Ukiyoe

When my colleague and I had a three hour layover in Narita airport, Japan, we decided to have a meal at Tetsu, and then shop. And then shop. And then...well, there's only so much shopping one can do in the small wing of this terminal. Luckily, we saw this sign during casual stroll towards our gate:

"You wanna?" I must've had that eager look on my face. My colleague shrugged. 

"Sure. We've got nothing else to do."

Mind you, neither one of us knew what a ukiyoe was. I read the sign so quickly that I though it said was, "Experience Japanese Culture - free of charge."

As we approached the decoratively elaborate set up, a woman in a kimono approached us. She asked us for our boarding passes. Once we showed them to her, she led us into the booth area and showed us where we could store our luggage. Then she guided us a the table, as onlookers gazed with skeptical curiosity. What were we doing? 

Our guide explained that ukiyoe was an old-fashioned way of making pictures using wooden blocks painted with different colors. Normally, these pictures were depictions of farm life in Japan, and were easy to create (although I disagree because I think you have to have quite an imagination to see how each wooden block would pull a picture together). 

Our guide gave us each a parchment paper to line up with the corner of every wooden block. We doused the block with a certain color, then laid our parchment flat on top of it. With a circular flat, we pressed the parchment down onto the block to hopefully soak up the color and imprint a design. Finished with the first block, we had an outline of what the image would look like. 

As we progressed to the next block with a new color, we found another detail of the picture was uncovered. Where it was just a landscape scene with Mt. Fuji in the background, soon appeared the fields and plains tones of black and gray. And then there were farmers, donning straw hats and blue garbs, crossing the fields and carrying bags of crops. And lastly, there was the hue of the ocean in the distance. Every press on the parchment added another unforseen element to our picture. 

In the end, I ended up with a beautiful ukiyoe that I am going to frame. I can honestly say that I created this myself. 

Our guide gave us a plastic cover to protect our work, as well as the definition and history of the ukiyoe.

"What did you think?" I asked my colleague. 

"So cool. I really liked this." 

I had to agree. After our turn, we saw that others had followed us in the hopes of also receiving this "free gift". I started to think about all the airports I've been to, and I can't say any of them offered an experience like this. Pity. Because with this kind of experience, I felt I had definitely learned something "new" about Japan and its culture.  

~T~