I believe mingei is a timeless theme

Letters from the workshops · No. 01

The front entrance to the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba, Tokyo, featuring stone gateposts, white walls, and a tiled roof in winter light.

By Mizuki Aruga, Editor at Japan Documented

Living day to day in Japan, I often feel that the word "mingei" gets used loosely, just for a vague sort of mood. I suspect that visitors who love Japanese culture enough to make the trip to the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba, Tokyo, may know far more about it than we do.

If someone asked me, "What is mingei?" I would need a little time to answer.

That is because mingei is not simply about an object not being made of plastic, each piece varying slightly, or having a handmade feel. It is a word, or rather a concept, that means something different from "craft."

The word "mingei" comes from the Mingei movement, which Soetsu Yanagi and his peers proposed and put into practice.

Yanagi graduated from the philosophy department of Tokyo Imperial University, now the University of Tokyo, in 1913. His real name is Muneyoshi, but because the same kanji can also be read as Soetsu, he is sometimes affectionately called by that name. (I always find myself reading it as Soetsu.)

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