In this way, I came to Utsunomiya.

As for how I got here, it's too much trouble to write. Please allow me to omit it willfully.

In short, I will work and live here for the next year, and slowly feel and experience it in this city where people live an "urban and rural life", so that it will become a part of my life.

Utsunomiya is the seat of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan (Japan's county is equivalent to China's province), which is located in the south of the middle of the whole county. But today I'm going to write about another place (just so capricious. Cover your face), located in the southeast corner of the county.

after I decided to work in Tochigi Prefecture, I began to look up information and wanted to know more about this place. There are the most delicious strawberries in Japan, the production scale of dairy products second only to Hokkaido, 47 wine stores that brew Japanese wine with distinctive personality, rich historical and cultural landscapes and beautiful natural scenery such as Nikko Toshogu, Zhongchan Temple Lake and Guinuchuan Hot Spring, and various traditional handicrafts represented by Yizi Shao.

Perhaps it is because I have always had a strong feeling for traditional handicrafts and craftsmen, so when my Japanese colleague M Jun asked me which places I would like to visit most in the county, I blurted out: Make a place to burn Yizi!

So, on the weekend before the May Day Golden Week, Mr. M drove me to Yizi Town, the birthplace of Yizi Burning, to experience the leading pottery market in kanto region in terms of scale and fame.

Yizi Pottery Market

Yizi Pottery Market will be held once a year during the May 1 Golden Week (spring market) and around November 3 (autumn market) as usual. The first fair can be traced back to the 41st year of Showa (1966), and this is the 99th fair this spring.

In addition to more than 5 local shops, there are about 5 tents in the market, which are distributed on both sides of the streets. The pottery sold ranges from traditional Yi Zi to coffee cups, plates and other daily necessities, and there are even exhibitions of arts and crafts.

In addition to pottery, there are all kinds of food stalls in local snacks. People can eat while shopping, or they can find a stall to sit down and have a comfortable rest while feasting. It is said that about 6, people come to Yizi Town to visit the pottery market every spring and autumn, and the TV station will report it as a national event. It is the most famous pottery market in kanto region!

this time we came to the spring fair (April 29-May 7). It takes about an hour to drive from Utsunomiya to Yoshiko-machi.

after entering yizi town, I found that there was no one on the road, and even cars were rare. I couldn't help asking M Jun, "Why is there no one?" Is the whole city out to go to the market? "

Mr. M was silent for a second and said, "There are no people at ordinary times."

"ah ha ha ha" is so cold. How can I answer the phone?

Mr. M is an honest young man. What's wrong with telling the truth? Blame me me for asking strange questions. From a country with a sea of people to a small town with a permanent population of only 25,, I naturally feel that there are few people on the street.

by the way, Mr. M is Capricorn, which is a constellation famous for his poisonous tongue, dark belly, cold humor, over-thinking and frequent negative emotions.

Since we are going to visit the market where Yizi is burning, we should learn about the history of pottery development here. Next, let's review the past and talk about the two most important figures in the development history of Yizi Burning.

Keizaburo Otsuka

The history of Yizi's pottery production can be traced back to the Nara era, but the present artistic style of "Yizi Burning" did not appear until the Edo era. It was founded by Keisaburo Otsuka in the 6th year of Jiayong (1853).

kaisaburo was born in the 11th year of wenzheng (1828) in fushou village (now maomu town, fanghe county, Tochigi prefecture), and is the second son of Jiro Yamayama. When I was a teenager, I went to the Ciyan Temple in Fengtai Courtyard, which is located in the black field of Changlu Guoxiang (today's Daijian, Ibaraki Prefecture), to worship the 21st Zhou Xiongshan as a teacher, and I was taken to visit Jiuye Kiln in Daijian by my master at random, so I learned how to make pottery.

Later, Kai Saburo went to Heibee's house in Otsuka, Yizi, to work as a door-to-door son-in-law, and accidentally found that the soil in Otsukawa was very suitable for making pottery, so he tried to make pottery between farm work. Gradually, I became more confident, so I set up a kiln near my house to burn pottery.

however-the interesting thing came-but it was stopped by Francisco on the grounds that it might cause a fire (forgive me for laughing). However, later, in order to revitalize the local industry, Kuroha Francisco gave Kai Saburo the land of Nekoya, and allowed him to build kilns and burn pottery here. Yizi pottery industry started from this. That year was the sixth year of Jiayong (1853), and Otsuka Keisaburo was 26 years old. Fortunately, Kuroha San Francisco later changed his mind, otherwise there might not be today's Yoshiko burning. Keisaburo Otsuka was also called the "local great man" of Tochigi Prefecture by the later Buddha.

at first, yoshiko mainly produced daily necessities such as pottery jars, pots and pots. Coupled with the huge consumer market close to Edo, these daily necessities produced by Yoshiko just meet the needs of Edo people's lives. In this way, Yizi developed into the leading pottery producing area in Kanto.

Shoji Hamada

Keizaburo Otsuka started the pottery industry in Yizi, and Shoji Hamada gave Yizi an artistic side.

Shoji Hamada (1894-1978) was born in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture in 1894. In 1913, he was admitted to the Kiln Department of Tokyo Higher Institute of Technology (now tokyo institute of technology) and became close friends with Kawai Kanjiro. After graduation, I joined Kawai to work in Kyoto Ceramic Test Site to study glaze medicine.

I went to Chiba Prefecture in 1919, and my grandson (my grandson is a place name! Stop laughing! ) Liu Zhai met Liu Zongyue when he visited Bernard Howell Leach, a British ceramist. The following year, Hamada and Bernard went to England together and started their creative life in St Ives, Cornwall. He held a solo exhibition in London in 1923 and it was a success.

After learning the news of the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan, he returned to Japan in 1924 and introduced Liu Zongyue to Kawai at his home in Kanjiro, Kyoto. In the same year, in order to find a place to take root in creation, I moved to Yizi. After that, he went to study in Okuya Kiln in Okinawa for a period of time. Since 193, Hamada has started his creative career in Zaiyizi.

During this period, he also launched the "Folk Art Movement" with Liu Zongyue, Kawai Kanjiro and others. Folk art is the abbreviation of "popular craft", which is popular handicraft. They dig out the real "beauty" from the daily groceries, utensils, daily necessities and other popular handicrafts made by unknown craftsmen all over Japan, and try their best to popularize this "beauty of use" to the world.

His works are natural, simple and full of vitality. He made good use of techniques such as hanging, red painting and salt glaze, and created a unique pattern called "Millet Text". I like his works very much. The atmosphere of Gu Zhuo seems to smell the fresh breath of forest, paddy field and soil.

Hamada himself once said, "I found my way in Kyoto, started in England, studied in Okinawa and grew up in Yoshiko."

In 1955, Shoji Hamada was designated as "the national treasure of the world" (the inheritor of the first intangible cultural heritage).

The folk art movement promoted by Hamada and others had a great influence on the local potters in Yizi, and Yizi Shao has the characteristics of "art" since then. In Yoshiko, there is a Yoshiko Reference Hall built in memory of Hamada, which displays the ceramic works collected by Hamada from all over the world.

yoshiko is proud of him.