Gifts and More Deliberate Acts of Kindness

While at the tea party described in People are People, Higa-san gave me a beautiful lacquer box. It's evidently a modern commemorative box with the Imperial crest on it (the Kiku which means chrysanthemum). No one could read the fancy script on the box, but Higa-san's husband's employer gave him the box to commemorate some event and they really don't want it. So I get it. (Ruthie and I think it may be commemorating the fact that the Imperial family had a boy, but that's just us.) It really is beautiful - black and gold.

Then, when Ruthie and I went to her school to visit, Nakano-sensei's husband (who is in administration there) came to greet us and asked us to wait for him, just a moment. He came back with a bag that had an obi in it. A beautiful blue/pink and white piece, it belonged to Nakano-sensei's mother, and she gave it to me to "make something". How sweet.

A few days later, Takenaka-san brought over some fabric from her family hoard of kimono scraps, and some of the fabric was new - made by someone she knows in her birth town, whose family makes fabric. They are beautiful pieces and will be fun to work with.

Just before I left Japan to wing my way home, Makata-san called and asked if she could bring some fabric over! She had a red kimono that she gave me. She also had a child's kimono with an underkimono that belonged to her neighbor's daughter and was soiled, so they couldn't sell it to someone else to wear. As if that wasn't enough, another friend of hers buys antique kimono and makes new, contemporary clothing out of them to sell, and she donated a bunch of nice scraps to the pile.

All in all, I made out like a bandit! In addition to all that, I bought some antique shibori and chiri-men at an antique store AND more antique shibori at a kimono store in Shimonoseki called, oddly enough, Kimono. I love shibori!

I can hear the conversations these gals were having among themselves as well as with their friends and neighbors. "Can you believe it, that poor woman bought that old, soiled stuff for way too much. We have to show her that not all old kimono fabric is that rotten! I have some nice fabric that I will never use, I'll give it to her, and maybe she can make something with that, too."

And I think I will. ^_^