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Mitsushitori
2024:12:29

Newsletter 1 < Apprenticeship in Japan >

I write you now from Mitsushitori, Okayama Prefecture, Japan, a small mountain town of about 800 people nestled in a slade of hills 200 km due west of Osaka; situated along a paved road surrounded by fields of rice, grapes, and persimmon orchards, centered by a village market (warm lunch, coffee/tea, eggs and other local goods inside) and marked by a single stoplight at the four corners.

The carpentry shop where I've been living and working the past 2 months lies on one of these corners...once a thriving sawmill 40 years ago and now a dilapidated spread of sawn and unsawn wood, rusting machinery (planers, edgers, bandsaw blades, a forklift) and faded iron sheathing. Behind these buildings, rising just above them, a newer one stands: clad in Japanese red cedar, it houses a jointer, planer, table and panel saws, a chop saw, sharpening station (electric lamps above these), dust collector, battery wall, a fleet of sawhorses in the corner and shelves upon shelves of smaller power tools, rare woods, various jigs and guides and templates, and individual carpenter's hand tools (chisels, planes, hammers, knives).

I, along with 2 other apprentices, stay in rooms attached to the shop. We have a small kitchenette and a shower with laundry. The toilet is in an outhouse. The kitchen and adjoining office space and our personal rooms are heated but the shop is not. Mornings and evenings this time of year are cold and dry, 26 °F, but the days warm to a pleasant 45 or 50 °F if the sun appears. One must keep moving to stay warm here. We work from 7.30 AM to 6.00 PM with breaks at 10, 12 and 3. 6 days a week this place thrums with energy. The planer and jointer hum their drone nearly all day. On Sundays the carpenters stay home but the apprentices sharpen and clean and wash. I call home to family on Sundays. Sunday mornings are very quiet. The brook beside the shop can be heard flowing on these mornings.

The company is run by 2 carpenters: Kohei Yamamoto, home to this prefecture, apprentice for 8 years to a temple and shrine company whose work consists primarily on the planned maintenance of Important Cultural Heritage sites such as Izumo Taisha, the Grand Shrine in Shimane Prefecture, where Kohei worked for several years, and Jon Stollenmeyer, an American originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, architect and in his late 20s, apprentice to a sukiya (tea house) company in Kyoto, Japan, specializing in a highly refined form of Japanese carpentry known for its careful use and (precise) celebration of natural materials (wood, bark, bamboo, reeds and other fibers) in their raw forms. These two forms of carpentry (temple and sukiya) represent the highest levels of the craft as it is practiced today.

Both now in their mid-40s, Kohei and Jon found each other about 15 years ago when Kohei decided to leave the temple company and form his own focused on building structures free of toxic materials. Essentially he wanted to understand if his tools, skills and knowledge as a temple carpenter (where all components and connections in a building are made of wood) were relevant in a modern context (i.e. outside temple grounds). This proved extremely difficult. Following years of scattered projects which nearly sunk himself and his business on several occasions, he found a client in coastal Fukuyama, Japan, which gave him the liberty and budget to build a house as he saw fit. Situated on a concrete row-block street in a typical Japanese suburb, the building rests on stone plinths set 18 inches above the ground, posts scribed to these stones, a perimeter and crawl space spread with white sand (to deflect sunlight underneath and promote air flow), roofed in clay tile, cladded in burnt cedar (a natural preservative) and all wood (frame, doors, windows, furnishings, furniture) inside and outside the building hand-planed and fitted together by Kohei himself.

At this time Jon heard about Kohei. In the story I've been told, Jon travelled to visit him at the shop and at the end of their first meeting, he, in typical plain American fashion, told Kohei that he was going to work for him. Apparently Kohei took this as a joke (Jon was still refining his Japanese...perhaps he mistook the verb?) as he was quite surprised when Jon showed up the next month with his tools in hand ready to work. How now, being nearly broke, was Kohei going to support another carpenter? Fortunately they quickly fell into pace with each other and received several new projects. They began training apprentices soon after and over the years have slowly gained recognition for the quality, beauty and mastery evident in their structures. Recently they have also begun to teach the craft, in Japan and abroad in America. The company is growing quickly. The big talk around here now is replacing those dilapidated buildings next door with a newer, bigger workshop and lumber yard. For an apprentice it is encouraging to hear such things be discussed. There is no lack of work here, either now or in the future. Such gossip is reassuring.

I arrived here 2 months ago. To write and consider that is besuming, a bit mystifying... I was here in this valley just last spring working for a plasterer nearby and had spent time in this shop preparing members for an upcoming raising. Jon had invited me for a week of work following our first meeting and which I later learned was actually a trial session to see how well I fit in with the company. Apparently I passed, as after the week ended, Jon and Kohei sat me down in the shop and offered me an apprenticeship. I'm writing this message now just 10 feet from where that conversation took place, and how different the room feels now! My tools are shelved next to another carpenter's...I have my own sharpening stones, my roll case of chisels is lying in the sun on a window sill above the sharpening table where I was stationed last night, fixing a blade's bevel. Small rounds poke out of my box...tomorrow they will be finished into handles for my larger framing chisels, the blades of which I was given as gifts from Kohei 3 weeks ago. I plan this week to begin working on my hand plane. That is a critical tool. It will take time to tune. I have to find that time. The first week of January we are off so I will find it there, I hope.

This is a key part of my experience so far and very typical of any apprenticeship in Japan...it is the responsibility of the apprentice to make his own time to set up his own tools. During the day he must be prepared to do whatever is asked of him (moving wood, burning cut-offs, cleaning and tuning power tools, milling lumber from larger stock, etc.) and soak in as much instruction (the how-tos) as possible when such is given. Nothing can be wasted. In my experience instruction is sparse and rarely repeated. I quickly learned to prick up my ears when spoken to and treat the words, half in English, half in Japanese, as precious. Accordingly, gestures become immensely valuable in this situation. Often Kohei will mime or actually demonstrate the action to be done and I will then copy it in front of him until the expected result is observed (whether on the tool, wood surface, whetstone, etc.). When asking questions I will often draw on bits of paper or wood so that he can quickly mark the drawing or mime a gesture and clarify the expectation without interference of translation. As time is the greatest limiting factor here, the answer given typically seeks the method "fastest and most beautiful" (a sort of mantra around here), meaning the method with the least steps to attain the highest quality. Recall that there are no CNC machines in this shop. All work is done by hand. It means that for this company to compete in the current market (where most timber frames are machine cut) very little energy (time) can be wasted by each carpenter. If one were to take a step back and watch Kohei work then, say mark, cut, join and assemble pieces for a window frame, it would look closer to a well-rehearsed dance, a person completely in their body using tools as practical extensions of this body, than a set of steps completed one after the other, with much numbers and thinking in the periods in between. This is the golden way. To have practiced the moves so many times, to know your tools so well and to trust them wholly to perform the actions expected, that you can forget thinking and focus entirely on the moves themselves. I do not expect to feel this for quite some time, of course. But it is the golden way and my north star. Fortunately I am surrounded by carpenters who work this way 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, and who love doing it. It is an incredible blessing to have them in company.

This is the first of many newsletters which I will be sending you (should you choose to stay subscribed) over the following months as I continue my apprenticeship here. Some will be longer, some shorter, some only photos... it will depend on the previous month and the nature of the work. Please send a message or quick hello back if you are so inclined... I miss my home dearly here and love to receive news of your life as a touchpoint. I will also be posting these letters on my website which you are free to share widely with others. It is my intention through these posts to share what I experience here and muse on those experiences, perhaps to glean some relevance for you. Suffice to say I'm living a life here quite different than I expected to be 6 months ago and all is wholly new to me as a result. Days are long and dense with teachings. I hope I may share a few of these with you in the coming letters.

Clark O’Bryan