Wrapping, Traditional Japanese Culture

I usually work as a manners instructor. I teach everything from business and ceremonial etiquette to dining manners, but I also teach gift-giving etiquette, and I have studied Western-style wrapping myself.

If Western wrapping involves wrapping in paper and decorating with ribbons, I thought there must be a Japanese equivalent, and I realized that would be the furoshiki. When I first started studying, furoshiki were somewhat fading from use, but I learned from someone in Kyoto who was working on excavating old furoshiki wrapping styles and exploring new ways to use them. Since then, I have been captivated by the charm of the furoshiki.

So you are passing those results on to your students. How long have you been exploring furoshiki, Ms. Komono?

For several decades (laughs). Many students are interested in furoshiki. Nowadays, you can find them in places other than specialty shops, but when I started, the shops were really limited. Students would even ask me, "Where can I buy one?"

At the time, they were mostly only found at kimono shops, and those furoshiki were made of pure silk and were very expensive. Even so, I would order them cheaply from textile wholesalers in Kyoto to distribute as teaching materials.

The turning point came when the current Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, was appointed Minister of the Environment. She focused on furoshiki from an environmental perspective, and that triggered their spread to the general public.

My main job is as a graphic designer, but on the side, I continue to research Origata, which is considered a traditional Japanese etiquette. Origata is an ancient Japanese technique and culture passed down to the present day as a way of wrapping gifts, including noshi and mizuhiki.

I first learned about that world when I went to Jimbocho to look for a book with Japanese-style illustrations for the design of a haiku magazine. While looking at the shelves in a certain shop, I found a book called "Tsutsumi-no-ki" (Record of Wrapping) by Ise Sadatake (1717–84). It was a very old book, but when I picked it up out of curiosity, I saw that the unfolded diagrams and the finished views of Origata were paired on the double-page spreads. However, the characters accompanying them were in Manyogana and written in a cursive style, making them almost unreadable.

That is a very old book. Did you end up buying it?

Yes. The illustrations were so beautiful that I thought there might be things I could understand from them, so I bought it and decided to investigate. Later, I learned that it was an etiquette called "Origata" and that there was a person named Akihiro Yamane who was researching it.

Coincidentally, I owned a book by Mr. Yamane called "Japanese Origata," and I tried calling the number for the "Yamane Etiquette Class" listed at the end of the book. Miraculously, I got through to Mr. Yamane. When I consulted him, saying I had acquired a book that seemed to be by Ise Sadatake and asked if he would take a look, he said, "Come over tomorrow." I went the next day and ended up becoming his student that very day.

If I hadn't picked up "Tsutsumi-no-ki" at the used bookstore, I would never have become interested in Origata, so it was a huge coincidence, but it also feels like it was meant to be. Since then, I have continued to study Japanese culture, etiquette, and samurai culture. At the same time, from my perspective as a designer, I am constantly thinking of various ways to apply it, wondering if things like this might be possible.

I research the history of design. There was a designer named Hideyuki Oka (1905–95) who collected traditional Japanese packaging, and his collection was donated to the Meguro Museum of Art. When an exhibition of that collection was held in 2021, I was involved in the planning. While researching Hideyuki Oka, I thought a lot about the act of wrapping.

Mr. Oka had been active as a graphic designer since before the war, but from around 1959 until his death at age 90 in 1995, he continued to collect traditional Japanese packaging.

The job of a designer is basically a social position where one creates things and receives compensation, but during the period of high economic growth, Mr. Oka became obsessed with traditional packaging that had almost no monetary value, as if resisting that trend. What did he see beyond it? While researching Mr. Oka, I felt that "wrapping" exists as an act where people living within the culture of each era, regional customs, habits, and industries give shape to their thoughts.

There was a time when Mr. Oka aspired to be a novelist, and he even wrote things like realism novels. In other words, from a young age, he captured the connection between the individual and society. For him, the work of design was a social act, something he believed would help lead Japan's development through objects. He had the ambition that design was not simply about dressing up objects, but a job that changes society.

Around the 1960s, when Mr. Oka began collecting traditional packaging, many popular designers were active. In the 70s, supermarkets appeared, and designers also worked on package design. In that environment, Mr. Oka realized that his work was, as a result, creating consumers.

Commercial package design forces a choice upon the buyer. The reason Mr. Oka devoted himself to collecting traditional packaging might have been because he could only see a dark future there.

In an era when all designers were riding the wave of the times, Mr. Oka might have felt a sense of resistance somewhere. I have those kinds of conflicts too. I wonder if the true purpose of design is really to instill desire in consumers.

I think focusing on traditional culture has aspects that conflict with that trend. This is because the essence of both tradition and culture does not lie in appearance alone.

When I was young, I admired Swiss graphic design, and at the PR company where I worked, I was conscious of making everything I designed look like that. At that time, my boss, a design journalist named Hisashi Sesoko, told me, "You have to have a proper sense of nationality." These words stuck with me, and I realized that I knew nothing about Japan.

However, my motivation for getting into Origata was much simpler. I became interested in "Tsutsumi-no-ki," and when I looked into it, I found it was full of things I didn't know.

For example, there used to be samurai etiquette, and according to Sadatake's "Gunyoki" (Record of Military Use), there were even manners for beheading. How to wash the severed head and how to inspect it. Or, how to wrap it to place it in a box and present it to the inspector—Ise Sadatake illustrated those things as well. He wasn't condoning the barbaric act of beheading, but even there, there was an aesthetic of action performed according to beautiful manners. Things like this became the catalyst for me being drawn into the world of Origata.

On the other hand, there is also a part of me that sees that world from a designer's perspective. I thought there might be a point of contact between Origata and design. With that motivation, after Mr. Yamane passed away, I established the Origata Design Research Centers and Institutes to continue the research ourselves.

Etiquette and gestures are things that involve movement, aren't they? They are anonymous things passed down through generations. I think Ms. Komono also faces tradition while designing furoshiki. Don't you have conflicts with modern sensibilities?

That can be said not only for furoshiki but also for table coordination and wrapping, but I actually arrived at Origata while pursuing tradition. I studied under Kazuki Yamane, the son of Akihiro Yamane. So, I am very surprised that Mr. Yamane's name just came up from you, Mr. Yamaguchi.

Is that so!?

After learning Origata from Mr. Kazuki, I decided to make it my life's work to spread the culture of furoshiki. In my case, I teach a lifestyle using furoshiki and sometimes give lectures overseas.

The word "nationality" came up, and Japanese people are very good at things like tying ribbons to create shapes. I can't say that people overseas are generally clumsy, but I thought it was a contrast when I ordered ribbons from abroad.

Thick, cute ribbons arrived, but the material was polypropylene, which is stiff and hard to tie. I thought it was strange, but I understood when I went abroad. People there use staplers or spray glue to secure ribbons. They also cut off unnecessary parts of the wrapping paper while wrapping. Japanese people start by measuring the paper, right? They first cut the wrapping paper to match the size of the item. Furthermore, in Origata, there are manners such as wrapping from the left or not turning the item over.

People in other countries turn the item up, down, left, and right, wrapping it freely.

Compared to how people abroad usually tear open the wrapping, Japanese people open it neatly. Whether or not you call this way of thinking "nationality," I feel a difference in culture.

Indeed, I think people abroad often tear open the packaging. It suggests an awareness that the wrapping is merely for protection, and once it reaches the recipient, its purpose is served.

We are a culture that values the exterior. The contents are important, but the wrapping and tying, including the gestures using the body, involve putting one's heart into the exterior. I feel that by doing so, we are imbuing it with something invisible.

We first think about the recipient's favorite colors and wrapping styles, wondering what would make them happy. That is the added value of wrapping. The way people abroad tear the wrapping seems to express the emotion of "I wonder what I received, I want to see it quickly."

Japanese people say, "Wrap something and give it to them." In such cases, the issue is not "what" but the "act of wrapping" itself, isn't it?

It may sound superficial at first glance, but it seems a contradictory logic is at work where the exterior is actually the heart.

But it's a mystery why such a sensibility was cultivated. It's almost pantheistic... I wonder if it's connected to some kind of religious view, where the heart is omnipresent in the world and objects are things that convey the heart.

Even with a single apple, if you're going to share it with a neighbor, you think it's a bit much to just take it as it is... You definitely think about how to wrap it.

As a Japanese sensibility, when you receive an apple, the fact that you "received" it might be more important, and the act of wrapping might exist as an extension of that.

When you receive a gift, don't you also think about how to return the favor? If you receive something in a container, returning it with something else inside that container is called "outsuri," and there is a custom of being considerate so that the recipient doesn't feel burdened when you give something.

We show consideration so as not to become a burden to the other person, don't we?

That consideration extends to gestures and manners; in tea ceremony or flower arrangement, the focus is more on the process leading up to it rather than what is actually produced. That kind of culture of "kata" (form) is also one of the things that characterizes Japan.

I think that for a form to be passed down, one is required to throw their own body into it. On the other hand, there is also the danger of considering it sufficient just to do it according to the form.

Origata is "shape" (形) rather than "form" (型), but there are shapes for good fortune and shapes for misfortune. Furthermore, there is "rank" (格), and the shape depends on the ranking. Behind it all, there is still the issue of the heart. Without the heart, one easily falls into arguments like "this is right, that is wrong," or says, "other teachers don't say that." The essential part—what thoughts or heart are put into it—gets overlooked.

Since Origata is an etiquette for wrapping gifts, one must originally untie the knot and open the wrapping, but even if you look at the introductory books published today, that is not written. In Ise Sadatake's time, I think it was something everyone knew as a gesture.

In the "Handy Guide to Wrapping and Tying" (PHP Institute) that I previously supervised, I also explained how to untie them. As you say, tying is also about untying.

Origata has a way of reversing the flow by untying or opening the wrapped item. It's like reliving the physicality of the person who wrapped it while untying it.

I see. Playing it back in reverse...

First, there is the gesture of the giver wrapping and tying, and then the recipient unties and opens it. It is exactly like reverse playback. Origata also has that aspect of communication.

Does that mean there is still room for modern design there?

That's right. On the other hand, Origata also has a technique called "musubikiri" (a knot that cannot be untied) to prevent others from opening the seal.

Mizuhiki is most well-known as a knot that cannot be untied. There are knots that can be retied as many times as you like, and knots that are for one time only.

Yes. You use musubikiri to make it one-time only. Those things are also properly passed down, but it's a shame they aren't very well known.

With mizuhiki, most people usually just slide the envelope out. The fact that the overlapping on the back is different has a meaning, but because they don't understand it, I feel like many people gently pull it out so the mizuhiki doesn't fall apart, put the money in, and put it back. I used to do that too until I studied manners (laughs).

Ise Sadatake was a person of the mid-Edo period, and reading "Tsutsumi-no-ki" and "Musubi-no-ki" (Record of Tying) that he wrote, you can see he was a very logical thinker. He explains Origata based on proper grounds. For example, he explains that this is a shape following the Yin-Yang and Five Elements theory of the Muromachi period, or that this shape is designed so that it can be pulled open with both hands because the recipient's hands are free. I thought he was a person with modern thinking for that era.

On the other hand, there are parts where he asserts the legitimacy of his own family lineage. On that point, I am careful to view him with a sense of relativity.

Once you know the reason, you never forget it, do you?

I also teach Origata classes, and when I explain things logically while talking about Sadatake, everyone is convinced.

Origata also has "wrapping for display." It's a style that wraps part of the contents rather than covering the whole thing. For example, when wrapping an arrow, there is a concept that you wrap the shaft (no) part, and the fletching and arrowhead can remain visible.

I also love "wrapping for display" in Western wrapping, and I might wrap a stuffed animal while showing its face, but I found it fresh to know that it already existed when I studied Origata. I think many people believe that wrapping means covering the whole thing. Although with furoshiki, we usually wrap the whole thing.

Packaging has strong connotations of protection or decoration, but as you say, there are things that are not like that. Ise Sadatake writes about it as "wrapping so that it can be seen." If the contents are visible, there is no need to label them. It's very mysterious to go out of your way to wrap something so the contents are visible, though.

After graduating from Keio, I re-entered art university, and now I teach typography theory and practice at an art university. In art university entrance exams, students still do sketching and color composition. This is a 19th-century method, but recently I've been thinking about the meaning of it still continuing today.

The act of drawing requires not just the ability to simply draw something or the training of techniques for that purpose, but also the power to perceive something. I think an art university is a place to hone the ability to create and the ability to perceive through physicality, and to pursue them academically.

We tend to think of actions and results separately, but for example, a wrapped object cannot be separated from the act of wrapping. Through the act of wrapping, one becomes able to feel the heart of the wrapper, and when we receive a wrapped item, I think we also use our own bodies to understand something.

In the modern packaging design that Mr. Oka resisted, there was probably almost no room for such physicality to intervene. So, why didn't the kimono disappear when that culture became dominant? While the market share of kimono has continued to fall since the Meiji era, its cultural value has increased.

If measured by an economic yardstick, the kimono does not have great value. But its cultural value has conversely risen. I felt that the activities of Ms. Komono and Mr. Yamaguchi are playing a role as guardians who protect such values.

When I first started gift wrapping, department stores didn't charge for that service. Eventually, wrapping service counters were established, but at first, some customers felt resistant to paying for it.

However, those voices gradually decreased, and I was very successful when I held events at department stores where I wrapped items in furoshiki that I had designed.

While there are costs for boxes and ribbons, recently a demographic has emerged that empathizes with the value of wrapping, and I feel the changing of the times.

Traditional culture might be something that is redefined across eras, rather than something mature and fixed.

To consider the value of wrapping now, we need a perspective that re-examines it from our current position. In a sense, we are at a turning point of the era.

It could be said that Hideyuki Oka's collection of traditional packaging could only have been collected during that specific era. In a way, it might have been the very last possible moment.

Oka's collection features many natural materials, such as those using bamboo skin. Natural materials are things that return to the earth. As times changed, these were replaced by industrial products like vinyl fake bamboo, but I feel Oka caught that transition with his own intuition.

I feel that Soetsu Yanagi and other people in the Mingei movement might not call those things Mingei, but I think packaging created by local people using materials at hand can also be called Mingei in a broad sense.

Mingei was originally a movement that sought to redefine Japanese traditional culture by overlaying it with the British Arts and Crafts movement.

For Soetsu Yanagi and others, another theme was connecting the collected items with authorship. The packages Oka collected are, so to speak, "designs by anonymous poets." But as Mr. Yamaguchi says, I think they should essentially be grouped as one.

That's true.

The plastic "baran" used to partition bento boxes, which mimics bamboo leaves, is like the ultimate example of a "kata" (form).

Originally, leaves with medicinal properties were used because they had antibacterial effects.

Sasa-dango (bamboo leaf dumplings) are still wrapped in real bamboo leaves today.

Conscientious long-established shops are trying to pass down the tradition while properly using those materials.

I think acquiring old items is a form of research or an activity to inherit tradition. Ms. Komono, do you collect old furoshiki?

I collect them if they are available, but it's very difficult to find such antiques now. I think there are only a few collectors left. There are some things you can't buy even if you have the money.

When you say you can't buy them even with money, do you mean things that have been passed down through generations and only one remains?

There are those, as well as limited editions or items made with rare patterns and materials. In the past, there were also thin nylon furoshiki. Things like those with three-digit phone numbers distributed by shops as small gifts. I also own a furoshiki designed by architect Kengo Kuma. I show these rare items in my classes.

Of course, there are also high-end items like pure silk ones in paulownia boxes distributed by department stores to their best clients, or those given as wedding favors, but nowadays many people would be troubled if they received a furoshiki because they don't know how to use it.

By the way, how are the dimensions of a furoshiki determined?

There are several types, but the size called "futahaba" is said to be the most suitable dimension for general people to wrap things, and it is roughly 68 centimeters. Actually, furoshiki are not perfect squares.

Is that so!? I always thought they were square.

If you try folding it into a triangle, you'll see that it's tailored to be slightly offset.

Why is that?

This is for the elasticity of the fabric. The fabric is cut so that it stretches when pulled slightly. Furoshiki are used diagonally and tied at the four corners, right? They are made slightly vertically long so that they stretch at that time.

Anticipating that...

Yes. The futahaba of 68 centimeters is the width of a loom, and it's said to be roughly twice the hip width of a woman. Women in the past must have been slender. That's why it's futahaba (two widths).

A furoshiki has two sides with selvages and two sides that are hemmed; this is because it's tailored by cutting a futahaba-wide bolt of cloth, so the length side is hemmed.

So the dimensions were born from the relationship between the loom and the weaver's body.

When you hear that background, you don't forget it, do you?

That's true. At the Origata Design Institute, we once developed hanshi paper for origata, and I had a similar experience when visiting a washi craftsman's workshop. There is a tool called a "su" (bamboo screen) used when making washi, right? I had always thought that the dimensions of the su were standardized. However, among the craftsmen, some make shoji paper while others make hanshi for calligraphy. The size and properties of the paper differ according to the client's order.

When I researched how the dimensions of origata paper were determined, I noticed that many of the aspect ratios were close to 1 to √2. The ratio of 1 to √2 is used as a standard in the printing field. This is said to be the paper ratio devised by the color scientist Wilhelm Ostwald for German industrial standards, a dimension where the ratio does not change no matter how many times it is folded.

Ostwald's paper ratio is very rational, as can be seen from its adoption as A-series and B-series copy paper. The washi we co-developed with craftsmen was also made with the dimensions of 1 to √2, based on the theme of reconsidering the meaning of things we are too familiar with to notice.

By the way, I was surprised to learn later that this ratio seems to have been used by carpenters in Japan since ancient times, not just in Europe.

So it was also a proportion derived from the rationality of carpenters. It's quite fascinating how Japanese traditional culture connects to the world.

As you say, it was an unexpected surprise to find that exploring Japanese traditional culture leads to universality. I had thought of it as a different culture from my own. As a designer who also researches origata, I had long struggled with the inability to integrate the two, so this was truly a discovery.

That's very interesting.

Origata is an etiquette of wrapping and tying for gift-giving, but gifts are a culture found all over the world. We have many opportunities to be invited abroad and have held workshops in Africa and Ukraine. What makes interacting with people overseas exciting is that it gives us a chance to recognize our own culture.

In the workshops, we first have them touch the washi to feel the texture, tension, and the comfort of folding it, but I wondered how to convey the act of folding it to make it compact.

For example, perhaps Sony's miniaturized electronic products and origata are connected within the Japanese compact culture. Verbalizing this for people abroad is a good opportunity to carefully rethink our own designs.

There is also the phrase "keihaku-tanshō" (light, thin, short, and small) to describe compact things and convenience.

I think it's something inherently possessed as Japanese wisdom. On the other hand, it might connect somewhere with what people all over the world consider rational.

Therefore, in our workshops, we haven't acted superior by saying "this is Japanese culture," but have tried to make it a place where we can explore things shared throughout the world, things that we can feel are the same at the roots.

During Hideyuki Oka's lifetime, his traditional packaging was featured in an overseas traveling exhibition. I think his collection played a role in impressing the Japanese culture of wrapping upon people abroad. At that time, Oka left these words:

"Ultimately, the pursuit of packaging is the pursuit of human beings. However, it is not just about knowing the differences in climate, ethnicity, or history. Rather, on the contrary, it is about knowing that no matter how much the quality of climate, language, or culture may differ, humans are all equally human."

I feel that the universality Mr. Yamaguchi speaks of connects somewhere to humanity. What's interesting is that interaction with different cultures intervenes when reaching universality through that humanity.

That is a very contemporary thing. What we should aim for is also to know that we are the same as others by acknowledging them.

When researching origata, I'm often perceived as a nostalgic person. It's not that I'm thinking about returning to the past.

The perception of nostalgia might also be changing.

My students don't think of furoshiki as nostalgia either. And they really make good use of the knowledge they've acquired. For the next lesson, they might bring a furoshiki as a substitute for a handbag. In the wrapping class, if I say, "We're going to wrap an umbrella, so please bring a long umbrella," some people bring the umbrella wrapped in a furoshiki.

In such an environment, the younger generation is refining a new sensibility. I think they don't feel the "oldness" that we feel as much.

On the other hand, as generations change, there is also the question of what to do with what the preceding generations left for us. I am also a member of the university's Art Archive Center, where I face various objects every day. I have opportunities to hear directly from the people who left the collection, and what I feel then is that the words spoken by the person using the object as a "yorishiro" (an object to which a spirit is drawn) are more important than the value of the object itself.

This can also be said for traditional culture; for me, the interaction with students through furoshiki and Ms. Komono's stories are more important than the furoshiki itself. We are being tested on how we read the heart within old things while facing them in our own way.

Neither wrapping nor origata has disappeared yet. I think that's because they are still necessary. I want to believe that important things will remain, rather than throwing everything away just because it's not eco-friendly.

That's true. They might continue to be revitalized over and over again through physicality.

As we discussed regarding "kata" (form), I don't think it absolutely has to be a certain way. It's fine to do it in a form that suits the occasion. I tell my students that any way of wrapping is fine as long as you wrap it with feeling. I want them to engage with traditional culture as freely as possible.

I'm thrilled when I encounter someone carrying a furoshiki on the street. I once saw a man carrying one in Ginza. Although many students come to learn, I still rarely see people actually using them.

Maybe I should recommend it to my students...

Please do. During the seasons for mid-year and year-end gifts, commercials air showing beer boxes wrapped in furoshiki. Actually, for gift-giving, the correct way is "hirazutsumi" (flat wrapping), and originally it's not tied. Since it must be unwrapped when presenting the gift, tying it has the meaning of "the relationship with the other person being untied." When I see a production where it's tied, I think, "That's not quite right," but a few years later, it might be corrected to hirazutsumi.

Someone must have given them advice.

That's right. I have lively discussions with my students about things like that.

Furoshiki are surviving robustly and shrewdly.

Yes. Furoshiki have overcome a period when they almost went out of style, so I don't think they will ever disappear.