The information available on Japanese animation before 1950, at least in English, is limited at best and conflicting at worst. The actual animated films themselves as well as records of who created what and when has mostly been destroyed. This is due to 1923’s Great Kanto Earthquake and later the American invasion of the islands. Aside from that, animation was treated as disposable entertainment, as was most animation in the rest of the world at that time. Thus, little has survived.

Thankfully, most of the animated work that remains has been preserved digitally and is available online! It should be mentioned that most of the silent animation presented in this article is “incomplete” in that it lacks benshi narration. When film began to spread throughout Japan, rather than accepting it as an evolution of photography as the west did, it was viewed as an extension of theater. Since kabuki, noh, and bunraku theater traditions all had narrators, naturally film needed one as well. Enter the benshi, a narrator who not only read the aloud the onscreen intertitles, but also described the film’s events in real time and gave voice to each and every character. Two of the films embedded in this article benefit from recorded benshi narration. The rest are “incomplete”.

While I will be sprinkling bits of information I’ve uncovered regarding the roots of anime, make sure to give special attention to the cartoons themselves. What awaits you is a moving history of initially simplistic paper cut-outs giving way to experimental art, funny animal cartoons, sing along-songs, chalk animation, traditional folktales, and full-length feature films. And this is all before Tezuka. Welcome to an often overlooked world. Enjoy yourself.

The Three Fathers (1907-1923)

Film first hit Japan in 1896 and had flourished into burgeoning culture by the 1910s, complete with film criticism. Along with the initial wave of films from the west came Western animation. It was only a matter of time before Japan, with its rich visual culture, began experimenting with its own animated creations.

The earliest example (speculated to be the oldest surviving anime) is Katsudo Shashin (Moving Picture, 1907?-1918?).

The boy is writing the kanji for katsudo shashin which translates to “moving picture” in English. It seems that in these early years, both Japan and the west were amused enough with the novelty of an image in motion.

In the early 1900s, animators experimented with inexpensive ways to bring their visions to life. Katsudo Shashin and many others were drawn directly onto the strips of film from which they were projected, making these animations one of a kind. This and other early animation techniques were pioneered by Oten Shimokawa, a political cartoonist for Tokyo Puck magazine. His first animated work, Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki (The Story of the Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa, 1917) was long believed to be the first animated short made in Japan, though it is likely still the first short ever screened for a wide audience.

After creating only five shorts, chronic health problems forced Shimokawa into early retirement. His contribution, however, gives him the honor as one of the three fathers of early anime.

The second of the three fathers is Junichi Kouichi, who holds the honor of the oldest confirmed anime in existence (Katsudo Shashin could have been made as early as 1907, but there is no real proof as to its age). Namakura Gatana (Dull Sword, 1917) is a two minute short about a samurai attempting to test his newly purchased katana on innocent townspeople and failing miserably.

This film was thought to be lost until a copy was found in an Osaka antique shop in 2008. Kouichi animated this short using paper cut-outs laid out on a table which he moved and changed to create the characters’ movements. This was a technique that would later be taken to a level of artistic excellence by the Japanese animation directors of the 1930s.

Junichi Kouichi began creating political propaganda in 1924 and retired from animation in 1930.

The third father of this generation had arguably the most impact on the generation that followed him, mostly because he had the largest body of work and many animators of the 1930s were his students. Seitarou Kitayama created shorts focusing on Japanese folktales like Sarukani Gassen (Monkey-Crab Battle), Urashima Taro, and Momotarou. Aside from creating anime’s first commercials and documentary, Kitayama stood apart from his contemporaries as the only animator to found his own studio.

Kitayama Eiga Seisakujo opened in 1921 and gave jobs to a slew of talented individuals including Sanae Yamamoto. Sadly after only two years, most of Kitayama’s studio was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. He left Tokyo for a fresh start in Osaka the next year, but eventually abandoned animation completely for a career shooting newsreels.

Experimental Artists (1923-1939)

With the destruction of Kitayama’s studio, his team of animators struck out on their own to seek prosperity in personal ventures. But success did not come easily. Throughout the 20s, animation directors faced stiff foreign competition from larger, richer, and more impressive studios overseas. The imported cartoons had already made money in their home countries, so they were sold cheaply to theaters in Japan. Animation artists could not implement the expensive techniques used by Disney and still sell their cartoons at a competitive price. This made the paper cut-out methods introduced by Junichi Kouichi an absolute must. This limitation, however, led to some extremely innovative cut-out films by two men, Yasuji Murata and Noburo Ofuji.

Yasuji Murata began working at the Yokohama Cinema Shokai in 1923 creating the Japanese intertitle cards for imported western films. After seeing various western cartoons, he was inspired to create his own in 1927. He worked almost exclusively for the Yokohama Cinema Shokai throughout his career. His first work to get attention was Doubutsu Orimupikku Taikai (Animal Olympics, 1928) a cartoon about funny animals playing sports. However, one of the best examples of his range and artistic skill is Kobu Tori (The Stolen Lump, 1929).

Kobu Tori

Consider that Disney made Skeleton Dance this same year, and, though technically impressive, it is horrendously boring compared to Kobu Tori. In Kobu Tori, the contrast is moody, the characters are vibrant, the attention to detail more than makes up for the slightly limited movements, and most importantly it’s a story well told! Kobu Tori is a perfect example of what wonders Japanese animators could produce despite their lack of funding and resources.

Because foreign cartoons dominated movie theaters of the time, Japanese animation had difficulty finding a venue in which to be screened. A lot of anime from this period was screened in public shopping areas to generate interest. The Ministry of Education also encouraged Japanese animators to produce films that were educational or socially uplifting, thus allowing them to be screened in schools. This was the case with Yasuji Murata’s Taro-san no Kisha (Taro’s Train, 1929).

Taro’s Train

Taro-san no Kisha (Taro’s Train) is an interesting mix of live action and animation as well as a neat peek into the fashion and homes in 1920s Japan. Also, it teaches kids to not act like insane animals in public, which is a good lesson for children all over the world.

Murata’s film, Oira No Yakyu (Our Baseball, 1930) is a return to the sports setting he first utilized in Animal Olympics. This cartoon mixes the Western funny animal cartoon with Japanese elements, in this case the folktale Kachi Kachi Yama, a story of a fight between a tanuki and a rabbit. This particular YouTube video is a restoration of Oira no Yakyu by Digital Meme which includes benshi narration.

Oira no Yakyu

Oira no Sukii (Our Skiing Trip, 1930) is either a sequel or prequel to Oira no Yakyu, as they were both produced in 1930 and we don’t have exact dates for either. This film has a distinct advantage over its counterpart due to extensive magical transformations utilized by the tanuki and rabbits. Or at least, that’s what I think. This video also benefits from benshi narration.

Oira no Sukii

Murata was a master of cut-out animation with strengths in skill, quality, and consistency. Murata’s opposite was cut-out master, Noburo Ofuji, whose strengths were in innovation and the willingness to take creative risks.

Ofuji became the apprentice of Junichi Kouichi at age 18 and made his first film at age 24. His films are characterized by the use of chiyogami paper. Though this gives his films a distinct Japanese look, the choice to use chiyogami was more practical than artistic. Chiyogami was cheaper by far than drawing on expensive celluloid and made inexpensive paper cut-out animation even more affordable. Even after gaining success and resources, Ofuji continued to use chiyogami as his medium of choice.

Ofuji’s achievements went beyond his aesthetic superiority. He was also an innovator. Though films with synchronous soundtracks had been introduced in the United States and Europe in 1927, they had not yet reached Japan by 1929. This was largely due to opposition from benshi narrators who wanted to hold onto their star status. Though he lacked the resources to create a true “talkie”, Ofuji created the first “record talkie”, in which he put to film an animation that synced up perfectly with an existing jazz record. The venue simply had start the film and the record at the same time and the audience would see Japan’s first sound cartoon, Kuro Nyago (Black Cat, 1929).

Kuro Nyago

One of Ofuji’s most famous shorts is a prime example of the fun-loving spirit his chiyogami animations could create. Mura Matsuri (Village Festival, 1930) is a real treat. It takes the “follow the bouncing ball” sing-along motif and spins it in new directions. This idea was relatively new at the time, having only been introduced five years earlier by Fleischer studios. Ofuji makes his bouncing ball interact with the scenery, transform words into objects, and transform itself into character heads. The song in this film is one I gladly get stuck in my head on a regular basis.

Mura Matsuri

The following year, Ofuji released another sing-along, this time tinted pink and intended to teach children the importance of national symbols, namely sakura. It’s interesting to note that though Haru no Uta (Song of Spring, 1931) is very nationally-focused, the music is undeniably Western. The singer, Kikuko Inoue, was a singer from the Asakusa Opera, which was one of the major channels through which western music was introduced to Japan.

Song of Spring

Noburo Ofuji begins to stray a bit from happy sing-alongs and into more serious territory with Kokka Kimigayo (The National Anthem: Kimigayo, 1931). Made to play along with a record of the national anthem, this film begins to more closely mimic silhouette animation of German animator Lotte Reiniger. The silhouettes in Kokka Kimigayo are cut with amazing detail and the backgrounds are beautifully complex.

Kokka Kimigayo

HOORAY! Now we get into Ofuji’s cartoony stuff! Tengu Taiji (Tengu Extermination, 1934) is a great example of Noburo Ofuji’s foray into cel animation. It’s fascinating to see such familiar cartoon imagery repurposed for Japanese storytelling. This one is similar to a lot of 1930s cartoons, but has samurai, geisha, a cute doggy, and TENGU! I could say more, but you’re better off just watching it.

Tengu Extermination

Our final look at the work of Noburo Ofuji is the film that cemented him as a master of animation in the art world. Kujira (Whale, 1952) is a remake of his 1927 silent black-and-white film, Kujira (Whale, 1927). The 1952 version features cut-outs of colored cellophane arranged on a backlit multi-plane animation table. This allowed him to create intricate backgrounds and transitions. The story explores themes of greed, female suffering, forces of nature, and transformation. It’s a truly beautiful experience.

NOTE: The only upload of this film to the web at the time of writing is by a composer named Ufjar who has replaced the original soundtrack with his own score.

Kujira

Kujira was shown at Cannes in 1953 and gained significant praise from jury president Jean Cocteau and a certain member of the audience named Pablo Picasso. This began Ofuji’s wide acceptance in the international art world.

After Noburo Ofuji passed away in 1961, the Mainichi Film Awards named their prize for animation excellence the “Ofuji Noburo Award” in 1962. The first winner of the Ofuji Noburo Award was none other than Osamu Tezuka.

More From The Thirties!

The 30s produced a wide array of Japanese animation ranging from impressive works of art to weird crumminess. This section presents samples from all parts of that spectrum. In 1931, the first war cartoon Sora no Momotarou (Aerial Momotarou, 1931) was released, marking the beginning of a steady increase in war propaganda until it was serious propaganda time in 1939.

Chameko no Ichinichi (A Day in the Life of Chameko, 1931) was a record-talkie intended to play simultaneously with a phonograph of the same name. Chameko no Ichinichi was a popular song a year before it was animated. The animation is stiffer than Murata’s and much less charming than Ofuji’s, but it does feature the earliest example of product placement in anime. Watch for Chameko’s endorsement of Lion Toothpaste in the tooth brushing scene.

Chameko no Ichinichi

Kori no Tatehiki (Raccoon and Fox Trick Each Other, 1933) is another fun little romp. Certainly one of the best looking Japanese cartoons of the time, it borrows heavily from the style of Fleischer cartoons. It’s a tad more polished than Tengu Taiji and offers some fun gags as the tanuki and fox one-up each other with magic tricks and transformation.

Kori no Tatehiki

Yasuji Murata offers up another folktale in the same style as Kobu Tori with his film, Umi no Mizu wa Naze Karai (Why is Sea Water Salty?, 1935). Though this film hasn’t been preserved as well as Kobu Tori, you can clearly see how much more skillful Murata became in just a few years. The animation is incredibly refined and it’s nearly impossible to tell that it’s made using paper cut-outs. The entire film shines as a story clearly told by someone who has mastered the elements of visual storytelling.

Umi no Mizu wa Naze Karai

One of the first manga characters to gain widespread popularity was Norakuro. Created by Suihou Tagawa in 1931, the manga focused on a stray dog who joined the dog army, clearly an allusion to the Imperial Japanese Army. He began his army career as a bumbling private and eventually rose through the ranks to become a less-interesting sergeant. The manga, and the cartoons it spawned, did not start out as propaganda, but as the the war began and escalated, Norakuro became an obvious choice for propaganda-tainment. This particular anime adaptation, Norakuro Nitohei (Norakuro, Private Second Class, 1935) was directed by Mitsuyo Seo.

Norakuro Nitohei

Hecks yeah! Ninjustu Hinotama Kozo: Edo no Maki (Ninja Fireball Boy: An Episode in Edo, 1935) is a one minute adventure of ninja silliness. One source claims that it is a longer cartoon truncated for personal viewing, but we’ll never know for sure because this is the only copy in existence. Everything happens so fast, it’s hard to tell what’s taking place. It definitely involves a lot of ninja magic. Please leave your idea of what the heck is going on in the comments below.

Ninjutsu Hinotama Kozo: Edo no Maki

Obake no Taiji (Monster Hunt, 1936) is another dose of serious fun. It’s a tad crummier than Kori no Tatehiki, but what it lacks in technical presentation it makes up for in creativity. It’s rather reminiscent of Fleischer Studios’ 1930 Bimbo cartoon Swing You Sinners! in that it shows a lot of imagination in its setups, character transformations, and villains.

Obake no Taiji

Forgotten Artists

Toward the end of the 1930s, most cartoons began to lean in the direction of war propaganda. That, in itself, is an interesting study, especially since the quality of Japanese animation began to approach that of Disney. Furthermore, most all the anime from this period was directed by one man, Mitsuyo Seo. He directed the first feature-length anime, Momotarou Umi no Shimpei (Momotarou: Divine Sea Warriors, 1945), which was financed by the Japanese Navy.

In 1948, the Toei Animation studio was founded and began situating itself to become the Disney of the east. It produced a good number of interesting shorts and features which had a predominant Disney aesthetic. The 1950s were an interesting decade for Japanese animation because several creative forces were taking anime in different directions, and it’s fun to imagine what anime would look like today if something other than Tezuka had succeeded in capturing Japan’s collective consciousness. However, destiny chose Osamu Tezuka as the god of manga (and by extension, anime) and no one can say he doesn’t deserve that title. Anime’s characteristic big eyes came from Tezuka’s fascination with Disney’s Bambi, and its signature character movements came from Tezuka’s plan to temporarily limit animation to cut costs, a plan that eventually became permanent and was adopted by the entire industry.

There is a good reason that most retellings of anime’s history begin with Tezuka. What we know today as “anime” started with him. However, a history of Japanese animation is not complete without Kouichi, Kitayama, Murata, Ofuji, and many others. These artists are seldom remembered though they worked exceptionally hard to compete with well-funded foreign animation. All of them succeeded in creating Japanese art in an imported foreign medium, and a few of them succeeded in turning their practical limitations into artistic assets. These artists are mostly forgotten because the influence they have on our present is much less than the ongoing influence of Osamu Tezuka. But when you watch these early anime, try to imagine the affect it had on the people in the time it was made and how important it was for them to see samurai and tengu in the same medium as Mickey Mouse. Most entertainment and art we consume today will not be remembered in a hundred years, because people in that future time won’t understand our context. But that doesn’t make our art any less important. Nothing can devalue it for us. And nothing can change how important any piece of art was for people who saw it in days gone by.

Bonus Wallpapers!

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Sources:

• The Anime Encyclopedia by Jonathan Clements & Helen McCarthy
• Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics by Frederik L. Schodt
• A Hundred Years of Japanese Film by Donald Richie
• Nishikata Film Review by Cathy Munroe Hotes
• AnimeVice.com Encyclopedia
• Antti Alanen: Film Diary
• Pioneer of Japanese Animation at PIFan by Jasper Sharp [Part 1] and [Part 2]
• Japanese Animation Filmography Project by Cathy Munroe Hotes

The Kyoto Prize was established in 1985 by Kazuo Inamori, a successful businessman and philanthropist who was inspired by the Nobel Foundation’s goal of honoring significant contributions to humanity. In developing the prize he consulted closely with the Nobel Foundation to be sure that the Kyoto Prize would complement — and not rival or attempt to overshadow—the Nobel Prize. Thus the Kyoto Prize recognizes achievements in the general fields of Advanced Technology, Basic Sciences, and Arts and Philosophy*, and the cash prizes are somewhat smaller.

When Inamori developed his philosophy for the Kyoto Prize, he wrote that:

“Those worthy of the Kyoto Prize will be people who have… worked humbly and devotedly, sparing no effort to seek perfection in their chosen professions. They will be individuals who are sensitive to their own human fallibility and who thereby hold a deeply rooted reverence for excellence. Their achievements will have contributed substantially to the cultural, scientific, and spiritual betterment of mankind. Perhaps most importantly, they will be people who have sincerely aspired through the fruits of their labors to bring true happiness to humanity.”

The contributions that the winners of the Kyoto prize have made to our world and society are too many to go over them all, at this point. But, in order to teach you more about the Kyoto Prize and the people involved with it, I’d like to tell you the story of two men: One who created the Kyoto Prize (Kazuo Inamori) and one who won it (statistician Akaike Hirotsugu). Both of these men embodied the ethos of the Kyoto Prize and coincidentally had very interesting lives.

September 1, 1939 (Beginning of World War II)

Hirotsugu:

Our story begins in 1939, with the advent of World War II. Twelve-year-old Akaike Hirotsugu, the youngest son of a silkworm farmer from Shizuoka, would soon enter the Naval Academy in Etajima, Hiroshima. His uncle was a Navy pilot.

Inamori:

Halfway across the country, in Kagoshima, seven-year-old Kazuo Inamori was in his second year of elementary school.

September 1, 1949

Hirotsugu:

Hirotsugu just barely missed the war—it ended the year before his class would graduate. It was a shock to realize they would not follow their upperclassmen into battle and death. Instead, as the Imperial Navy was disbanded and the Academy closed, the headmaster of the Naval Academy told his former students their new job was to live and focus on rebuilding their devastated country.

While reading a mathematics book that had belonged to his late uncle, Hirotsugu decided to focus on mathematics. Under the old education system, he was forced to enroll in high school and only recently graduated. He entered the Mathematics Department of the University of Tokyo.

Inamori:

Kazuo’s home was destroyed in an air raid near the end of the war, on top of which he was soon bedridden with tuberculosis. A neighbor gave him a religious book to read, which comforted him and gave him a sense of purpose. In 1949, Kazuo was still in high school. He was actually rejected from the top school in the area, and would continue to be rejected when he applied for top universities.

September 1, 1959

Hirotsugu:

At Todai, Hirotsugu disdained the heavy focus on theory and instead taught himself probability and statistics. He joined the Institute of Statistical Mathematics after graduating in 1952. His first major success called upon his roots farming silkworms to help Akinori Shimazaki find a way to continuously spin thread from multiple silkworm cocoons without leaving gaps when a cocoon ran out. His technique, called a “gap process”, helped predict when the ends of the cocoon would drop. Shimazaki was so successful in implementing this technique that he was awarded Japan’s first doctorate in sericulture (silk agriculture) engineering.

Inamori:

Kazuo graduated from the engineering department of Kagoshima University in 1955 and joined an insulator manufacturing company, but he quit last year over a disagreement with the technology director. He just started his own company, Kyoto Ceramic Ltd, at the ripe old age of 27. He would soon struggle with collective bargaining demands from his workers, and develop the company motto: 敬天愛人 (Respect the Divine and Love People).

September 1, 1969

Hirotsugu:

Early in the decade, Hirotsugu and his friends started a statistics study group for fun. While obviously a barrel of laughs, it had the added benefit of giving him industrial contacts. He recently had success developing a kiln controller for manufacturing cement. The only problem was, his partners at the factory wouldn’t leave him alone! Only a statistician could reliably choose the correct statistical models for the controller.

Hirotsugu knew he needed to come up with a standard procedure for deciding on a model, which even a non-statistician could use. But if he did so, it was inevitable that the procedure would not always give the best result. As he thought about this conundrum, he recalled his recent experiences as a visiting professor at Princeton and Stanford. “People in the US,” he would later explain, “are pragmatic in the sense that if they can get a reasonable result, they think it’s okay. So… I decided if I could produce a fairly reasonable answer, then that would be sufficient.” His development of the Final Prediction Error would allow the engineers at the cement factory to adjust their models without his help.

Inamori:

Kazuo, meanwhile, was quite busy himself. As an upstart youngster from a less than prestigious school, establishing himself in Japan had been a struggle. Like Sony and Honda before him, he turned to the USA. His first overseas business trip was in 1962, and after accepting a large order of ceramic casings for computer chips from IBM, he just established a Kyocera International office in the United States.

September 1, 1979

Hirotsugu:

At the beginning of the decade, Hirotsugu had an epiphany. On the train on his way into work, he suddenly realized that he could adapt his solution at the cement factory to pretty much all statistics everywhere**. He called this new tool An Information Criterion, or AIC, with every expectation of future generations refining the theory and developing a BIC, a DIC, and so on. Last year he created BIC (Bayesian Information Criterion) himself. This year he’s been busy studying a thermal power plant.

Inamori:

Kazuo continued to grow Kyoto Ceramics (Kyocera), which was now listed on several stock exchanges. After the Oil Crises of 1973, he convinced Panasonic (then called Matsushita Electric Industrial), Sharp Corp., and others to establish a joint venture called Japan Solar Energy Corp.

September 1, 1989

Hirotsugu:

This was the Hirotsugu’s third year as the Director General of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics. Although this kept him pretty busy, he still managed to publish an impressive amount of research.

Inamori:

Now officially called Kyocera, Kyoto Limited kept growing. Kazuo started a school for business owners called Seiwajuku in 1982, but apparently felt this was not enough. In 1984 he founded the non-profit Inamori Foundation with his own money. In consultation with the Nobel Foundation, he also established the Kyoto Prize.

In addition to all this philanthropy, Kazuo got into the cell phone business two years previous, creating a new company called DDI.

September 1, 1999

Hirotsugu:

Hirotsugu retired five years previous, and has since been working on his golf swing. Within two years he would publish an analysis of it.

Inamori:

DDI, now called KDDI, was a phenomenal success. As the leader of two multimillion dollar companies, Kazuo was considered one of the greatest businessmen to come out of the post-war era. Four years previous, he “retired” and entered the Buddhist priesthood. To no one’s surprise, however, he continued to be involved as “chairman emeritus”, and even met with the future president of China.

September 1, 2009

Hirotsugu:

In 2006, Hirotsugu Akaike—already declared Second Class Order of the Sacred Treasure—was presented with the Kyoto Prize in Mathematical Sciences for his work with AIC. Here is the text of his commemorative lecture. Among the honors he received throughout his lifetime were the Asahi Prize and the Purple Ribbon Medal, two of the highest honors in Japan. He died of pneumonia in August of 2009.

Inamori:

Kazuo established academies and research centers at Kagoshima, Kyushu, Kyoto, and Case Western Universities. He received honorary degrees from Kyushu and Case Western. This year he would receive the “Entrepreneur for the World” Award in Lyons, France.

2014

Left: Hirotsugu. Right: Inamori.

If you’ve ever studied engineering, natural, or social sciences, chances are you had to take a statistics class. And if you ever took a statistics class, you are almost guaranteed to have come across AIC (now known as Akaike’s Information Criterion). Its creator overcame severe depression in the years after WWII by watching a goldfish swim freely in a pond, and realized that “respecting [his] own and others’ lives was the basis of morality”. What do you think? Did he meet Kazuo’s criteria for the prize?

As for Kazuo, he is still alive and very active. You might argue (and some have) that it was ego, and not humanitarianism, that led him to try to create a prize equal to the Nobel. I encourage you to look him up and decide for yourself. But you should also look up this year’s Kyoto Prize winners and see if they aren’t just as worthy of honor as a Nobel laureate.

Sources:

• Akaike: Akaike, H., “A new look at the statistical model identification,” Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on , vol.19, no.6, pp.716,723, Dec 1974 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxy.libraries.smu.edu/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1100705&isnumber=24140
• Akaike, H., “Golf Swing Motion Analysis: An Experiment on the Use of Verbal Analysis in Statistical Reasoning”, Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 53, no. 1 pp. 1-10, Mar 2001
• Findley, David F., Emanuel Parzen, “A Conversation with Hirotsugu Akaike”, Statistical Science, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 104—117, Feb 1995 http://projecteuclid.org.proxy.libraries.smu.edu/euclid.ss/1177010133.
• Tong, H., “Professor Hirotsugu Akaike, 1927-2009”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), vol. 173 no. 2, pp. 451-454, Apr 2010
• Inamori: Friedman, Y. “Case studies in innovation: What enables outstanding achievements?”, Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 95-97, Apr 2010.
• http://global.kyocera.com/inamori/history/index.html
• “INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: Eyes on Higher Things And on the Bottom Line; Not the Usual Retirement Ahead For a Master of Corporate Zen.” The New York Times, April 2, 1997 , Wednesday, Late Edition – Final

*(Within these fields, one of four categories is honored on a rotating basis: Electronics, Biotechnology, Materials Science and Engineering, and Information Science for Advanced Technology; Biological Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Life Sciences for Basic Science; and Music, Arts, Theater, and Thought and Ethics for Arts and Philosophy.)

*An attempt to explain: When you measure the different factors that might help explain a particular result (for instance, calories consumed, exercise, and height might all help explain your weight), sometimes not all of the variables are important. Keeping unimportant variables in a statistical model can even make important variables seem less important than they really are. Model selection is when you analyze statistical models that use different mixes of the variables and decide which model gives the best explanation for your results. Many scientists, engineers, statisticians, and other researchers choose their model by finding the model with the lowest AIC (or its cousin, BIC).

Japanese restaurants, cleanliness, souvenir shops and the Narita Express are probably the first things that come to mind. But in fact Narita’s opening and its subsequent few decades were mired in controversy, mortars, people chaining themselves to houses and train arson. Hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself, here.

Narita’s Beginnings

Aerial Photograph of a portion of Narita Airport under-construction, 1974

Narita didn’t use to exist. In fact, for a very long time Haneda Airport (opened in 1931) was the main airport serving the Tokyo region and still beats Narita in terms of passenger numbers and number of flights in and out of it.

However, as Japan started growing at a breakneck speed in the 1950s-1960s there was a pressing need to expand airport capacity – not just because of the increase in international cargo but also because of the increasing number of jet planes in use. Haneda’s capacity was full and expanding it was considered to be nonviable given the lack of land and other problems.

Given this, the Japanese government decided to develop a second airport to serve international flights in the wider Kanto area in the 1960s. The (then) Ministry of Transport considered a number of candidate sites before settling on the Sanridzuka area of Narita City in Chiba Prefecture.

Trouble

Narita Airport and Community Historical Museum, which　exhibits the process and troubles of Narita’s development

When you want to build an airport, you need land. And the problem then was how to get it. Around 40% of the land for the airport at that time was imperial property and thus could be gained by the Japanese government. The rest was agricultural land owned by the various farmers living in the area.

They (the farmers) were infuriated with the announcement as there were no agreements with the local authorities and there was no prior explanation of the central government’s plans. Thus, the Sanrizuka-Shibayama Union to Oppose the Airport (referred to as the “Union” below), a loose coaltion of local farmers, student protesters etc., was formed.

This was originally supported by mainstream political parties such as the Japanese Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party but as the government virtually ignored the protester’s objections to the airport’s construction, the Union’s methods and ideologies became increasingly hardline. “Fight force with force” became the motto, causing mainstream parties to rescind their support. In return, however, far-left-wing radicals of the violent revolution-type joined, protesting that Narita would be a new military air-base for the US to use in the case of war with the USSR.

The government originally tried to buy over land in the area with the agreement of landowners. However, with land purchasing not going well with a significant number of landowners refusing to sell their land, the government decided in 1971 to forcefully evict the residents in the area, which is legal by Japanese law. As you can imagine this added fuel to the fire.

Violence

Old control tower of Narita Airport occupied and sabotaged by protesters

Even before the forced evictions there was violence. The riot police were first called in after a sit-in in 1967. Frequent clashes involving thousands of protesters and riot police frequently occurred. The protests became even more violent after the forced evictions – with 3 riot police members killed in a confrontation in 1971 after being ambushed by protesters (known as the Tōhō Jūjiro Incident).

Other incidents around the time include:

• One Union protest leader running for the Japanese Diet (parliament) ran on a Narita Airport opposition platform. Despite getting 330,000 votes nationwide he failed to win a seat.
• Protesters built a steel tower in the area to obstruct construction of a road to the airport.
• Numerous incidents of counter violence from security forces on protesters, including one death during the destruction of the above mentioned tower.
• The construction of a “fortress” using 100 million yen worth of donations on an area near where protesters expected planes to land. Battles between riot police with tear gas grenades and water cannons and protesters with Molotov cocktails and pachinko-ball slingshots took place when the authorities tried to clear it away.
• Arson against a Keisei Skyliner train to sabotage transport to Narita.

Perhaps the most “attention worthy” of these attempts was the occupation of the control tower (pictured above) by the protesters which involved ramming two trucks carrying waste oil through airport entrances and a “red helmet squad” infiltrating the airport vicinities overnight through sewage pipes. They succeeded in destroying the equipment of the airport control tower.

Opening of the Airport

Japanese Police on a Train near the Narita Airport

The above efforts were massively successful in getting the opening of the airport delayed; the original plans were to open Narita Airport in the early 1970s but Narita only finally opened on the 20th of May, 1978．The next day the first flight, a JAL freight flight from Los Angeles, successfully landed in Narita.

This didn’t mean that the troubles ended though. On the opening day a Union rally attracted around 22 thousand people and they declared a continuing campaign of resistance against the airport and clashes occurred between riot police and protesters. In the September of the same year, protesters even managed to hit a plane landing in Narita with fireworks. Numerous arson attempts continued against pipelines providing fuel to Narita as well as Narita-bound Keisei trains.

However, resistance activity has largely died down in the years since then. For one, the original Union failed in its ultimate quest – stopping Narita from opening. With Narita opened and the chance of its closing becoming increasingly remote the movement gradually lost steam. Furthermore, radical left-wing movements were in the decline overall by the 1980s and internal fractures split the Union movement, severely damaging its influence and credibility.

The government also started adopting a more conciliatory tone in the 1990s, starting with the holding of a symposium regarding the various issues surrounding Narita Airport, land issues and the like. This culminated in (then) Prime Minister Murayama’s apology to the affected residents in 1995. This led to a softening of stances from the remaining protesters.

Implications

“We will not forgive the confiscation of land”

It’s not all over though. The above photo is a relatively recent photo of a protest sign (the picture says it dates to 2009) and in 2008, 2 mortar cannons were found in the woods near Narita.

It is because of this that Narita has such tight and strict security – which some of you may have experienced. Police on the trains, passport and boarding pass checks for all visitors to the airport are all measures going back to the days of the protests.

The whole fiasco over Narita also caused changes in policy for the other airports in Japan. People who live in Osaka and Nagoya (as well as visitors flying into these cities) may notice that the international airports for these cities have been built on artificial islands in (to be frank) the middle of nowhere. This was a key lesson learned from Narita – instead of wrangling over land ownership with unhappy residents, it’s much easier and less of a headache to just simply build your own land and build your airport on top of it.

The Future of Narita

Nowadays most visitors using Narita probably do not know about the ruckus which Narita’s construction entailed – the strict security checks and the museum may be a few of the more obvious indicators of the prior conflicts.

Narita faces new challenges though. There is currently quite a bit of pressure on it to expand its capacity from airlines. Furthermore, Haneda Airport restarted serving international flights in 2010 – Narita is thus facing increased competition.

Furthermore, having to apply such beefy security systems has been a drag on Narita’s operations. First of all, having to hire so many people to do the security work is not cheap. Secondly, the extra security checks cause all kinds of bottlenecks. Reforms have been announced such as the introduction of CCTVs over manual checks to hopefully decrease the burden that the checks cause.

But so far Narita Airport is doing well. It’s still the number one international airport in Japan and while Haneda has more people and planes using it, Narita is the No. 1 airport in terms of freight value and even exports more than the (sea) port of Tokyo (source).

So, I hope you think about all this history the next time you fly into Narita. It’s not just an airport, it’s a place that affected thousands of people’s lives with a rocky history that didn’t calm down until relatively recently.

But how can this be? In a modern country such as Japan, shouldn’t it be a society in which one can look past another’s facial hair without judging (or firing you?). I’d like to take you on a mustache-canoe journey through the river that is the history of how facial hair functions in Japan, past and present. I’d also like to educate you on mustaches in general in Japan, just in case you end up in a heated mustache-related argument. Nobody is going to be teased about falling flattop on your facial hair on my watch.

Japanese Mustache Vocabulary

Unlike English, Japanese has only one word for each type of facial hair, excluding the eyebrows: HIGE. Lucky you! You’ve just learned how to say mustache, beard, sideburns, and whiskers in Japanese, all at once. If you found it to be more confusing than “lucky”, don’t worry, we use a different kanji for each hige: 髭 for mustache, 鬚 for cheek hair, and 髯 for the chin. Furthermore, you can also say 口髭 (kuchi-hige/mouth-hair), 頬鬚 (hoo-hige/cheek-hair), and 顎髯 (ago-hige/chin-hair), if you prefer to specify.

Just as a note, to save some word-space in this article, from here on out I’ll use “hige” to quickly refer to mustaches, beards, sideburns, (and whiskers). So, please don’t get confused whenever you see the word “hige”. Memorize the meaning right now!!!

Let’s break down the words for each HIGE style: Mustache a.k.a. kuchi-hige is facial hair grown just above the upper lip and is the most common type of hige. For this popular mustache, there are three main styles. In Japanese, the “handlebar mustache” a.k.a. the “Kaiser mustache” is カイゼル髭(kaizeru-hige), toothbrush mustache is ちょび髭 (chobi-hige), and the pencil-thin mustache is 泥鰌髭(dojou-hige).

There are other types of hige out there besides these, of course. Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting ones.

Ago-hige is the collection of facial hair grown on the chin, upper lip, lower cheeks, and neck. The most famous style of this is most likely to be the “goatee” and is translated into 山羊髯 (yagi-hige/goat hige).

This can be taken a step further, too. Nothing says “I love Japan” more than trimming the hair on your chin into the shape of Mt. Fuji. Not surprisingly, this is called 富士髯 (Fuji-hige).

Hoo-hige is facial hair grown on the sides of the face and in front of the ears. It’s not exactly the same thing as sideburns, however. In Japanese “sideburns” get separated into two different categories. (Remember, “hoo” means cheek so hoo-hige is the part of the sideburn that starts extending outward over your cheek.) The part of the sideburn that is directly beside your ear is called もみあげ(momiage). It’s difficult to distinguish exactly where momiage end and where hoo-hige begin, so some people just call them 長いもみあげ (nagai-momiage), which means “long momiage.”

Another very common hige style is the combination of the mustache and the goatee, which is called ラウンド髭 (round-hige), 囲み (kakomi), or カールおじさんの髭 (karl-ojisan-no-hige).

And finally, if you have hige that isn’t trimmed at all and just looks like messy stubble, it’s called 無精髭 (bushou-hige/laziness-hige). Additionally, the “5 o’clock shadow” is called 青髭 (ao-hige/blue-hige). As you can see, for any variation or combination of mustaches, beards, and/or sideburns, we say “hige” and use “髭.”

Japanese Mustache History

In Japan, from the medieval period to the beginning of Edo period, if you were a Samurai, you had to have hige. A Samurai without hige was made fun of. Thus, those who couldn’t grow much hige or had thin ones, such as Hideyoshi Toyotomi, used fake hige.

When the Edo shogunate entered a calm stage and became a “civilian government” called 文治政治 (bunchi-seiji), showing a fighting spirit came to be regarded as having the intention of rebelling. Since hige represents the samurai’s fighting spirit, feudal lords started shaving off their hige and left only their 髷 (mage) which is the long hair at the back of the head tied into a knot or bun. Another symbol of a samurai, the 月代 (sakayaki) which is the shaved part on the top of the head, remained during this period. This style was used until the middle of the 17th century. The government ended up banning people from having hige for the reason that hige could corrupt public morals, so all samurai had to shave off their hige, as well. They made one exception, however. People who had scars on their faces were granted permission to grow hige in order to hide their scars. Thus, Morihito Yamayoshi (a.k.a Shinpachirou Yamayoshi or Shinpachi) shaved his hige, though he doesn’t have his hige in the moe-anime game called “ChuShingura46+1”, since all Samurai characters are girls in the game.

In the second half of the 17th century, having a clean-shaven face became the standard among Japanese civilians. Meanwhile, in Hokkaido, Japan’s indigenous group called Ainu still had hige but didn’t have mage (the knot at the top of the head). Therefore, during the Edo-period, the homeland of the Ainu, 蝦夷地(Ezo-chi/Yezo), was regarded as a land of savages, in large part due to them having hige. This “hige discrimination” is considered to be one of the initial reasons that people started to harbor contempt for the Ainu.

There is also an offensive and insulting term for foreigners, 毛唐(ketou), which was created to spite foreigners with hige. 毛 means hair and 唐 means Tang Dynasty. The word 毛唐 was originally intended for Chinese people thought later it came to denote Westerners.

Speaking of Westerners, in and around the 18th century, hige became really popular in Victorian England and spread throughout Europe. That influence reached men of high status in Japan during the Meiji-era (that’s after the anti-mustache Shogunate was overthrown, 1868-1912 AD) and so they started growing their hige again. Gaishi Nagaoka, an officer at Military Staff College in Tokyo, was one of them and he grew his mustache to an astounding 70cm (27.5inch) from end to end. His mustache was called the プロペラ髭 (propeller-hige) and Nagaoka was very proud of it.

During the Taishou era (1912-1926 AD), some people still wore the toothbrush mustache or the Ronald-Coleman-like mustache called コールマン髭 (Coleman-hige). However, a new style without a mustache called MOBO (Modern Boy) became popular and the hige fever cooled down all the way until the militaristic Shouwa era (1926–1989) when the hige-boom came back (but didn’t last that long). After the wars, safety razors spread around the country and shaving hige became the respectable, and respectful, style for salarymen all through the post-war reconstruction period.

Hige In The Contemporary Japan

Nowadays, though the trendiness of hige is gradually increasing, even to the point that there is now a popular Hige Dance, there are still far more clean-shaven Japanese men than those with hige. I guess it’s because the old “Hige=Bad” mentality still lingers in many minds.

Across Japan, a general rule of employment stipulates that you must not have hige. This is particularly evident in the following industries: banking, investment, insurance, railway, airline, bus, taxi, retail, restaurant, and hotel. Companies make such rules because the firing, suspension of, demotion of a person, or reducing their salary for having hige is an infringement on personal rights. An employee must be given fair warning that having hige is against company policy.

In fact, some incidents have even gone all the way to the court system. For example, a postman named Noboru Nakamura had to hire a lawyer to fight for the right to keep his hige against Japan Post’s 2004 grooming regulation. Nakamura wasn’t the only postman who felt troubled by the regulation. Another postman named Hideki Shiba brought his case against Japan Post to court and won because the regulation was introduced after he had started working there. A taxi driver won his case that he took to court, as well. Those cases (裁判/saiban) are called 髭裁判（hige-saiban).

This means one very simple thing: it’s very possible to get fired for having facial hair. Oh, and don’t forget to lawyer up.

It all sounds far too serious for something as little (and natural) has hige, but as the saying たかが髭、されど髭 (takaga hige, saredo hige) goes, “it’s just hige, but it could be very important, as well”. And indeed it can be. As I am a female, I don’t understand how men feel about their hige. If I found a thick hige on my face, I’d remove it immediately. However, while writing this article I’ve learned about how difficult it was to have hige from a historical context. I’ve also learned how important hige can be for some men, and I’d like to learn more. I’d love to hear the passionate opinions of the “Hige-man”. I guess we all want to, so keep an eye out for the next article in which I interview a Japanese salary man with a doozie of a mustache. What made him start growing his mustache? Did he need to fight his boss in order to keep it? It’s him against society. You don’t want to miss it!

Bonus Wallpapers!

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How Did Chocolate Start?

Chocolate was first consumed by various civilizations in South America who would take the cacao beans to make a warm drink called ”chocolatl”, which means “warm liquid”. When Hernando Cortez encountered the Aztecs, he brought it back to Spain where sugar was added along with other spices. The first solid chocolate was sold in 1847 in England, and milk chocolate was conceived in Sweden about 30 years later.

Chocolate has taken over the world since, and is known for its addicting, love-inspiring wonder. It took a while for it to get to Japan, however.

“Give Me Chocolate!”- The Reception

Japan had a few encounters with chocolate before they ended their isolation period. One of the few groups of people allowed into the country were Dutch, and sometimes brought the chocolate drink that had become popular among high-end people in Europe.  The first solid bar of chocolate sold in Japan is said to have been in the Meiji era, and was marketed as チョコレート , but with the kanji 貯古齢糖. Interestingly, those kanji individually mean “save”, “old”, “age”, and “sugar”. I think it kind of fits.

Chocolate started really being consumed during the occupation, when American soldiers would often throw candy to groups of Japanese children. Because of this, at this time one of the first English phrases that was learned and used by Japanese children was “Give me chocolate!”

So chocolate as it is today became mass produced after the occupation time. That means it is much newer to Japan than compared to the Americas or Europe. So what has been done in that little time?

So What’s The Spin?

There’s just something about Japanese chocolate that makes it unique. Is it the fact that each bite-sized piece is individually pre-cut or wrapped? Is it the fact that milk chocolate sometimes has a little bit of hazelnut flavor added to it? Is it the fact that it has a more creamy, melty, chocolatey taste? Who knows.

One of the biggest selling points of Japanese chocolate, though, is the sheer variety of flavors. Technically, many of them don’t actually count as chocolate because they don’t have cacao in them. However, popular definition deems them still chocolate, and the multitude of types and flavors is awe-inspiring.

One thing that Japan likes doing with any sort of product or marketing is regional limited editions. One fantastic example of this is Kit Kat, where there have been over 200 and counting various flavors. Ever wanted to try a wasabi-flavored Kit Kat? What about strawberry shortcake? Soy sauce? My favorite is the sweet-potato flavored one. Back in my exchange student days, I would buy a sweet potato flavored Kit Kat bar almost every day in the fall from the convenience store attached to the train station near my school. I was addicted.

Another delicious regional chocolate is Meltykiss. Meltykiss usually appears around winter, and is a delicious melty, rich, creamy chocolate. Think like the inside of a truffle. Meltykiss also comes in a good variety of flavors including green tea, strawberry, and milk tea.

Other delicious spins include chocoballs (literally just balls of chocolate), Koala no march, and the ever-famous Pocky. Which one is your favorite?

The Big Five

In Japan, there are five distinct mainstream snack brands: Lotte, Meiji, Morinaga, Ezaki Glico, and Fujiya. All have their own gimmicks and different delicious types of chocolates. Think of them like the Hershey’s, Nestle’s, and Mars of Japan.

In this clip from the TV show Gaki no Tsukai, the members of the show do a blind test of different kinds of chocolate bars. They have a hard time distinguishing between them. Would you?

Which Japanese chocolate brand is your favorite? Mine is kind of a tie between Meiji (after all, according to their commercials, chocolate IS Meiji) and Dars.

Chocolate and Valentine’s Day

In Japan, Valentine’s Day has sort of turned into “chocolate day”. When the holiday first became popular, it was known as a day when girls confessed their love to a boy by giving him chocolate. But somewhere throughout the past thirty years or so, girls must have said “why don’t we get any chocolate?”, and now chocolate is given to everyone and by everyone. I mean, think of it in this example: Nao made homemade namachoco for her friends Naho and Rumi, but it would be rude to just give it to those two, so she has to make enough for all of her female classmates. And then, what about her best friends in other classes? And club-mates?

To mend this problem of chocolate-hoarding, often on Valentine’s day you’ll see girls walking around with a big bag full of chocolates to give to every single person who is her friend (those chocolates are called tomo-choko [friend-chocolate]) and anyone she feels obligated to give chocolate to (giri-choko [obligation-chocolate]). To read more about this, check out Koichi’s old post about Valentine’s Day in Japan.

Other than plain chocolate, making chocolate truffles, cookies, or decoration chocolates are all well-received and can be fun to make. On the Valentine’s Day that I spent in Japan, I remember eating chocolate throughout the day, kind of like how I did in America, but this time it was mostly home-made and hand-wrapped.

If you know that you’re receiving tomo-choko, consider yourself lucky! Especially if you didn’t give anything back. But don’t worry if you forgot, you can always repay the person who gave you chocolate by giving them a present back a month later on White Day, March 14th.

Japanese Chocolate Creativity

Anything in the world is just a canvas for art, right? Well it is to these creative chocolate artists:

Want to prank someone into thinking that you’re giving them sushi, takoyaki, or much-loved natto? Well, there’s chocolate for that. Imagine their face when they open up the natto wrapper to find, ew, chocolate instead of their favorite food of smelly fermented soybeans.

Or make an iPhone out of chocolate!

These adorable girls can teach you how to make a chocolate cake in a rice cooker. Ghana seems to be the chocolate of choice when it comes to cooking and baking.

As you can see, chocolate is loved and used in Japan just as much as the rest of the world. What other kinds of creative ways do you think people can use chocolate in?

Can’t Get Enough?

If this post has left you drooling for chocolate (I scream, you scream, we all scream for chocolate ice cream!), here’s a few Japanese chocolate-inspired songs to curb (or inflame) your desire for chocolate, so you can even think about chocolate when you’re out and about!

Chocolate Disco by Perfume

Bitter Chocolate by SCANDAL

So what is Japan’s relationship with chocolate? I’d say that Japan is just as crazy about chocolate as any other country. Although their consumption rates are lower than most European countries and the US, when you take into account how much later it was introduced to the country, they could be catching up! Better chocolate than never!

So what do you think of Japanese chocolate? Or chocolate in general? Let me know in the comments!

Bonus Wallpapers

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Chinese Origins

China has been using chopsticks since 1200 BC, maybe even earlier. The first known sets were made of bronze and were mainly used for cooking as they were handy for reaching into boiling pots of oil or water. It wasn’t until 400 AD that people started eating with the things and then by 500 AD or so, chopsticks had spread all over Asia.

China also experienced a population boom around this time which forced folks to start pinching pennies (or yuan, if you prefer). Chinese people started using chopsticks because with more people there was less fuel, and with less fuel there was less fire. In order to cook things more quickly, people would cut their food up into smaller pieces to cook them faster. Can you guess what was just perfect for picking up smaller pieces of food? That’s right – the chopstick.

Since food was more or less already bite sized at this point, knives started to serve much less of a purpose at the dinner table. Confucius also played a part in the popularization of chopsticks as an eating utensil in China. Confucius believed that sharp utensils like knives had no place at the dinner table. He thought that knives represented things like violence and warfare which did not go along with the feeling of joy and contentment he believed should be present at every meal.

Chopsticks In Japan

So chopsticks in China really got popular around 500 AD. How long did the chopstick craze take to get to Japan? Well, the oldest official records of chopsticks being used in Japan is from the Kojiki, written in 712AD, but they probably made it over there even sooner than that. Chinese culture made its way over to Japan through Korea earlier than that, and the chopsticks were sure to have been one of the things that made it over.

In the beginning, chopsticks were only used in Japanese ceremonies. These early Japanese chopsticks were made from bamboo and were joined at the top, kind of like those “trainer” chopsticks you see today.

Gradually these chopsticks made their way into the home and became used for eating on a regular basis. The first recorded instances of separated chopsticks being used for normal eating don’t show up until 10th century Japan, but like before, people were probably doing this for a long time in some areas before someone thought it was a good idea to actually write down “Hey guys, we’re using chopsticks to eat with now, k?”

Japanese Chopsticks Vs. The World’s

From top to bottom: Plastic chopsticks from Taiwan, porcelain chopsticks from mainland China, bamboo chopsticks from Tibet, Vietnamese style palmwood chopsticks from Indonesia, stainless flat chopsticks from Korea with spoon, a Japanese couple’s set, Japanese child’s chopsticks, and disposables

Did you know that not all chopsticks are alike? There are distinct differences between Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese chopsticks.

Japanese chopsticks are usually shorter than other chopsticks and taper to a fine point. They are traditionally made of bamboo or wood and are often lacquered. Japanese chopsticks also come in kid sizes and woman sizes which are even shorter than standard sizes. Bento sized chopsticks, which fit inside of bento boxes, can also be quite short and sometimes made of colorful plastic.

In Korea, chopsticks are a medium length with a flat rectangular shape. They are traditionally made from brass or silver and are used simultaneously with a spoon.

Chinese chopsticks are longer and thicker than both Japanese and Korean chopsticks. They have squared or rounded sides and end in blunt, flat tips. They can be made from many materials but are most commonly made from melamine plastic or lacquered bamboo.

Vietnamese chopsticks are usually longer than most. These chopsticks taper to a blunt point like Chinese ones and are traditionally made from lacquered wood or bamboo.

In Japan, the lacquered wood tradition started in the 17th century. The extravagant had their chopsticks made from jade, gold, ivory, or silver. Speaking of fancy, if you want a nice set of chopsticks to go with your fine tableware, Kyoto is considered the center of chopstick design. In terms of production, 85% of the country’s chopsticks are made in nearby Obama, Fukui Prefecture.

But it’s not all fancy pants chopsticks in Japan. In 1878, Japan produced the world’s first disposable chopsticks, and today China and Japan use the majority of them. China is responsible for using 45 billion disposable chopsticks a year. Japan is about half of that at 24 billion.

A lot of deforestation has been linked to disposable chopsticks, so hopefully something here changes soon. You do see a lot more “bring your own chopsticks” holders on sale in Japan these days. They’re kind of like travel toothbrush holders, but instead of a toothbrush, you have chopsticks. Still, that might not be enough so I hope people become more aware. Tell all your friends!

How to Use Chopsticks in Japan

Different countries have different rules for chopstick etiquette, so if you want to impress people with your chopstick skills and knowledge in Japan, here’s what you need to know.

• You should hold your chopsticks towards their back end, not in the middle or the front third. “Choking up” on your chopsticks is a surefire way to look like a noob.
• You also shouldn’t spear food with your chopsticks, point or wave them around, or move bowls around with them. I feel like lots of people do this anyway though, even native Japanese people.
• To separate a larger piece of food, you’d exert controlled pressure on the chopsticks while moving them apart from each other. Controlled pressure is the important part. You don’t want to end up flicking your food halfway across the room.
• Food should not be directly transferred from your chopsticks to someone else’s. Transferring directly with chopsticks is how bones are passed as part of Japanese funeral rites, so it’s not viewed as good practice at the dinner table. Unless you’re a cannibal, then maybe it’s okay. Maybe.
• Chopsticks also shouldn’t be crossed on a table, as this symbolizes death, or vertically stuck in the rice, which is another funeral practice. See how these manners relate back to chopsticks that were originally only used in Japanese ceremonies?
• The pointed ends of the chopsticks should be placed on a chopstick rest when they’re not being used. If a chopstick rest is not available and you’re using disposable chopsticks, you can make a chopstick rest by folding the paper sleeve they came in. You could also rest it on a plate or lay it on top of a bowl. Just don’t stab it into anything!
• Chopsticks should be placed horizontally with the tips on the left. Any other orientation would make you look like a hooligan.

If you’ve been to Japan before, I’m sure you will have noticed that not everyone commonly adheres to all of these chopstick rules (I’ve seen it happen plenty of times), but I think they’re good to be aware of just in case you find yourself in a super formal chopstick using situation. Wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself!

Speaking of embarrassing yourself, for some good tips on how not to do this, I’d recommend checking out our guide on How to Save Yourself from Embarrassment in Japan and How to be a Baka Gaijin while Eating. You’ll learn a lot, I promise.

Modern Iterations

Chopsticks have had quite the journey. But it’s not over yet! Chopsticks are always evolving and changing even though the basic purpose remains the same. Check out some of these modern iterations.

Always find yourself needing chopsticks when there are none to be found? Store some in your glasses! Problem solved!

Don’t wear glasses? No problem! Store these collapsible chopsticks in your bag or pocket!

Remember those “trainer” chopsticks that were mentioned before? Well here’s an example of what some of those look like. Cute, huh?

So, are you a chopstick master? Do you remember what it was like the first time you used chopsticks? When I was growing up I used to always eat rice and pasta dishes with chopsticks because I thought it was cool. Luckily this helped me not embarrass myself while at Asian restaurants and while studying abroad in Japan. I was prepared.

Have any interesting chopstick related stories? Share them in the comments!

Bonus Wallpapers!

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Sites Referenced:
Wikipedia.com
History.com