A City That Has Become Synonym For Bonsai Pots
When departing from Tokyo to the west, which is best done by Shinkansen, the "bullet train", you will pass by Fuji-San or "Mr Fuji" on the way to Nagoya. During the winter he will be more likely to show his head without the clouds that cover him on almost 200 days during the rest of the year. From the train you can see the southern side, which is the front side of the volcano, covered by white snow well into the Summer. And like the Fuji, or like our bonsai, the Japanese islands have a front side, which is open to the Pacific Ocean, and a rear side. The most important cities, especially on the main island of Honshu, are located on the sunny side like a string of pearls, and the Shikansen connects them every 7 Minutes during the rush hours.
Once you arrive at Nagoya, you switch to a train of a private railway company and continue for about 30 kilometres southwards down the Chita peninsula along the Pacific Ocean. Palm trees and other tropical plants along the way are an indication of how close the ocean is.
About two and a half hours after the departure from Tokyo you will reach Tokoname, a city that, starting in the Meiji era, grew to be one of the most important centres of pottery. It will be no surprise that the entire town is about pottery - not only bonsai pots are produced here, but everything made of clay, from water pipes and copies of Italian flower pots to the legendary Tanuki, the Japanese symbol of success. Earthenware is stacked in every yard of the many manufactories. Ceramic bottles, bricks and tiles - everything is built into the walls and houses, which makes some streets look like ceramic patchworks.
But it's not the picturesque architecture we are looking for; among bonsai lovers, the name Tokoname has become a synonym for high grade bonsai pots. One of the reasons for its popularity is the existance of a very active marketing association which organizes the sales for around 50 potteries. The association also publishes a catalogue which is distributed world wide. This catalogue showing a wide array of pot colours and shapes is a great source of inspiration for each bonsai lover, whether or not you're not you're going to actually purchase one of these pots.
The manager meets us at the train station and takes us to a factory, where we meet Mr Hinagaki, who himself comes from a potter's family and was the manager of this factory until a few years ago. As it is custom in Japan, we are first served a welcome drink of green tea. The first minutes are a bit stiff due to the language barrier - Japanese people often speak English quite well but are still reluctant to use it in conversation. This effect wanes after a while, and the communication starts, often using gestures and sign language. Still an interpreter will be useful if you want to get into matters more deeply.
The green tea also helps us over the initial hesitation, but we are reduced to silence again when we are led into the large showroom under the roof. This room contains all kinds of pots that you could imagine, and some that you couldn't - some of the pots have the size of a children's bath tub, and weights that can hardly be lifted by two people.
But we should not just focus on the extraordinary here - there are all kinds of quality levels, from the basic ones to the most elaborate and expensive ones. A hand-made mame pot of 5cm diameter may very well reach a price level for which you would also get a more basic 60cm pot. I try to focus on the colours and structures the most - the confidence with which every pot is made into a harmonic unity of shape, colour, size, structure and ornament is admirable.
And of course we also came to Tokoname to get to know the potters that create these pots. Mr Hinagaki already made the arrangements, and so we are first taken to the Yamaaki kiln, a factory with twelve employees. It produces high quality pots, which are called "Shosen" in Japan. But whoever imagines an older Japanese craftsman working away in his shed filled with antique tools would be very mistaken and maybe also disillusioned by the more prosaic reality. The factory manager receives us in an matter-of-fact, grey factory hall and leads us up to the first floor. In the centre of the hall there is a huge kiln, which is covered with dust like everything that is not constantly in use. When it is fired during the summer, the temperatures must be unbearable. But now in November there is a calm and busy atmosphere among the plaster moulds, rack trolleys filled with raw wares, lumps of clay and machines with inscrutable purposes. Here on the first floor, the employees fabricate the raw pots and treat them up to the firing, on the ground floor they are glazed, fired and made ready for shipping.
In Tokoname the main technique used to create pots consists in assembling strips or slabs of clay in a plaster mould. First of all, a large piece of clay, about 50 x 70 x 50 cm, is sliced into slabs that are about 1 cm thick. One of these slabs is put into the mould as bottom of the pot, and the walls are created from strips that have been cut from the slabs.