castle in Ehime Prefecture, and Kochi Castle in Kochi Prefecture.

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News from DENKEN-TEST Association

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Mitsui Memorial Museum of Art (https://www.mitsui-museum.jp/) in Nihonbashi, Tokyo for placing flyers for the 1st DENKEN-TEST (November 29th to January 31st next year). The museum has a collection of approximately 4,000 pieces of art collected by the Mitsui family since the Edo period, including six national treasures such as the Azuchi-Momoyama period Shino tea bowl "Meiyu no Hanagaki" and 75 important cultural properties. From July 2nd to September 1st, the museum is holding an exhibition called "Japanese Art to be Experienced with the Five Senses."

The flyer for the first DENKEN-TEST is here.
https://denken-test.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/flyer_20240618.pdf

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Editor's Note

We have delivered the 14th issue DENKEN-TEST PRESS. During the humid rainy season, reading “Warm-up Quiz” made me want to eat mizu yokan. I can think of various things, such as yokan in a bamboo container, fruit yokan, and the marimo yokan, a Hokkaido specialty that comes out fresh when you poke a hole in it with a toothpick. On my way home, I stopped by Ginza Mitsukoshi, which has a wide selection of Japanese sweets from all over Japan.