I am glad that I made it to feel at ease with “Cultural Appropriation in Sashiko” and “No-rules to define Sashiko”. My message is simple. Please enjoy Sashiko with reasonable respect and decent imagination to Japanese Culture. I started this account to share and include, not to exclude.
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Have you realized that my message can be pretty ”tough”, though? From another angle, I am saying, “without reasonable respect & decent imagination, it can be a form of Cultural Appropriation” regardless of how skillful & knowledgeble they may be in Sashiko. Ultimately speaking, in order to “fully” understand the foreign culture, one has to “master” the language, live there with local people, then keep practicing it. I haven’t reached the place where I can say “I know all about Sashiko” yet.
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Please, please do not twist my words. I am NOT saying you have to master the Japanese language to enjoy Sashiko. It is the opposite. I want you to enjoy Sashiko without Japanese language. Therefore, I am sharing everything in English here. My translation/sharing completes when you try to learn beyond my words – the practice with respect & care to Japanese ordinary.
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The Japanese Sashiko artisans I know wished “not to speak up”. They wanted to be “anonymous” regardless how beautiful their work is. They didn’t speak up with their voices. However, it doesn’t mean that Sashiko is shallow or the voices didn’t exist. It is simply because Sashiko is(was) in Japanese culture (speaking up is not always the beauty).
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I am not a typical Japanese any more. I had to be different. So here I am. Please do not jump to an easy conclusion. Please do not fulfill a culture with “convenience”. Please keep learning. I promise that you will have a lot more fun by learning the culture in Sashiko. Sashiko/Boro is the Japanese term. I learn every day in bridging them to English. The culture can be created on mutual respect. When we stop learning the foreign culture (once we say we know it enough), then the Cultural Appreciation becomes the Cultural Appropriation.
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突然の短い配信でしたが、何を今これほどまでに文章にしているかをお伝えできて良かったです。もう少し続きます（笑）
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2020-12-16 10:06:10
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Wonderful words.
I appreciate this conversation. I realized that while I patch and “embroider” with rows of uniform stitches I can’t call it Sashiko in my mind. I think it’s because I don’t feel like my work is good enough.
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I did my first piece in 2019 ( Hana no fukin) my second in 2020. I am in now hurry to do now I am learning the theory/story behind sashiko once my cup is full I will move ahead and practice . I don’t know when that will happen .
Absolutely. I think it is as much about the stitches and the style, as it is about the essence and the thought culture and ideologies behind it. And this applies to not just Sashiko from Japan or Kantha from India or anything from anywhere… it applies to pretty much any and every form of art. Saying that you KNOW a form of art just because you have got its technique right, is being quite unfair to all the history it carries.
Thank you for your posts. I respect what you are doing and my hope is that more people will write like you do about cultural appropriation and that more people will understand what it is. I lived in Japan for 18 years and it was hard to have conversations about many topics because of cultural differences, I realised that just because someone is silent it doesn’t mean they don’t have an opinion. I appreciate your voice and perspective and the great amount of effort it must take to continuously explain things over and over again. Otsukaresamadeshita. 🙇
Meu Deus, como é difícil, não? É uma coisa tão simples de entender! Algumas pessoas se superam em ignorância! Aff!
Beautiful, your ideas inspire us to learn more about sashiko or Boro aesthetics. 🙏
I see leaves, a lovely fabric and regular stitches that sense calm.
If you see someone doing sashiko style embroidery/mending but using another name for it, do you feel like that is cultural appropriation? I love using running stitch in embroidery or sewing, but I wouldn’t call it sashiko as that is not from my culture, and I don’t actually know how to do sashiko properly 🙂
That it’s beauuuuuuuutiful‼️
Acho lindo, uma arte!
What is “boro?” Is it sashiko + japanese traditional patchwork?
Sashiko is a stitch, process of needles work. The BORO is a result of the continuous and ultimate repetition of Sashiko. It can be frustrating looking for vintage indigo fabric from Japan online…. because it is often mislabeled as Boro… but it is not.