Category Archives: Photos

EHIME, July 9 ― Doronko Matsuri (mud festival) was held on July 2, 2017, at Mishima Shrine in Shirokawa, Seiyo, Ehime Prefecture, as an annual event to appreciate the hard work of farmers who have finished rice planting and to pray for good harvesting of the year. The holy performance included a demonstration of traditional Ushi-no-shirokaki (plowing by bulls) by local farmers in the rice paddy that belongs to the shrine. Another highlight of the festival that thoroughly excited the visitors was the comical demonstration of farm works by young local villagers in the muddy field. The festival is held on the first Sunday of July every year. It began … Continue reading →

Today, let’s hear from Eiko Kotaka, 75, from Hadano City, Kanagawa Prefecture, about how she enjoys No no Ikebana. “I began No no Ikebana two years ago. I like making an arrangement at the beginning of a season, featuring seasonal vegetables and flowers. I use something like a two-legged daikon radish and loquats on a branch and with leaves to make my arrangements look as natural and lively as possible. With this arrangement, I wanted to reproduce a scene in the good old days when we hand spun cotton. This is like a long, complex story of cotton-making that stars from harvesting cotton and ends in spinning a thread. I … Continue reading →

A bonsai-style moss ball arranged in masu, a traditional wood container for drinking sake,  is now becoming one of the popular interior items both in Japan and overseas. MASUMOSS, it’s called and is produced by Green’s Green, a company that transformed a land which was once abandoned in Niigata town, Niigata Prefecture, to a moss production field. A small plant such as Goyomatsu Japanese white pine tree and Korin Satsuki azalea is planted in a moss ball, which is made of moss planted on non-woven fabric, and placed in masu, which is made of wood grown in Gifu Prefecture. It debuted in 2015 at an interior design trade show in … Continue reading →