I sometimes wonder what would be like if I didn’t decide to study in the US. If I weren’t proficient in English, all of my Sashiko Stories here wouldn’t be delivered to you. I occasionally wonder what if we didn’t have the Internet. I don’t have any agents/publishers/spokesperson who can represent me. So, what I write/say here is what exactly comes from my brain through my own hands/voice. When I was a child, I didn’t know Sashiko would be this popular – so everything I experience now is a matter of coincidence. I imagine how sad it is to lose the Sashiko I talk about here because of lack of “coincidence” – I was lucky. At the same time, there are cultures we lost due to the exact same reasons: Language & Publicity.
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Majority of Sashiko Teachers in English are non-Japanese. At the same time, “Being Japanese” itself isn’t the qualification of being “a Good Sashiko Teacher”. It is a matter of “attitude” toward teaching and its responsibility. I wish I had another teacher who has been practicing Sashiko for a long time, who happened to be proficient in English. There are (and there will be) many more Japanese with English (non-Japanese) proficiency who happen to find Sashiko as their teaching materials. They probably move on when Sashiko isn’t no longer a trend. So are the other non-Japanese Sashiko Teachers. I sometimes feel I am alone in sharing the Sashiko Story – although there are a lot more like me in different fields & culture.
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I say, “Copy it. Please Copy It seriously if you were to copy it”, as a reaction to so much simplification & commercialization of Sashiko. Yet, soon, I feel that we will lose “upstreams” because there are so many who do not even list where they learned from. The culture only exists in a flow, and we cannot forget it “comes from” somewhere, someone who was very serious in one practice.
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Live Streaming Tonight (11/9)
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少々お時間を頂きました。少し考えに耽っていました。特に何があったと言う訳でもないのですが、冬に向かう空気だからでしょうか、刺し子と向かい合っていました。「淳」。あつしと読んで私の名です。「すなお」と入力しても同じ漢字が出ます。もう少し、ドロドロとしたものも吐き出してもいいのかなぁと思ったり。今週も配信で刺し子についてお話ししていきます。
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2023-11-10 01:34:43
😍😍😍…que bonito!
淳さんが書く文章、本当にきちんと読んでもらいたい人がいます。
We appreciate you! 🙌🙏💙
Where is the live streaming?
🪷🙏🏼🪡🧵
This is the most succinct explanation of culture preservation I have ever heard. It’s a very great thing you are doing. Maybe it’s not *only* coincidence. Thank you for carrying this forward. Your words are not light.
Atsushi and Keiko…..😍I’m always happy to read your texts and instructions. Watashi wa nisei desu, (obaasan) . Because of the expulsion of Japanese people from the west coast of Canada during the 2nd WW and restrictions of using our native language and families scattered across northern and eastern Canada, we were prevented from continuing to speak Japanese
This is beautiful. The colored threads help make it pop. When I first learned to stitch sashiko, I was taught with only white thread… but then discovered the joy of different colored threads when visiting Yuzawaya. I am grateful for the lessons you share. As an English speaker I am also glad you speak English. 🙂 I did learn Sashiko when we lived in Tokyo from a wonderful older (at the time) Japanese women who created the most beautiful items with a needle and thread and invited us gaijin into her home to learn. It was a gift to be able to study with her. Now that I am retired I am looking forward to picking up my needle again.
You sharing your story and experiences helps other develop their own stories and experiences! You are passing the torch to the next generation so we may continue to spread the art of Sashiko that tells the story of our own culture. I am proud to be able to call myself an aspiring Sashiko artist thanks to you!