Clayland 1 2 3 - PRINTER VERSION
>> insist that they had nothing to do with the place, while others talked about how they had been made to feel like outsiders by the park staff. I tried to imagine how I would react if, in the middle of the small town in Virginia where I live, the state government decided to erect a multimillion-dollar park based on an attraction with which my town's name had been synonymous for hundreds of years, and then proceeded to staff that facility with people from Washington and Richmond who had little if any interest in either the history of the town's endeavor or its future.
Even the idea of what would constitute the park's success appeared to have nothing in common with Shigaraki's long-term interests. Success, evidently, was going to be measured by whether or not the park would be able to attract half a million people over the month-long festival. Daily attendance figures were posted in the public relations office, and every introduction by the staff seemed to be prefaced with how well the "numbers" were progressing. This bureaucratic concept of success struck me as not only shortsighted but unconcerned with the question of whether people came away from the park with a valid impression of the history of Shigaraki's pottery and its people.
There is a tragic postscript to all of this. On May 14, thirteen days before the festival was to conclude, the same train we had taken from Kyoto five days earlier collided head-on with the train from Shigaraki. The Kyoto train carried more than 500 people in its two cars, twice its registered capacity. Forty-two deaths resulted. I had left Shigaraki two days before and was in Bizen when I learned of the accident from television. The image of the Shigaraki Workers Gymnasium, which had earlier held an exhibition of ceramics with flower arrangements, now filled with coffins draped in white, with candles and burning incense placed on them and ringed by distraught family members keeping a vigil, is something I will never forget.
When I returned to Japan this past July, I went back to Shigaraki to visit friends and drove by the park. The lines were gone. In fact, I could see no one at all walking up to the park. Also gone were the guards who had directed traffic during the festival. The parking lots were empty and the process to reconvert them to rice fields had begun. Perhaps now, I thought, the real work at the Ceramic Cultural Park could begin. One can only hope that the Shiga prefectural government will adopt a more enlightened view of the project at this stage, and seek advice from those who have shown and proven their commitment to the history and people of Shigaraki.
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© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
>> insist that they had nothing to do with the place, while others talked about how they had been made to feel like outsiders by the park staff. I tried to imagine how I would react if, in the middle of the small town in Virginia where I live, the state government decided to erect a multimillion-dollar park based on an attraction with which my town's name had been synonymous for hundreds of years, and then proceeded to staff that facility with people from Washington and Richmond who had little if any interest in either the history of the town's endeavor or its future.
Even the idea of what would constitute the park's success appeared to have nothing in common with Shigaraki's long-term interests. Success, evidently, was going to be measured by whether or not the park would be able to attract half a million people over the month-long festival. Daily attendance figures were posted in the public relations office, and every introduction by the staff seemed to be prefaced with how well the "numbers" were progressing. This bureaucratic concept of success struck me as not only shortsighted but unconcerned with the question of whether people came away from the park with a valid impression of the history of Shigaraki's pottery and its people.
There is a tragic postscript to all of this. On May 14, thirteen days before the festival was to conclude, the same train we had taken from Kyoto five days earlier collided head-on with the train from Shigaraki. The Kyoto train carried more than 500 people in its two cars, twice its registered capacity. Forty-two deaths resulted. I had left Shigaraki two days before and was in Bizen when I learned of the accident from television. The image of the Shigaraki Workers Gymnasium, which had earlier held an exhibition of ceramics with flower arrangements, now filled with coffins draped in white, with candles and burning incense placed on them and ringed by distraught family members keeping a vigil, is something I will never forget.
When I returned to Japan this past July, I went back to Shigaraki to visit friends and drove by the park. The lines were gone. In fact, I could see no one at all walking up to the park. Also gone were the guards who had directed traffic during the festival. The parking lots were empty and the process to reconvert them to rice fields had begun. Perhaps now, I thought, the real work at the Ceramic Cultural Park could begin. One can only hope that the Shiga prefectural government will adopt a more enlightened view of the project at this stage, and seek advice from those who have shown and proven their commitment to the history and people of Shigaraki.
<<
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign