Well, a bit more than 2 years ago when I wondered if I should take up blogging (and then soon quickly forgot about my blog) I wrote my second post on tenugui. Somehow that post actually did generate some traffic on my 2 post blog. So, I thought I'd pick up the topic again and show something of the combined collection of my mother-in-law and myself.
This morning when I was pulling out her old tenugui to snap some current photos, it hit me that we will be marking 20 years since her death this summer. I suppose I could say that she's my idol when it comes to a favorite word of the Japanese: "gaman" (self control perseverance). During the WWII and the aftermath, she suffered severely and lost everything she owned, including one of her newborn twins. But, she never moaned about how hard her life was, she just kept on with the daily struggles of life providing for her children, without her husband. She would have had every right to begrudge me, born in enemy territory and with limited language and life skills in Japanese, when I joined the family but instead I deeply felt a mother's love within her. Well, I'm getting a bit choked up so will move on to what I wanted to show today and tell about.
I started off mentioning my mother-in-law in part because I wanted to note that by the time she passed on in 1993 she still had few possessions. We only have a few paltry boxes containing her life's belongings. After her death, one of my brother's-in-law sorted through her things stored at our house and put many of them in the trash. Sadly, I was shocked that he threw out her kimonos but felt that I shouldn't intervene as she wasn't my mother and I didn't want to cross any boundaries. But, I'm glad that he did keep her collection of tenugui! Maybe he realized that they held sentimental value for her...
I am a collector by nature. I like things that bring nostalgic feelings in a hazy glow that improves upon what was a mundane reality. Mother-in-law's old tenugui do just that. They are historical everyday life documents of the Showa Era in Japan.
What are tenugui? They are traditional, thin, cotton, Japanese towels that served a variety of purpose. They have a fairly standardized size. Mother-in-law's older ones measure 32 X 85 cm. Ones created these days are slightly larger at at 35 X 90 cms. They are generally hand-dyed and hand-stenciled. The ones in my mother-in-law's collection weren't purchased but rather passed out as advertising or as a commemorative of a special event, such as a new town hall or the like. How were and are they used in everyday life? Well, most people no longer wear geta but back in the day if the toe string broke you could rip off a section of a tenugui and repair your footwear! I live in green tea country. Even today you can find women working in the tea fields who cover their heads with one and then maybe put a big Sunbonnet Sue type hat over that for good measure. You might also see them rolled and tied around the head of a fish monger, a carpenter, or any other variety of manual laborer to keep sweat from their brow. You'll see them tied around heads during festivals too. Studying hard for that big exam? How about one around the head to remind you that you'll pass? But, they were and probably still are a standard kitchen towel in many homes. Need a cover for a cooling pot of rice? It will do just dandy. My husband has told me that it was the sort of towel he used as a child when he went off to the public bath each evening. To this day, after more than 30 years of marriage, we still bicker about the best sort of bath towel. He uses what replaced the tenugui -- a very thin terry cloth towel that is a freebie when you stay at a Japanese inn or given out as advertising and I prefer the big thick American-style bath towel that takes forever to dry during humid and cloudy weather. A tenugui's thinness definitely has the advantage over either of them as it dries very quickly!
Ok, enough blab, here are some selected photos from our combined collection:
Well, this one is easy to identify the age of -- 30 years this month! Build a new town hall and pass out a tenugui!
I love when they are dated! This one is 50 years old! It's obviously celebrating a Sports Day event.
I thought it was a bit hysterical that this one has seen the most of age related spotting. My kanji reading ability isn't that great but I know the ones for "sewage" when I see them! Ah, harks back to our life before moving away to better and newer housing when the "vacuum car" made a bi-weekly run and I was assigned to pay him!
Well, these shown above give a general idea of design possibilities.
Now, here are a couple that I think would have been greatly improved if they'd left out the English and just kept the classic artwork:
In my original tenugui post, I said that I was thinking of using them where my classic scroll had hung before it suffered it's final blow in the March 11 disaster of 2011. So, I'll show some of the ways I've changed the look for the season with modern tenugui:
July and August during Obon season
Halloween
Christmas
My collection is ever growing and expanding when I spot another that catches my fancy. The ones shown here are by no means all that I own. Some recent ones that I purchased cost over 1,000 yen (about US $10). Ouch!
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