A Call from My Uncle Led Me Back to the Familiar World of Japanese Umbrellas

Please tell us how you came to walk the path of a Japanese umbrella craftsman, Kawai.

My maternal family ran a Japanese umbrella wholesaler, and my mother worked there in accounting, so I'd often spend weekends and summer vacations there until I was about a primary school student.

At that time, my grandmother also worked as an umbrella craftsman. I always admired her. From the office where my mother worked, I could see her workspace, and during the summer, I would watch her work on the umbrellas almost every day.

Occasionally, I'd see her demonstrating umbrella-making at department store events. Watching her calmly work in front of a large audience, I thought she was really cool.

However, in junior high, I got busy with club activities and stopped going to the store. I graduated high school, went on to university, and then started working in a field unrelated to Japanese umbrellas in Tokyo.

Initially, I worked at an advertising agency creating flyers for home centers and drugstores. But this job would often keep me working until 2 or 3 AM before the printing deadline, so I thought, "I can't keep doing this."

So, I returned to Gifu. Since I had a bookkeeping qualification, I got a job in accounting at a tax accountant's office. A few years later, when I was about 27 or 28, my uncle, who ran a Japanese umbrella company, mentioned he needed help due to lack of manpower, so I joined his company. That's how I got back into the world of Japanese umbrellas.

Having been familiar with them since childhood, I had the mindset of wanting to help out if I could.

How did you proceed on the path to becoming a Japanese umbrella craftsman?

After joining my uncle's company, I started by checking the umbrellas for any damages, gradually learning more and more tasks. Since the company had a division of labor system with craftsmen handling each step, and many of them were elderly, I figured I'd better familiarize myself with the whole process so we wouldn't be in trouble when there was no one left to do the work.

Learning to make Japanese umbrellas wasn't something I was taught hand-in-hand. Instead, they showed me how to do a task once, and I had to remember it through practice. It was quite demanding to allocate practice time after work.

Since there weren't any umbrellas specifically for practice, the ones that turned out well were sold as products, while the imperfect ones were sold as seconds. I think it took about six months to a year before I saw the umbrellas I made being sold at the store.

That process went a bit quicker for me because, as a child, I spent every weekend at the umbrella shop playing with the craftsmen and watching various tasks. I sort of remembered the hand movements, and that experience became the foundation for my work.