{"id":1075,"date":"2012-04-05T23:07:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T14:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kcjs.jp\/cip\/?p=1075"},"modified":"2012-04-05T23:07:13","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T14:07:13","slug":"jacqueline-wee-noh-masks-and-woodblock-prints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/2012\/04\/05\/jacqueline-wee-noh-masks-and-woodblock-prints","title":{"rendered":"Jacqueline Wee: Noh Masks and Woodblock Prints"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Masks are creepy.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s a fairly agreed-upon opinion.\u00a0 And yet, somehow I\u2019ve been spending four hours of my Mondays, almost every week, surrounded by them.\u00a0 My Monday activities started about halfway through last semester, at the beginning of November.\u00a0 After my host mother\u2019s coworker heard that I was taking a class on Noh theater, she invited me to her house, where her father and one other person were learning to carve Noh masks from a teacher.\u00a0 Being an arts-and-crafts person, and having always been fascinated with wood carving, I agreed to learn Noh mask carving.<\/p>\n

The classroom is an extra room in an acquaintance\u2019s house.\u00a0 The other two students, who I\u2019ll call Tail-san and Village-san, and teacher, Inside-sensei are all ojiisan<\/em> (grandpas) who have been friends for a very long time.\u00a0 On top of gathering at Tail-san\u2019s house every Monday to hack away at some wood, they also play mahjong and basketball at other times in other places during the week.\u00a0 Going to my Noh mask class might be my favorite part about being in Japan.\u00a0 A lot of people who hear about my latest hobby give me a weird look when I mention that it involves hanging out with grandpas almost every week.\u00a0 They go, isn\u2019t that\u2026boring?\u00a0 But it\u2019s far from that.\u00a0 The three of them are some of the most interesting people I\u2019ve met since coming to Japan, and having lived for quite a deal longer than I have, they have tons of stories and knowledge of things I\u2019ve never even heard of before.\u00a0 Also, since they\u2019re good friends with each other, despite being \u201cold\u201d\u2014a word I don\u2019t buy anyway since I consider age more of a mental thing than something purely decided by number of years one has been alive\u2014they\u2019re always cracking jokes and displaying their competitive side.\u00a0 For example, they\u2019ll pull out a scale and argue about who has carved his mask thinner and lighter.\u00a0 Or who has managed to make his mask look older and more weathered.\u00a0 Every minute spent in that classroom with those three is fun, and I feel like I\u2019ve slowly become a part of the group.<\/p>\n

Also, although it\u2019s not really directly related to mask carving, the actual setting of my lessons is also lively.\u00a0 Since I\u2019m there from 12:30pm to 4:30 pm, in between carving, we take lunch and snack breaks. \u00a0\u00a0Sitting around the floor eating various Japanese snacks with tea, I listen to stories about Japanese customs and traditions, as well as hearing about everyone\u2019s families and histories.\u00a0 Tail-san\u2019s wife is a talented cook, and everything she makes is delicious, from the familiar and comfortable oden to the chewy and flavorful boar meat, which I tried for the first time last week.\u00a0 They also live in the countryside, in a traditional house that\u2019s more than a hundred years old.\u00a0 Between coming and going to the classroom, I walk through the well-groomed garden, and even going to the toilet brings me through the wooden corridor bordered by sliding doors.\u00a0 On top of everything else, by going to mask class, my comprehension of Kansai-ben has gotten infinitely better.\u00a0 When I first started going to class, I could barely understand anything that anyone was saying, but now I can get through with very few understanding problems.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve picked up some phrases that I would have never been taught in any Japanese classroom.<\/p>\n

From the combination of my Noh class and mask carving lessons, I have learned a number of things.\u00a0 First of all, there\u2019s a set number of mask types, and in the world of Noh, there is no such thing as original masks.\u00a0 Of course since every mask is handmade, each one is unique in some way, but in general it follows strict mask standards.\u00a0 There are even stencil-type tools that one carves the mask to fit into, and if carved properly, every curve on every mask of the same type should be the same.\u00a0 For example, probably the most famous and commonly used mask type is called the Ko omote<\/em>, which is supposed to represent the face of a young girl.\u00a0 If you saw five ko omote<\/em> masks carved by five different people, at first glance they would look exactly the same.\u00a0 At the second and third glance, they\u2019d probably still look the same.\u00a0 But after staring at them for a while and getting accustomed to the subtleties of the masks, you\u2019d start to notice a few slight differences.\u00a0 The angle of the eyes might be just the slightest bit sharper on one, giving a subtle impression of slyness.\u00a0 Or the corners of the mouth might lift up a little bit more on one mask, imbuing the expression with a tint of playfulness.\u00a0 But take away the other masks to compare against, and you might as well have imagined the differences.<\/p>\n

Although I started off with \u201cmasks are creepy,\u201d I don\u2019t actually think so anymore.\u00a0 Well, for the most part.\u00a0 We recently started painting our masks, and seeing multiple pure white faces lined up on the floor is still a little alarming.\u00a0 But that part aside, now they\u2019ve become like any other product of hard work.\u00a0 To me, my mask is sort of pretty, rather cute, and something I\u2019m quite proud of. I\u2019ve also gotten a little better acquainted with traditional Japanese materials.\u00a0 The tools used to carve masks are hard to find even in Japan, and I\u2019ve never seen them in America.\u00a0 They come in three general shapes, flat, curved, and diagonal, and in all different sizes.\u00a0 After one finishes carving, paints the mask, but the base coat of white paint isn\u2019t even paint at all.\u00a0 It\u2019s called gofun<\/em>, and it\u2019s used not just for masks, but also in some traditional Buddhist sculptures.\u00a0 It starts out as a white powder, ground up oyster shells, and after being mixed with animal glue that resembles gelatin, called nikawa<\/em>, it becomes a somewhat paint-like suspension.\u00a0 Although I occasionally paint and draw, I\u2019ve never worked with such materials in America.<\/p>\n

After many months, I am close to finishing my first mask.\u00a0 Mask making takes a long time.\u00a0 A very, very long time.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a rewarding process, and through it, I\u2019ve made friends that I wouldn\u2019t have otherwise crossed paths with.\u00a0 In contrast to my other main, wood-related, activity for the semester, woodblock printing, I\u2019d say that I\u2019ve found a closer community in Noh masks.\u00a0 But I can where the difference comes from.<\/p>\n

My woodblock printing class was twice a month from January to March, meaning that it only met six times, two hours per session.\u00a0 I also got started slightly late, so I really only got to attend a fraction of the lessons.\u00a0 The classroom was on the third floor of an art building.\u00a0 Although I really love woodblock printing and think it\u2019s very fun, I do much better in small, intimate group settings, so the structure of the class made it hard for me to make any particularly close friends.\u00a0 It also didn\u2019t help that the class met so few times and ended so soon.\u00a0 For outgoing people, I think classes with one teacher and many students work fine, but since I find it uncomfortable to approach unknown people and start talking, I couldn\u2019t get past just the friendly \u201chello, how are you.\u201d\u00a0 To each his own, I suppose.<\/p>\n

I did learn some techniques and information about woodblock printing that aren\u2019t really spelled out in books.\u00a0 And since the students outnumbered the teacher, sometimes I got help from fellow students who had dealt with the same problems and figured out ways around them.\u00a0 I got to learn from an experienced expert as well as normal students who had some genius tips of their own.\u00a0 During these moments, I could feel the semblance of community forming, but the end of the woodblock class came too fast, and I didn\u2019t get to see any further development.\u00a0 Had it kept going, despite my slightly asocial nature, I think I might have been able to make some good friends, similar to those in my Noh mask class.\u00a0 Ironically, pretty much everyone in my woodblock class was also an ojiisan<\/em>.\u00a0 I keep being told that I have old-person interests.\u00a0 I guess it might be true.<\/p>\n

My advice to anyone studying abroad in Japan or anywhere is to definitely find a place where one belongs and to continue going for as long as possible.\u00a0 I feel most part of a community at my Noh mask class, and I feel like my closest friends are there too.\u00a0 And I think part of the reason I feel so at-home in my mask class is because I got started fairly early and continued going for nearly two semesters.\u00a0 For the same reason, I think I wasn\u2019t nearly as comfortable at my woodblock printing class.\u00a0 But above all, I think it\u2019s important to take part in an activity that\u2019s interesting.\u00a0 Since I like carving both masks and prints, attending class was always fun.\u00a0 And because I was surrounded by others with similar interests, I always had something in common with the people around me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Masks are creepy.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s a fairly agreed-upon opinion.\u00a0 And yet, somehow I\u2019ve been spending four hour … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080 →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_locale":"","_original_post":""},"categories":[33,8,43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcjs.jp\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}