Many wonder… “What is the difference between Sashiko & other Stitchery?”. My answer is simple: “There is no difference in Stitchery”. Needlework exists(ed) everywhere. I am pretty sure that your ancestor stitched for their survival at some point. Your stitchery probably had a name, but gone over time. My stitchery had a name, and we kept it as “Sashiko”.
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No difference in Stitchery, but Sashiko and other Stitchery have significant differences based on “Culture”. “Sashiko” and “Kantha (Indian Embroidery)” are similar (or the same) in Stitchery, but significantly different because of the culture behind: Japanese Culture & Indian Culture. It is not the matter of good or bad – just different.
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As an extreme analogy, I sometimes feel as if I jump into a society where all the Asian Food Restaurant is called “Japanese Food Restaurant”. Yes, they offer the same thing: Food as something to eat. However, there is a significant difference between Japanese Food & Indian Food – based on their culture, and more importantly – Story.
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When we use “Rice”, is every meal Japanese? No, that’s one violent assumption. Is everything Sushi when we use Rice and raw fish…? Well, one needs to understand the difference in “Rice” when they teach about Sushi. It is quite easy to understand when I use analogy – but in Sashiko, some ignore the difference. I wondered why, but I came up with one answer to this wondering – it is because we (as Japanese Sashiko Artisans) didn’t have the power/courage to speak up. I want them to think for a moment. “Calling whatever stitchery Sashiko” can be quite violent as calling Canned Tuna on the Jasmine rice as “Sushi” – especially when they do not care for the story behind.
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英語で刺し子の紹介をしていると「偉そうに話してるけど、刺し子と他の国の針仕事の違いは何か？」とご指摘を頂くことがあります。結論から言うと、「違いはありません」。針仕事そのものはどの地域にもどの民族にも存在していたものだからです。では違いは何かというと、「その背景にある文化と人」です。その違いを無視することは違う民族を同一にしてしまうような暴力性が出てきます。だからこそ、刺し子の後ろにある文化を大切にしたいのです。大袈裟に言うと、刺し子を語ることは（昔の）日本を語ることだと思っています。大好きな日本＆尊敬する諸先輩方が頭にあるからこそ、時に必死になるんでしょうね。配信で話す笑うこともできない真面目な話は、そんな思いからきていたりします。
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2022-08-07 21:21:40
That is a great analogy!
Thank you for pointing out the differences AND similarities between 2 stories, stitchworks.❤️
Excellent analogies
I understand, thank you for your story
The food analogy is a good one. And that jacket is a WOW.
your restaurant analogy might be part of why it can be hard to translate these concepts for western audiences. it’s not entirely metaphor, lots of asian folks of all cultures opened up restaurants in the US and ended up calling it something like “china garden” because that was the only kind of asian cuisine non-asians were familiar with. there are definitely still people who do just call all asian food “sushi.” if they are really regressive, they just call everything asian “oriental.” vincent chin was a chinese american man who was murdered in the 80’s because some out of work auto factory linemen thought he was japanese. it’s a very key part of anti-asian racism
Wouw !!!!!😍