Kinchaku are items well known to Japanese people. They are cloth bags with a drawstring top. They come in many sizes, and the fabrics and embellishments make them anything from utilitarian to quite beautiful. Small ones are used inside purses to hold small items. Medium sized ones, like the one at the right, can hold the mouse and power cord for my computer. Larger ones are commonly used by school children to carry shoes or books. In fact a child starting school should have a set of bags to carry all the things they need each day. Sometimes mother makes the set and it all matches and reflects the likes of the child. Sometimes they are purchased at school bazaars, or maybe grandma makes or buys the set. There are even books you can buy that show the proper sizes and how to make each one.
The one in the photo here is made from a traditional Japanese fabric called Shibori which is the ancient Japanese version of tie dying. The process gives the fabric both design and texture. Great care was taken with this one to make it aesthetically pleasing as well as useful.
After the earthquake in March my quilting teacher was thinking about practical ways to help the people in the Tohoku area of Japan where the Earthquake was centered and the Tsunami hit and where the Fukushima Power Plant was in limbo. She thought about people who had lost everything and depended on others to supply their needs. She heard about all kinds of projects providing food, water and clothing and how difficult it was to match the supply with the current need. She thought about a Japanese woman sitting in an evacuation center with clothes and bedding that were unfamiliar to her, among family (if she were so fortunate) and neighbors who were equally in need and dependant on others. If someone gave this woman some small thing for herself, she wouldn't have anywhere to put it. She could use a kinchaku if she had one. From these thoughts came the Kinchaku Project.
Friends and students were asked to make a few kinchaku each to send to Tohoku. It didn't take long till the finished bags started pouring in. The response was almost overwhelming. Everyone wanted to help and contribute. When it came time to decide how to get the bags to the people who could use them, a Japanese quilting magazine, Patchwork Tsushin, said they would like to help. In late spring they shipped 1000 kinchaku north. Each package of 20 contained message from the makers expressing their desire to do something useful and hoping that the bags would be of use. Several months later another shipment of 500 bags was sent off. Last week when I attended my quilting class, the students packed up 400 more kinchaku to send.
I love being part of the group doing something useful. I like the care that went into deciding what to do. I love the way Japanese people care for each other. I like the cooperation between teacher, student and community services.
Hats off to Kuraishi sensei, her students and friends and Patchwork Tsushin magazine for making this all work.
While we're on the subject of food, I found this to be amusing. On the left we have a small package of potato salad. In Japan you're likely to find carrot, cucumber and a bit of whole kernel corn in it, but it tastes pretty good. When I first arrived in 1999 my first taste of it was in a package of mixed sandwiches between two pieces of white bread at an after church lunch
Here we have the empty plastic tray with the lettuce leaves printed on it. I often tell people at home that almost everything is done in Japan with an eye toward aesthetics. So, rather than putting in real lettuce leaves that would just go limp and nasty in a day and everyone would throw away anyway, they print the leaves on the tray. It makes the potato salad look more attractive without the waste.
