Welcome to Week 5!   After having a refreshing mid-break, I felt ready to conquer the second half of PII. Unfortunately, most of the cultural events that I had signed up for are over, but that leaves me with more time to do some exploring on my own.  On Thursday, however, there was a Taiko cultural experience at Asano Daiko, a well-known company in the Taiko industry.  I was so excited for this experience that I didn’t get good videos, so this week will just be pictures.  However, as you can see, the drums were absolutely massive!

The latter half of the week was quite gloomy and rainy, so instead of going out to do homework, I stayed home.  In fact, in the Hiroshima Prefecture, record-setting rainfall forced two million to evacuate and left well over 100 dead or missing.  Luckily, I am in the Ishikawa Prefecture, which was far enough to be safe, but the rain was still 大変 (…the rain wasn’t delightful).  After the storm, my host mother took me and my host brother to a steakhouse—it was とても美味しかった！(Soooo tasty)

The steak was about 15oz and came from the USA, and I could nearly taste the Red, White, and Blue.  By the next day, I overcame my minor homesickness, and my host mother, Miki-san, took me to see Ishikawa’s most famous industry: gold leaf products.  Ishikawa produces 99% of Japan’s gold leaf, so when you see something shiny and golden from Japan, it probably passed through Ishikawa at some point.  Miki-san made reservations ahead, so at the shop, we got to design various objects with gold!  The pictures below demonstrate the process of the plate I designed.

Step 1: Tape off the plate to create the desired design

Step 2: Coat the exposed area with adhesive and smooth the gold leaf over the plate

Step 3: Brush off the excess gold, remove the tape, and apply a finishing clear coat!

The process was fairly straightforward, but the creation and execution of the design are what differentiate the quality, in my opinion.  I had the option to write my name, but I didn’t want the design to be directional, so I left it as you can see above.  I  created the design to capture the idea that these two fish will swim forever, without moving.  The stillness captures forever/eternity, and the implied motion of the Koi is captured by their geometrical figures.  The significance comes from an idea that I had about time: if time truly is a dimension (often referenced as the fourth dimension), then if observed from a higher dimension, what we see as linear motion towards the future would be captured by a static geometrical object. Thus, the Koi are literally geometrically stationary, but figuratively swimming.

Thank you for reading..stay tuned for next week’s post!