Emotional Support Through Glasswork Beads

Akemi Furukawa from one of Japan’s devastated areas

An exhibition of glasswork beads by Kamaishi City’s Akemi Furukawa (51), entitled  “Glasswork Beads Glittering in the Early Summer Sun,” will be open at the Nonohanasha Café in Nagayama, Shidzukuishi until the 11^th of June. The exhibition holds around 100 works, from flowers buried in transparent glass to ceramic glass painted with Japanese designs; a miniature world inside delicate and vivid glass beads.

Last year’s tsunami destroyed Furukawa’s home in Unosumai Town, washing away the all the tools and works she had kept in her workshop. While considering what she should and could do, she kept thinking, “I just don’t want to give up glasswork.”

Seiko Shirasaki, a friend of Furukawa’s who also holds works in the exhibition, invited Furukawa to move to Niigata prefecture, which she did in September of last year. With a compressor and burner provided by the teacher who taught her glassworking, she was finally able to get back into the mood to create.

The beads Furukawa makes are comprised of tiny parts which she manufactures by hand from colored glass, the flowers represented in each bead finely worked down to the last vein of each leaf. The glass she uses is delicate and can crack if heated too quickly; the small parts inside the beads can melt if too much heat is applied. On the other hand, if the heating temperature is too low, the compounds in the material will not bond and the beads will remain opaque.

“It’s work that can’t be re-done. You have to concentrate hard the entire time.”  The glasswork creations require absolute concentration, but to Furukawa, the time she spends glassworking is priceless. Nowadays, she works part-time, taking up glassworking on her days off. “I’m able to calm down and forget about things while I work,” she says. Glasswork bead-making has become Furukawa’s emotional sustenance.

Her next ambition is to create a series of works with fruits, leaves and winter scenes as motifs. “I want to make works that give a sense of excitement to adults, like the excitement felt by children looking at grape beads and heart-shaped necklaces at festivals,” she says.

（Morioka Times　6/5/2012） 

Northeast Japan Rokkonsai

Festival Ends Exceeding Expectations with 240,000 Participants

The Rokkonsai festival, representing the 6 Northeast Japan prefectures, was held this year in Morioka city, sponsored by the Rokkonsai executive committee. The parades unfolded magnificently from Morioka city’s Chuuodori and Maruyama districts, ending without incident on May 27^th. Lively performances captured the audiences, while all around the air was filled with Northeast Japan’s energy to “Revive as One” from the earthquake disaster. According to presentations from the Rokkonsai hosts, there were 130,000 visitors on the second day of the festival, the entire length of the festival exceeding all expectations with a total of 240,000 visitors.

The Rokkonsai parade, which holds performers from the 6 Northeast Japan prefectures, began at 12 noon, with crowds so large that entrants to the festival had to be restricted. As the participants, all from 6 different prefectures, finished the parade and prepared to return to the festival site, they were surrounded by visitors with applause and loud cries of “Thank you!” and “It was wonderful!”. 

Tsuyoshi Kawamura, 65, of Morioka’s Higashimatsuzono district, was one of the lucky sightseers who managed to get a front-row view of the parade. “It was the best. I was deeply touched, knowing that the performers had all come from different areas to perform for everyone,” he responded with heartfelt emotion. Tomoe Numahata, 47, a visitor from Aomori’s Hachinohe city, said that she felt “very satisfied, being able to see six different festivals in the same place. [She] enjoyed it very much.”

The deep emotion was affluent in the festival performers as well. A　participant in the Rokkonsai festival held in Sendai as well as a Sansa Odori Seiryuu Association member, Rui Abe (30, Oushuu City), says that “the Rokkonsai Festival in Sendai was chaos, and several of the visitors spoke very harshly to me. But this time, the festival was held partly as a means of revival after the earthquake, and it was very pleasant.” Hajime Saitou, an enthusiastic performer of the Akita Kantou Festival, 44, explained that he “wants to see some courage brought to the disaster-stricken areas.”

At the closing ceremony, everybody gathered around the specially set stage in the Morioka castle remains park. Rokkonsai Executive committee member Hiroaki Tanifuji spoke words of gratitude that “[we] were able to share the Touhoku people’s enthusiasm and feelings of reconstruction with the rest of Japan.”

Various opinions on the festival and the future of the Touhoku region were heard during the festival. Katsutoshi Motomochi of Morioka’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that he felt “the prefectures were able to express their earnestness [about reconstruction]. This will have a considerable effect on the Touhoku region’s revival.” He continued in a bracing tone that “We must use these festivals as a means of stimulation [for reconstruction]. “

Many hotels and restaurants in Morioka said they had great success due to the influx of visitors to the festival, but there were some shop owners who said that they were unable to sell many of their goods. Liquor store owner Kazushige Yoshimoto, 47, remarked that “Iwate prefecture should call in more people to send to the devastated coastal areas.”

Morioka did experience traffic throughout the city, but it was well directed and no chaos ensued. A total of 269 temporary sightseeing buses stopped at the festival, 5,300 cars came to park in the prepared spaces for the festival, and shuttle buses ran a total of 345 times to and from the festival grounds to the parking lot carrying a whopping 12,756 people back and forth throughout the weekend. A total of 62 people visited the first aid stations; 10 people were transported by ambulance due to heat stroke.

（Morioka Times　5/28/2012）

1000 hand-knitted scarves arrive from America, in time for winter.

Approximately 1000 scarves and other items from knitting enthusiasts in America have arrived at Morioka’s Recovery Support Center in Uchimaru, Morioka.

Along with a message reading “We hope you will have warm hearts and warm bodies this winter. We will continue to give our support. With love and prayers”, each item was knitted with the love and consideration of the sender, who wishes the disaster victims stay warm this winter.

The scarves were designed by Yumiko Alexander, a knit-designer born in Yamanashi Prefecture but now living in Phoenix, Arizona. Alexander became unwell from the shock of hearing of the disaster, but feeling that there was something she could do, she thought of a design with Japanese tastes in mind, and called for help with the knitting. News of her idea spread widely when yarn companies and shops tried to gather customers to knit the items that Alexander had been recruiting help for through earthquake blogs and handicraft publication companies since the middle of April. Nearly 90% of the scarves that arrived were made by Americans. The scarves came from all over America, including New York and Hawaii.

“America is a country with charity deeply rooted in their lives”. Even around Alexander, there were many people who did what they could through their hobbies, such as a yoga teacher who organized an outdoor yoga event to collect money, she explains.

Knitting can’t be finished straight away. It takes time to knit a complete piece. “As the days and weeks passed, different news was being shown on the TV. But even though the world goes on, we wanted to say that we still remember what happened”. Their memory of the disaster doesn’t fade with time, and the feeling that thoughts from abroad will continue have been knitted into the scarves.

While the scarves will be distributed through the "Save Iwate" Support Team at the Disaster Victim Support Center (2F), they will also be offered at the free market for those in shelters and temporary housing along the coast.

Alexander says "Because they are hand-made, just like wrapping themselves with our warm wishes, we all made the scarves hoping that the wearer's hearts will be warmed. I'm very glad that there are so many people who are worried for Japan.
It's my job to tell everyone about the situation in the devistated area.
I have to tell them that their scarves have arrived.


Morioka Times　29th Septmeber 2011 (Thu)

Weyers rushes from Holland to do volunteer work in Yamada

Foreign Volunteers were staying at Morioka's establishment of volunteers ' base, Kawai Camp (Kawai, Miyako), and have now gone in to support the devastated town of Yamada. Dutch company employee, Philip Weyers (51), engaged in work such  as clearing debris from the 1st to the 4th. A memory of visiting Dutch Island in Yamada bay is what provoked him to volunteer to support.

Dutch Island (Oshima) is an uninhabited island in Yamada Bay. In 1643, the Dutch ship, Breskens, drifted ashore, and the city of Yamada started a relationship of exchange with the Dutch city of Zeist. Philip had been working at the embassy in Tokyo from 2001 to 2007. Recently, he has visited Yamada twice for motorcycling trips.

"I couldn't just sit there after hearing the news". In January, he and his wife Yumi, and sons, Ryuuta (6) and Kai (3), were to go to his wife's hometown in Osaka for the summer break, but then the earthquake hit.

He decided to come to give his support alone. He left his wife and children who had come with him by plane, and came into Iwate by rail. He donated the money raised by his son's school to a group that supports orphaned children. He had his wife search the internet for Camp Kawai, and he applied.

Afraid of the nuclear power incident, some foreigners are holding back from visiting Japan. But Philip had travelled all around the Tohoku region before, so he didn't worry, saying, "It's alright. It's not as if the whole of Japan has been devastated".

However, he was shocked by the sight he saw in Yamada.

"It was worse than what I saw on TV and the footage I found on the internet. I felt the awesome power of the water and nature". In Holland, there are no earthquakes or volcano eruptions. He says that a big natural disaster would be flooding. During his stay, there were aftershocks, and he said, "I was worried how big the next one would be".

When he visited Yamada for travel, he stopped by the town office. He says, "they were very kind to me. They probably didn't think i worked at the embassy, dressed like a traveller. But now, they are going through a lot. I don't want to  trouble them". In Zeist, many are appealing strongly for the support of Yamada.

At the camp, there are volunteers from different hometowns, with different jobs and of different age. Philip naturally socializes with them. "Everyone here is a good team". They are treated with Dutch food.

Philip majored in Economic Geography at Amsterdam University. He was interested in the economic power, Japan. He worked at ANA for 7 years from 1989, then returned to Holland, and came back to Japan again to work at the embassy.

"The Japanese spirit is amazingly strong. It might take 5, 10 years to fully recover, but I want them to try hard. They need more support".

He also says, "Japan is a country that always puts safety first. At work,  school, and even how to use a knife at camp - safety comes first. There was an incident with China's high-speed rail, but Japan's Shinkansen has no accidents. Even so, why didn't they place the Fukushima nuclear reactors on higher ground where the tsunami would not reach? It doesn't match the image I have of Japanese people".

（Morioka Times　8/8/2011）