A traditional wagasa umbrella is made from one species of bamboo, washi paper, persimmon tannin, and about forty distinct steps, several of which have their own dedicated craftsman in the Gifu neighborhoods where the trade survives. The shop we visited has been at it for sixty years, which by local standards makes them promising newcomers.<\/p>\n
The frame alone is a small marvel: dozens of bamboo ribs split from a single culm so the grain matches all the way around, because an umbrella made from one plant opens with one motion. The paper is glued sheet by sheet, oiled, sun-dried on racks in the courtyard, and the courtyard on a good day, forty open umbrellas facing the sun, is one of the better sights in central Japan.<\/p>\n
The family survived vinyl umbrellas the way everyone here survived everything: they got smaller, got better, and waited. The waiting is over, more or less. Kabuki theaters, ryokan, tea schools, and a steady trickle of people who simply want one beautiful object that improves the rain now keep the order book full a year ahead.<\/p>\n
The daughter runs the workshop now. Her father splits bamboo in the back, claiming to be retired. We filmed her opening a finished umbrella for the first time, the sound is somewhere between a page turning and a sail catching, and if that sound does not do something to you, we respectfully suggest checking for a pulse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Gifu wagasa takes one tree, forty steps, and a family that never once considered stopping. Rain has never looked so good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unfamiliarjapan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}