Perhaps all writers love paper — it's in our fiber, so to speak — and when it comes to paper, Japanese washi rules. So, off I head to Ozu Washi store in central Tokyo's Chuo Ward to take a class in how to make it.
At JR Sobu Line's Shin-Nihonbashi Station, I take the East Exit and spy Ozu across busy Showa-dori avenue. Threading the tunnel underpass, I note cardboard boxes reserving sleeping space for the homeless, and reflect on the oxymoronic quality of paper: its fragile strength.
Early for the class, I decide to explore the neighborhood, and just around the corner from Ozu I discover a monument to the well used by a 17th-century household maid named Otake. The legend goes that priests traveling from the far northern mountains of Yamagata in 1640 came to Edo (the old name for Tokyo) to search for an incarnation of Buddha. When they saw Otake at the well, collecting stray grains of the rice that had been washed there, and learned that she often gave her own food to small animals and wasted nothing, they pronounced her the Buddha they had sought, Otake Dainichi Nyorai.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.