Regarding Tomoko Otake's Oct. 19 article, "Showa-ing it like it was": What a beautiful article on a terrific idea. Memorabilia owner Hironobu Komiya is anticipating what anthropologists and historians of the future will want to find in order to write properly about the Showa Era (1926-1989). Komiya is skirting into the beautiful mingei (folkcraft) movement's philosophy.
We, too, are "packrats"; only what we rescue is what many Japanese Americans consider "junk" accumulated by their parents and grandparents: a scratched kokeshi (wooden doll); a not too-perfect vase; an onsen souvenir; a mingei toy; and books.
SOMEONE has to have a heart not to let all that beauty just go to the dump. It's a bitter-sweet experience to see how some of that "junk" may command hefty prices among collectors at a formal auction. So three banzai for Komiya. Future historians will bless his pack-ratting (and hopefully ours too!).
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