Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.500

Last week, we have been contacted by a movie directer from Hollywood- he has been reading our newsletter for a long time (you may have noticed this is our 500th issue)and was so interested in some of the episode.

He came over to meet us-at first he was planning to make a movie about a story of an entreprener from Japan-a guy who quit job and dropped out  from the society and lost everything but found his way selling kimono on the net including dramatic episode. He was thinking about starring a famous actor as Ken Watanabe-and make a movie just as `The Pursuit of Happyness' of Asian version.

During our conversation, he changed his mind and suggested if both of us could be in the movie. (In `The Pursuit of Happyness', Will Smith and his real son was in the movie).

He said, it will be more interesting if unknown people like us could be in the movie, it will be more realistic and fresh. Ichiro said we cannot be away from our business, even for the movie shooting, I said I have no dress for red carpet. This director said, the movie will be a very good advertizement for kimono business and also prevailing Japanese culture to the world. He said he would insure the income while our business stops. We had to make a decision......

*******This is the typical HORA story. 

Here is the antique fukusa with elaborate embroidery of Hora(Conch shell).

When people tell `fish story' we say they are blowing conch shell horn(Triton's trumpet). 

 

These horns are seen in mostly in Southeast Asia and Oceania- and in Japan, they have been used in war in Sengoku jidai(16th century, the period of civil war in Japan).

Also as the training of Shugendo(mountain asceticism), they use the horn.

As the motif of fukusa, we did not see this often but the shell is also considered to be  symbol of longevity(from the myth-one young sailor drunk sake using the shell as a cup obtained perpetual youth and longevity). So the fukusa with this motif should have this theme, just as other popular motif as turtles and cranes.

However, when we hear Hora shell, what comes in our mind FIRST is people who tell fish stories. Horafuki(Horn blower) is a person who always tell fish stories and not trusted.

Here is a folk tale `Hora' story, Kamotori Gonbei(Gonebei, the duck hunber)

 http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/folktale/english/story34.html

If you wish to enjoy the video(in Japanese), here is the video from You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtGUqV5Hr78

We wish to thank you for reading our newsletter. We never thought we could continue until now! (withour your encouragement, we could never continue). We hope to continue more, we will not be Horafuki, we hope to write about interesting topics from now on too.

domo arigato gozaimasu.

From Ichiro and Yuka