Bonus episode: Mindfulness through craft (Uncut). The Asian mental health podcast

As promised, here is the unabridged version of the documentary that Oscar made during his travel through Japan. He dives deeper into the Eastern philosophies behind Fukumitsu’s calligraphy practice and discovers a fascinating link between art, language, nature and mental wellbeing.

The transcript is available below.

Help destigmatise mental health conversations in Asian communities by downloading this episode on your favourite app and sharing it with your friends and family.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas about Asian mental health. Find us online at ⁠@justshapesandsounds⁠ or ⁠justshapesandsounds.com⁠

English voiceovers provided by Kim Brockett, Vivan Vo, Junxin Peng and Yeo Choong.

This podcast is supported by the Victorian Department of Health via the Diverse Communities Program. All information provided is general information only and should not be used in lieu of professional advice.

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Transcript

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Hi everyone. Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about sexual harassment. If you’re not feeling ready for this, skip to another episode or come back at another time.

MX IN - 2.23AM

Oscar here from Shapes and Sounds. I’m an engineering student who’s also interested in making things and anything creative. For me, crafts like sewing and making clothes are a reliable way for me to express myself. In terms of mental health, making stuff always helps me decompress, and I feel a sense of satisfaction in moving concepts to reality. 

But I wanted to dig deeper into the practices of craftspeople in Japan and find out whether there’s a link to mindfulness in their everyday lives. From the physicality of indigo dyeing to the patience and focus required in ornate wood joinery, I’m often wondering if making something of such high quality requires a meditative mindset.

So I decided that on my next trip to Japan, I’d reach out to a few artisans for a chat, to get a better sense of it all. I wanted to talk to them about their work, their lifestyle, and their mental health, and see how it’s all interconnected. You’re listening to the Asian Mental Health Podcast, and this is my mini-documentary on mindfulness through craft.

MX out

Family Mart SFX

Oscar: I’m picking up a snack at a convenience store in a small town in rural Ishikawa prefecture called Yamanaka Onsen. This place is famous for its onsen, its hot springs… which may have contributed to why I’ve come here.

If you’ve ever been to a Japanese restaurant and eaten food out of shiny red or black ornate bowls that are mysteriously lightweight, then you’ve eaten from crockery known as lacquerware. You may be surprised to know that lacquerware is actually made of sculpted wood. The sap of a rare tree called an urushi tree is laboriously harvested and applied many times to the wood, creating a luxurious and uniform finish.

It takes 10 years for the tree to mature, only to harvest just 200mL of sap, equivalent to a small latte.

SFX Transport (train)

Oscar: So I’m booked in for a lacquerware bowl carving lesson at 10:30, but I got lucky enough to convince the person who runs these lessons to do an interview with me. I’ve arrived a bit early because you don’t wanna be late for anything in Japan.

SFX Generic street atmos

The shop sits on the corner of the tangled back streets nearby the main attraction of the town… the onsen. The building’s facade is made from charred wood. It’s both a practical and stylistic decision. Charred wood is more water-resistant and the end result is dark, brooding and elegant.

Through the open window, I can see into a dense but well-organised workshop.

SFX Generic street atmos

Oscar: To be honest I'm pretty nervous as it's my first solo interview aaaand it’s in Japanese. 😬

I step inside the front door and I’m greeted by Sato, a serious but calm-looking man with a long braided pony tail poking out of his red beret. He’s wearing a denim apron covered in sawdust. Since the window is open, the air feels fresh and you can hear traffic from the street. Using my rusty Japanese, I make sure it’s okay to start recording and ask him to introduce himself.

Sato: I’m Sato Yuuji, and I’m what’s known as a kijishi, which is essentially a woodturner–some one who shapes the wood before it gets finished with lacquer. I’m maybe the youngest of around 40 kijishi in the town. I’m originally from Osaka. While studying furniture design, I worked at a soba restaurant and became fascinated by the lacquerware they used to serve meals. I wanted to learn how to make lacquerware. That’s why I came to Yamanaka Onsen. This town is known for this craft. Here you’ll find the best skills, talent and the most jobs in the lacquerware trade. This town’s lacquerware-making tradition is almost 400 years old.

I ask Sato to see how bowls are made and he leads me into the workshop.

Oscar: There are so many bowls in this workshop. Like they’re all neatly stacked on the shelves but they reach the ceiling.

SFX moving to workshop

I watch Sato demonstrate the woodturning process. He starts with a cylindrical chunk of dry wood which he mounts on a lathe. A lathe is a machine that spins said chunk of wood on a horizontal axis, that’s my engineering skills right there. As the wood spins, he gradually shaves it into a desired shape using various instruments. He then smooths the surface with sandpaper.

SFX Sato demonstrates carving

I ask Sato what he thinks about when he’s carving bowls.

Sato: Perhaps I’m not thinking about anything in particular when I’m carving. Sometimes I have to make 100 to 200 identical pieces at a time, so I start to use muscle memory. There’s no use in concentrating too hard. 

Oscar: Zen is an ancient form of Buddhism that emphasises the practice of meditation in order to awaken one's inner nature. That’s a pretty short but butchered explanation. I ask Sato if maybe his experience is something akin to zen.

Sato: It might be close to zen. Yes. It's probably close to being zen in that you do the same thing over and over again. My favourite part of the process is imagining a shape and trying to figure out how to achieve that shape before starting the trial and error process of physically carving the wood. I’m more of an intuitive worker. I figure out the process while carving rather than making heaps of drawings and writing everything down. It’s kind of like how there are musicians who play well but can’t read sheet music, and musicians that can only perform well with sheet music.

Oscar: At this point, we’re interrupted by a cute toddler asking if this is an onsen. Sato apologises and tells him that there isn’t any onsen here, and we continue to talk about his journey.

Sato: I used to hate my work, but then I came to love it. For example, I made my carving tools from scratch. On reflection, maybe this process of learning is what kept me going. My parents were initially opposed to the pathway, but now I’m on TV, in magazines and I’m making money. They eventually came to understand my choices. I don’t blame them, they don’t know much about this world.

I know heaps of people who can relate to Sato’s experience of having his career choice misunderstood by his parents. He goes on to explain how he envisions himself in a world that his parents don’t know much about.

Sato: A craftsperson is someone who can make the same thing every day. Hundreds of the same thing, every day without hesitation. If anything, I'm not a serious craftsperson; I'm a person who runs a shop, conducts workshops, and other various things, so it's a bit different to what’s considered a real craftsperson.

I realise that I had brought a sort of generalised understanding of craftspeople as artists. But Sato suggest otherwise, insisting on the clear definition of the two, and emphasising the stoic nature of craft: making things for functional purposes, like for income and putting food on the table

Sato: People say they feel like craftsmen are artists, but really craftsmen are craftsmen and artists are artists. I've also attended art universities, so I still want to express myself.

I understand craftsmen, and I want the technical skills they have, and the mindset. I feel like I want to express myself within that.

All things considered, I think I’m different from both artists and craftsmen. I mean if I really had to choose, I would be closer to an artist. In a certain way, I am an expressionist. That’s how I feel. 

Initially, I assumed that Sato would see himself as more of an artist, so it’s surprising that he actually thinks that he sits somewhere in between. I ask him about how his work impacts his life.

Sato: My work and my life are really close and hard to separate in a distinct way. There was an old folk artist called Kawai Kanjiro who once said “life is work, and work is life”, or something like that. It’s a quote that resonated with many people at the time. I like that quote, because for me, working is simply part of life. And I like my job.

In Western wellness culture, I hear a lot of rhetoric around separating your work life from your personal life. In contrast, Sato sees both things enmeshed as one, and it seems to simplify his life, making it easier for him to maintain his mental wellbeing.

There’s one thing Sato says that really sticks with me.

Sato: I want to spend as much time as I can interacting with the wood. In the process, my feelings come out and influence how I shape the wood. I don’t think about it much, it just happens.

Oscar: I kinda hope to get a taste of what Sato is talking about when he’s carving wooden bowls–not thinking too much and letting my feelings shape the wood. Conveniently for me, it’s time for my bowl carving lesson! 

SFX Oscar bowl carving

After I finish carving my bowl, I stamp my name on it. I give my thanks to Sato and say goodbye. This last little bit felt like it happened really quickly.

Oscar: Wow. Happy with how that went. That was my first interview done! And I got to make a bowl. Chuffed.

My bowl isn’t perfect. Woodturning is fascinating and elusive. The harder I tried to shape the wood a certain way, the more it reacted unpredictably. I can see how you’d get addicted to it–improving your skills, working with your hands to shape a tangible object, and moving slowly towards achieving your vision. These are all things I like about making clothes too. 

SFX - river - Oscar walks to museum

Woodturning is only the first part of the process of making lacquerware. An application of lacquer is still needed to achieve that famously smooth, buttery finish. To find out more about this process, I went for a walk to the local museum.

Oscar: So there are two floors, upstairs and downstairs. Downstairs has plates, sake cups and chopsticks that were all made with newer techniques, and upstairs where I am now has a lot of original traditional stuff. Oh, someone’s coming to talk to me…

Oscar: It’s upstairs where a lady approaches me while carrying a baby on her back. She says hello and introduces herself as the head craftsman’s wife and co-owner of the museum. 

While rocking the baby, she shows me an enormous gleaming red plate, almost the size of a hula hoop. “This costs over $10 000”, she says. “Trees like this don’t exist anymore.”

She leads me to a room where two older women are cleaning a stack of brown lacquerware plates, each scrubbing one at a time. It’s here I meet the head craftsman, the other owner of the museum.

Headcraftsman: It takes 10 years to become an independent wood carver without your master,
and another 10 years to learn the underlaying, and then another 10 to become a lacquer painter.

A 10 year apprenticeship seems like a long time! I reckon you could do anything for 10 years and you’d become pretty good at it– but try 30 years to get the entire process down from start to finish. It sounds like hard work, but perhaps it requires something more like patience instead.

The people at the museum tell me about their own experiences. Here’s the wife of the head craftsman and co-owner…

Co-owner: If your podcast is about office workers that don’t want to go to work because they’re stressed, you won't find those people here.

One of the old ladies who is scrubbing plates shares her thoughts.

Worker: I get to work at my own pace most of the time. If sometimes we have to push beyond our own abilities, someone might take a day off. So it’s actually a pretty good place to work.

While I do think everyone was being sincere, it is interesting to note that we were all having this conversation in the same room–the employees and the owners of the business. If anyone was being careful with their words, I’ll never know for sure.

MX in - 湖面のワルツ

Upon leaving the museum, I’d witnessed a plot twist. Making lacquerware felt like more of a job than an art, and everyone seemed accepting of that. There’s a difference in the extent in which we all pursue things–me occasionally making clothes in my spare time, and Sato carving 200 bowls to fulfill an order. The thing Sato, the lacquer-ladies and I do share is that we all love the process of the craft, and we all believe it’s good for us. And this brings me comfort.

Feeling grateful to everyone at Yamanaka Onsen, it was time to get on another train and head to my next destination.

SFX - Train announcer

MX out

B-roll SFX of Fukumitsu interview

I’m in Osaka, Japan’s third largest city. I find myself in a small calligraphy studio that’s only been set up recently. The white walls are mostly bare except for a few large eye-catching pieces made by calligraphy students. We’re sitting in the centre of the room facing a small foldout table.

I’ve known Fukumitsusan for a long time. Her family are all calligraphers, and I distinctly remember the smell of calligraphy ink whenever I see one of them. Even though there is a softness about her, she is confident and determined. As I sit down with Fukumitsusan, she gives me a heartwarming smile. It hits me that I haven’t had a proper conversation with her in over 6 years.

Fukumitsu: I have 3 names. The first one is my real name, Yu Ueno. Ueno is a private name, so I don't use it at work. My name at work is Yu Fukumitsu. The other name is my calligrapher name, and that is Fukutouen. This is the name my teacher gave me. 

I’m at three different universities, and that takes up half the week. I teach practical calligraphy techniques and theory. I teach the history of calligraphy, and in that class we read calligraphy texts in old Chinese. In order to become a calligraphy teacher, you need a license, so I also teach the mandatory classes needed to get that license.

I worked all three of these jobs until last year, when I quit one and opened this studio.

Oscar: Fukumitsu tells me more about why she decided to open up her studio. She brings up a very familiar reference.

Fukumitsu: Do you remember Toy Story 3? Which character was it? Not Woody. Oh, Andy! When Andy becomes a college student, he says he won't play with Buzz Lightyear and Woody anymore, so he doesn't take them with him to college. Well, I’m reminded of that movie. 

Calligraphy is really a form of communication between people. So my students and I, we’ll communicate with each other a lot during college. But they’ll forget about college after they graduate. After I congratulate them, just like those toys in Toy Story, they won’t see me again, perhaps for the rest of my life. In that way, I feel like I really understand Woody’s feelings. I honestly do! 

I reckon from a young age, right up until the day before you die, you can move your hand and do calligraphy. So, I opened my studio because  I wanted to influence people’s lives with calligraphy. 

Fukumitsu teaches calligraphy to all kinds of people, young and old. She tells me about her youngest student.

Fukumitsu: The youngest child I teach is a 4 year old. Yes. He really is a genius. Like, how do I put this.. Do you know the word omutsu? As in, not wearing pants, but…Yes, diapers! Even though he's still in diapers, he likes Japanese characters. So he is a genius and he has memorised all the 6th grade Kanji for elementary school.

Oscar: This is hilarious. She literally calls him a diaper genius?! 

MX in - Tumbling Monsters

Memorising all the Kanji for 6th grade elementary school is no easy feat. Kanji is a type of character used in the Japanese written language, and it’s notorious for being the most difficult to learn. Even fully-grown Japanese adults need to look kanji up in the dictionary when they see something they haven’t memorised yet. And this diaper genius knows 1006 Kanji at the very least.

MX out

With all this in mind, I’m very curious about how Fukumitsu-san got into calligraphy.

Fukumitsu: I wasn't interested in calligraphy at first. My parents were calligraphers and deeply involved in that practice, and there was this idea in both China and Japan that if you had beautiful handwriting, you’d be seen as a little bit smarter. So I forced myself to practice my handwriting. I didn’t like it at all. Instead, I've always loved martial arts. That’s all I wanted to do in college.

But I realised that I wasn’t that good at sports like other people were. I realised I couldn’t become a top professional. I was wondering what skills I actually had.  

So I decided to study. I wanted to study martial arts theory. I entered graduate school for Chinese and Western philosophy. 

I then earned a scholarship from the Chinese Government and went to China.

Since I love martial arts, I did martial arts every day and studied Chinese. I actually forgot about my doctorate degree a little, because I was busy eating great Chinese food every day. It was delicious, and it was so much fun. Then I got an email that said “Fukumitsu, what have you been planning to do with your dissertation?”

And I thought what should I do? I was there to complete my doctorate degree. When I tried to write a thesis on martial arts, I was told I couldn’t do it. So I was kinda stuck and really wondering what my options were…

Oscar: At this point, Fukumitsu excitedly scuttles off and returns with a cute statuette of an old man practicing martial arts. From the form of the old man, I immediately recognised the martial art as tai chi.

Fukumitsu: Yes! I mean, this is a little extreme. I like tai chi. And I discovered when I do tai chi, even though I’m moving, sometimes I feel so good I forget that I’m doing anything at all... Is that something like a trance? This is something I've never experienced before, and it's amazing. It came from Asian culture, and I thought it was really good for me, mentally. 

I was curious about this experience and I didn't understand it even after reading various Western or Chinese philosophies. No one wrote about it so I thought it was undocumented. But then I found a historical figure who practiced both calligraphy and tai chi. Someone exiled from China. 

Su Shi, also known as Dongpo, was an accomplished Chinese scholar who lived during the Song era, which was around a thousand years ago. He was an expert calligrapher amongst many other things, and his work had a heavy influence on Fukumitsu’s direction in life.

Though he was sick and dying, he did Tai chi and wrote characters every day. His mind calmed down, and… also, do you know zazen meditation? When he sat down and meditated, something really improved his mind. His handwriting got better, and his calligraphy work became wonderful. I found a text where he wrote about all of this.

Then it hit me. I thought, “oh, I could write my paper about this.” This guy knew the reason he felt so good is because tai chi improves your mental state. He wrote about it in various forms of text. That's why my doctoral dissertation is about his life, his creative pursuits, and his experience of Buddhism.

I feel validated hearing this story. It sounds like an important link between traditional practices and mental wellness.

Here was Fukumitsu, a top level academic in a traditional practice, telling me about these very old documented experiences of tai chi and calligraphy soothing a troubled mind.

She goes on to talk about the depth and expressiveness of calligraphy.

Fukumitsu: Calligraphy doesn't have to be clear. There is passion and beauty in the message. For example, even if you don’t understand kanji or hiragana, you can look at calligraphy work and immediately understand, “Ah. This image is war.”

Do you know Guernica by Pablo Picasso? If a small child sees it, how do they interpret the picture? They might say, "it's only white and black, it's gray, and a bit dark. There are people who have slightly strange faces, so it feels strange.” If you ask this child if the painting is happy or sad, they’ll say it feels a bit sad. And it feels a bit scary.

MX in - 滅びた大地に祈りを

For those who don’t know what Guernica by Picasso looks like, it’s an enormous oil painting that swallows the viewer. Think of a mural as tall as a basketball hoop and longer than a stretch limousine. With colourless thin lines and stark grey shade, it depicts a cacophony of larger-than-life characters with agonised faces and severed limbs. It’s not gory in a photorealistic sense. But if I saw it as a child, I reckon I’d be quaking my boots. Shivering my timbers even. 

I see Fukumitsu’s point. Calligraphy is more than just handwriting. It can convey stories, moods and opinions, sometimes complex, sometimes very simple. 

MX out

Fukumitsu: So when you begin learning calligraphy, you’re like "what does this character mean? Oh, it's a flower". But when I practice writing the character a lot, say 10 times, 20 times, 30 times, 100 times, 1000 times–I begin to lose myself a bit. I'm writing, but I stop myself and think, “Was I just writing?” 

I can relate to this feeling. Sometimes when I’m doing things like sewing, I lose myself in the process. It creeps up on me and I don’t even realise I’m experiencing it until the activity is over. 

Fukumitsu relates the concept of losing yourself in a process back to Buddhist schools of thought about emptiness and purity.

Fukumitsu: There is this Chinese way of thinking. 

Here is a cup. It’s full of water. Over there is the moon. On the surface of the water is a reflection of the moon. If the water is pure, then the reflection will be a clear and accurate copy of the real moon. But if the water is not pure, then the reflection would be incorrect, and not the same. 

So this cup is what’s inside the human heart.

It’s a nice metaphor. My heart is a simple cup of water. Fukumitsu goes on to explain that if the water is clean and still, the cup appears empty–you see the cup for what it is, for example, ceramic or plastic. But if the water is murky or turbulent then bad things seep in, like "I can kill someone with this cup"....

I ask Fukumitsu if she thinks calligraphy is a cathartic process. 

Fukumitsu: I think this process is the same in the Western way of thinking. 

She grabs a pen and some paper and starts drawing as she explains her answer.

Fukumitsu: Here I am, the author. Take a look at this work that I’ve made.

In order to create a work, you need some kind of message or theme. In a way, no message can still be a message. So, it’s about expressing something about your thoughts. For example, I think about my own personal experience with sexual harassment. With that incident in my mind, I created my work in anger. However, the events of the incident are not explicitly written in the work. The audience sees the work but they don’t think, "this is sexual harassment". 

The feelings I had about the sexual harassment have been turned into an image, and those feelings have already gone to heaven. They’re no longer around. However, the feeling’s strength has remained in the work, and only that strength is conveyed to the audience. 

That's why my mind is so peaceful and my work is powerful. And people who see the work feel encouraged and it really moves them.

MX in 夢の中のぬくもり

From what I can gather, Fukumitsu is telling me that calligraphy is very much the essence of expression. Getting her feelings out on the page helps her deal with them, because then she doesn’t dwell on them. It allows her to choose how much detail she conveys, and it brings her peace while also connecting her with her audience.

MX out

Fukumitsu: This is a paperweight. And this is the paper. This is Japanese paper that has been created by craftsmen. This is old paper, so it sounds good. It's probably a bit light. The new paper still has a lot of water, so it doesn't sound like this. It's better if it's dry. 

Fukumitsu shows me how to prepare the ink in the traditional way.

This is an inkstone. It is made from stone. I bought it in China.

An inkstone is essentially a small dish with a hard flat surface. 

This is an ink stick. An ink stick. And water. 

In Fukumitsu’s hand is a small, black, rectangular stone that looks a bit like a miniature version of the monolith from Space Odyssey. 

This ink stick is made by mixing the coal from burning pine trees and gelatin from animals to make it hard. The animal smell is a bit stinky, so I put perfume in it. There are less and less craftsmen who make ink sticks, and fewer people use them, which is also a problem. It's a problem because less young people are taking over the practice. You can't live without ink, so I definitely want young people to learn how to make ink sticks too. 

So, I'm grinding it like this over and over again. 

If we’re only making this much, it’ll take about 1-2 minutes. Oh, this is ready. 

I ask her how she knows the ink is ready. Is it by the colour?

Fukumitsu: Oh no I can't tell by colour. When you start grinding the inkstone, the liquid is runny. But it gradually becomes like takoyaki sauce. Look, this is a bit like sauce. 

Takoyaki sauce! Takoyaki is a Japanese street food where they fry little chunks of octopus in batter, forming round balls which are then slathered with a tangy sauce. The consistency of this sauce is kind of like a light gravy–only slightly thicker than water.

Fukumitsu: Calligraphy requires two things. One is form and the other is meaning. For example, the meaning of a “light” love is probably like, “love you!”. So it’s almost like, “I don't really love you,” or something. 

The word Fukumitsu writes is Ai, the Kanji character for the word love.

This feels like love, but something light.

She prepares a fresh piece of paper and writes it again.

Now there are two very different iterations of Ai, side by side. 

The one on the left consists of thin delicate lines, while the one on the right is made of thick aggressive strokes that blend together.

And then this is heavy love. This is heavy in terms of the shape, and the rhythm of the brush. 

And you can see here on the heavy love, this splatter is sort of like blood… murder... Heavy, a bit like stalking…haha

Fukumitsu then asks me if I’d like to have a go at writing the same character, Ai.

Oscar SFX

I joke about how my written form of Ai would be read as ‘badly written love’ but Fukumitsu suggests aiming for ‘awkward love’. She assures me that holding a brush is just like holding a pen. Her gentle guidance helps me feel less stressed. She shows me the brushstroke sequence for the character because I don’t remember it at all. I hold my breath and plunge the brush into the ink. After carefully wiping off the excess, I make my first attempt. 

Oscar SFX 

MX in - Cream Puff Dreams

After marking the paper with ink and creating my own unique version of the word love, my first instinct is to hate it. The end product is slightly off centre, unbalanced and a little flimsy, but if the aim was to portray an "awkward love", I think I delivered in spades. Something about embracing the messy process of it all really just made it fun.

MX out

Fukumitsu and I are sitting at the small table in her studio and she’s writing while she speaks.

Fukumitsu: Actually, there is no word for art in either Japanese or Chinese. The term "art" was brought over and required translation, so the word "geijutsu" was used in its place. "Gei" means art. 

Fukumitsu pulls out a book to show me an image of what the kanji “gei” looked like in 3000BC. The character resembles a person kneeling down with two arms outstretched in the process of planting something. She goes on to explain.

Fukumitsu: The ancient meaning of "gei" is actually the process of humans planting and growing a plant. 

If you think about it, English words like "cultivate" and "agriculture" lead back to the term "culture". Therefore, growing plants is a way of thinking that is linked to culture. 

In the East, “gei” has the meaning of planting and growing plants. What things do they need to grow? Things like water, and the sun, and nutrition, and love. 

Just like a plant grows, I grow, the people around me grow, and I learn a lot from it. I was afraid of dying, but not anymore. If these kids continue growing after I die, oh, my life would have significant meaning. I’m alone in this life but calligraphy has connected me to everyone. So I'm not afraid.

It's deep. In Asia, it’s often said that getting older is not a negative thing. In Europe and the West, getting older is getting closer to death. But that’s such a negative perspective that I can’t even talk about it or look at it. 

In the East, you gain depth as you get older, so you can be more kind to others and grow closer to being empty. And it deepens my calligraphy–all these good things. I feel like it’s okay to die because my path will continue, through the path of calligraphy. Yeah, that's what it feels like. In that way, it’s a bit like Buddhism.

It makes sense on a very deep level that art has a lot to do with caregiving and nutrition. There’s a connection between art and nature that I hadn’t considered before, which seems so obvious in hindsight. 

Fukumitsu believes that being empty brings us closer to nature and the natural way of being. There is no hierarchy–we humans are the same as rabbits and birds.

Fukumitsu: Humans become a member of the universe when they are empty. You can have the same power as nature. There is this Taoist way of thinking. Since humans think about many things, they are not natural beings. It is only when the mind is empty that they can be the same as many things in the world.

So if you become a member of Nature, you with your unique hands and bones should be able to create works unique to only you.

Yes, because I am who I am, and therefore I am unique. Truly, I can make a one-of-a-kind work within this universe. If I don't become empty, I can't express the kind of personality that only I am capable of.

Everyone is different, too. That is the only way. So, being empty isn't a negative thing; it's about finding your true self.

MX in - Cacao Nana

Fukumitsu and I both agreed that we shouldn’t wait six more years before we see each other again. I stuff my recording equipment in my bag and bid her farewell, feeling a little empty, but perhaps not in the way we’d been discussing. My brain battery was depleted. I’d learnt so much in one sitting and needed some time to process it all.

Oscar: So I’m back at my accommodation. I’ve been thinking about everything Fukumitsu said, and the thing that stood out to me the most was the recurring theme of emptiness. There were heaps of connections between that, and martial arts, calligraphy and like, being in a flow state. It reminded me a bit about what Sato said back in Yamanaka Onsen, “I don’t think about it too much, it just happens”. I guess if you’re passionate enough about something to practice it diligently, you can lose yourself in the process. And it’s kinda wild how far back in time this experience has been documented, and how universal it was too.

As my trip was drawing to a close, I paid a visit to my ageing grandma. Just like me, she loves sewing. She showed me a piece of clothing she was working on. She was repurposing a kimono worn by her older sister. The kimono material was a resplendent beige silk with purple flower patterns. A real classy design. The original kimono was handmade by her mother for her sister’s graduation. However, this was no ordinary kimono.

MX in - 静謐を宿す庭

My grandma comes from a family of farmers. Like most farmers in the area, they owned silkworms which they raised themselves. It wasn’t an easy task back in the day, and all Grandma’s sisters participated in harvesting the silk. They waited for the worms to shed their skin four times before collecting their excretions. The silkworm cocoons were placed in hot water, and the hair-thin silk threads would then be extracted by hand and spooled onto a reel. 

The silk would be fed into a loom, manually powered by my great-grandmother’s legs. Her arms did the meticulous weaving. Countless hours hunched over the loom would eventually result in the kimono that my grandma was now holding.

My grandma’s sister was actually going to throw this kimono out. Grandma rescued it and was in the process of turning it into a modern piece of functional clothing– a stylish jacket. I could tell she felt a great sense of pleasure, pride and connectedness. She was creating a new jacket from material imbued with so much of her past.

For me, seeing my grandma work on this garment was a full circle moment. These are the types of crafts that I’ve been interested in for as long as I can remember. After hearing from Fukumitsu about mind-calming techniques that are a thousand years old, and talking to Sato and the lacquer-ladies about their devotion to a 400 year-old tradition, I’m convinced there’s merit and value in continuing these practices today.

These artisanal crafts have already endured ruthless tests of time. Their biggest challenges may still lie ahead. In the modern age of AI, robotics, touchscreens and ultrafast wireless networks, the world might forget about the mental health benefits of these practices. But perhaps, through our own exploration of craft, we can all discover new ways to help our mental wellbeing.

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This is a production from Shapes and Sounds. It’s hosted by Asami Koike, Marcus Lai and Oscar Abe, and produced by Yeo Choong. We’re proudly supported by the Victorian Department of Health’s Diverse Communities Program. All thoughts and ideas you hear are independently ours and our guests.

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