This is a Japanese tradition we desperately need to adopt in North America – re-using textiles to wrap presents. It’s an art form, but it’s worth learning because it dispenses with all the annoying and wasteful tape and paper and ribbon, it’s a fun skill to learn (for kids too), and it’s an educational conversation piece – you might have to explain to the recipient what it is, but that’s probably worthwhile. Christmas is a forest disaster when you combine its Christmas trees and its paper usage. Any textile will work – just use some old fabric, recycle some scarves, or buy scarves/shawls from thrift and then watch some furoshiki tying videos. Any size of cloth will do – for the larger bags/wrapping you should look for the 40″ size of scarf shawl. In Japan, furoshiki were traditionally used as practical carrying bags as well as ceremonial wrapping. For the more utilitarian uses, people would carry a furoshiki cloth around with them, just in case, and tie it into a tote bag as the need arose. This habit will become very useful here once plastic bags are banned, and that’s soon (see the videos below to see how to tie a quick tote bag). Last year’s post on this topic is here and instructional furoshiki videos are here and here. Video directly below is great – Mick Jagger bought a furoshiki at this shop – but I hate the part where they walk away from the furoshiki shop with their purchases in glossy cardboard envelopes and paper bags! Photos here are all Creative Commons licensed on Flickr, by kirainet and vaneea.

And advanced:

The word “ouno” is Japanese, which is partly why I chose it (that, and the fact that it’s an ambigram – see upcoming post). Before I ruined the Google Image search for “ouno” by clogging it with my own photos, these two images showed up, both from Japan. I can find out nothing about the temple above and am hoping someone familiar with temples can identify it. Below is an antique sword element:  ”Ouno sukashi. Works made by the group of tsuba kou from a village of Ouno in Owari prefecture is generally called Ouno tsuba. Style is in common with Kayanayama tsuba and is powerful and uncouthly shaped.” Alternate spelling is Ohno, which on a bad day in the Ouno studio, seems appropriate. And on a bad day, “uncouthly shaped” is also appropriate, but I don’t find this design uncouth. Please, Japanese readers, school me on this word. (I know all about the manga characters.)

Hallowe’en is over but this fantastic Japanese raccoon figure survives. I wish it could stay there all winter. It was seen at this cool little bungalow – brick, which is unusual for Vancouver – a block away from the studio. The owners refurbished it and landscaped it themselves, but I was still taken aback by their pumpkin carving skills.

PS Addendum to this post: Scott Plumbe, the carver of this tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) pumpkin, wrote in to say he took a night photo of it below and he has kindly let me add it here (see link for story). Farther below that is the “No Face” pumpkin carved by his wife Rosemary a few years ago. No Face is a character in my favourite animated film of all time, Spirited Away by Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Scott, not surprisingly, turns out to be a professional illustrator. This is an interesting way to meet your neighbours. See also this post on a house a few doors down from Scott and Rosemary’s.

Karikomi – Japanese abstract topiary – from the ever-interesting ii-ne-kore blog out of Australia by way of Japan. “ii ne kore is a shorthand version of kore wa ii desu ne, an expression of appreciation or delight in japanese.” That is how I feel when I look at these.

Thanks to kntgrl for this memory of the cold 80s: their cruel royalty, their icy diamonds.

“Our lighting is hand-built in Japan from natural materials, including the hand-made paper (washi) of Eriko Horiki, the bent Japanese cedar of Toshiyuki Tani’s Wappa series, the coiled beech wood of the Bunaco Lacquer Ware Company, and the todomatsu pine slats of Takumi Kohgei. The lights are designed by Japanese architects and artisans who strive to create distinctive contemporary designs utilizing traditional materials and production techniques…Typically these lights provide ambient rather than functional lighting, creating that special mood or atmosphere which is best achieved through the use of soft natural materials.” These spectacular Japanese lamps are sold and distributed in North America by Vancouver company Kozai Designs.