Reflecting on the Future of Urushi Country, from Behind Katsura-shimizu

The giant lacquer tree installed at the Joboji Town Cultural Hall (J Hall)—the lacquer tapper who harvested sap from that very tree has, on his own initiative, created a traditional lacquer tree plantation behind Katsura-shimizu, at the foot of Tendaiji Temple.

However, because this is an individual effort, sustaining it is far from easy. Lacquer trees must be protected and nurtured for decades, even a hundred years, without being cut down. Such an undertaking, which looks to the very long term, is difficult to get across to politicians, who tend to demand efficiency and results above all else.

Even so, as the Quinn Report also records, magnificent lacquer trees 100 or even 200 years old once actually stood in what was then northern Tohoku.

The katsura tree at Katsura-shimizu, shown in the photo, like the cedar trees of Tendaiji, once survived the ordeal of being felled and has carried its life forward to the present. I quietly cherish the hope that someday this place will become one we can be proud of, one that is unmistakably a true "Urushi no Sato," a village of lacquer.
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