While sharing our Sashiko Story, I realized that “culture” may be defined as a means of standard deviation for the people who live “there”. When we live in the same culture, we sometimes understand each other without extra explanation. It is because we have our stories within – in mutual understanding – somewhat similar – that define the culture. Well, just one of my idea while teaching Sashiko.
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Sashiko itself isn’t a word for one specific technique. When one teaches Sashiko as a technique, in the process of learning, I believe students will face “whys”. There is no such a thing as “Just Because” in teaching culture to others from different cultures. “Just Because” can only happen when I teach Sashiko to the Japanese in Japanese language – where we can understand the unverbalized expectation. Otherwise, I have a responsibility to explain, and a teacher has to have the ability to explain the “why”. Why Sashiko? Why this thread? Why this needle? Why is Sashiko not Zen or Art? Why Indigo? Why this pattern? Why is it meditative? Why & Why. Each reason can lead us to the core of culture – not the “right answers”, but enough stories to understand the frame. Then we can find our preference. Without explaining why, teachers forcing others to understand the right answer, or learners letting others define their own value (giving up their own value), the deviation will not be “valid”. When the parameter is controlled by someone with power unnaturally, then the deviation will be distorted, and as a result, Culture becomes something different from the origin. This is what I mean by “Cultural Filtration”.
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I believe my Sashiko workshops are full of realization: but it doesn’t mean that it is always “comfortable”. I really appreciate the previous workshop in @loopoftheloom for coming to learn something new: that’s one form of respect I can feel regardless of what we differently believe in. I will be in CA soon @worldshiborinetwork
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2年半越しのNYでのワークショップ、無事終えることができました。生徒さんにもお世話になった方にも皆ご満足頂けたようでまずは一安心です。次は西海岸。もう少し忙しい日々が続きますが、しっかり刺し子を伝えられるように、頑張ります。
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2022-07-12 09:35:08
👏 yes, thank you for speaking to it from your own perspective and experience! Whether in the company of adults or mixed age groups, when peoples of different cultures meet to discuss and/or learn about cultural practices of one or more of their cultures, the “why” questions are natural opportunities to promote understanding. The questioner, when given the benefit of the doubt, is expressing a sincere desire to understand and demystify something that would otherwise be unavailable to them as an outsider. And so the one being questioned has a choice: either to participate in the process of building common ground between them, or to deny the questioner an opportunity to better understand that particular culture. I’ve witnessed both outcomes.
Quel travail !
Very unusual jacket!