The name and the history of the store:

(son) Our store's name is "Fujii-Fukuromono." I'm the 3rd generation, but my father is still here, too. My grand father was the 1st generation, and he started in Honjo, Tokyo. My father had been working in Misuji for 40years since the end of the war, and we just moved here in Kojima 6years ago.

From what age?:

(son) I started when I was about 20years old. It has been 20years sine then. I've been helping my father and watching my father work, so it will belonger if I include those years into my career.

My father:

(how old are you?) (father) I'm 86. (when did you start?) (father) I started in 1912, right after graduating the elementary school. So I didn't go beyond elementary school. I got the tool box as soon as I was done with elementary school, and was told "okay, you're going to work from today." It sure was a hard time. But I was on my own when I was 18,19. I mean, I was capable of doing all the works and techniques. When we were in Misuji, there weren't many stores like ours. The number of the stores decreased because of the war. They went to the country side to avoid air raids, and never came back to Tokyo. There weren't many craftsmen to make cigarette case in the first place, though.

Our products:

(son) We don't make them today, but my grand father used to make cigarette cases. It's the work that use a wooden pattern. We can(we're able to) make them today. It was the cigarette case for the soldiers leaving to Manchuria during the war, and there were 130thousand of them all together. There were about ten cigarette case makers around, so they made them together. We make bags and other little accessories now. Making a suit case a different business, and we make bags and wallets. (Is the cell-phone case new?) Yeah.We used the wooden pattern to make this. We also make a bag called Gassaibukuro. The word Gassai means "everything" in Japanese, so it is a bag which can hold everything.

Materials:

(son)The material can be anything, but we basically use cow leather and deerleather. Deer leather lasts longer than cow leather. But it's sensitive towater. The slick surface should be taken away. This is the leatherworker's job. If we don't take the slick part off, it's hard to tell if the leather is deer or not. (Is the deer leather hard to get?) No, not really. We see it pretty often. But I think the country of origin is China. I heard that the deers in Japan's mountains are not suitable for leathers. They are too soft to use.

The wooden pattern:

We hammer in the wooden pattern to the spectacle case, then smoothen the corners with iron. (do you make the wooden patterns by yourselves?) Yes. We change the thickness of the pattern according to the size of the glasses.

Order:

(son) We can put your initials on our products by ordering them.

The number of craftsmen:

There aren't many craftsmen left around here, but there are some companies that give the materials to craftsmen, and send the product to the wholesale dealer.

Our work:

(son) Most of our work can't be done by machine. A sewing machine is the only machine we use when we're making. We also use a cutting machine, but that's it. Our stuff is basically all handmade. (Shall we take your pictures?) (father) My son and me together? Umm, it's kind of difficult(because the room is too small).

Training:

(son) I think the first thing to learn was how to use the cutting knife. And we also learn the technique called "koba-suki" If we put the leather through a spinning edge, it slice off the leather, and the leather gets thinner. It's easier to bent the leather after slicing. The other techniques aren't that hard. Putting on cloths on the back of the leather, for example. There's a technique to turn over the sliced part of the leather, and put a pleat on. This might be a little hard without practice. (how long does it take to learn this technique?) If someone practices only this technique, it'll take about an year. (What's the most difficult part of your work?) Probably sewing. If I couldn't sew straightly at the end, that's it. It's over. So I'll be really careful when I'm sewing at the very end of making our products. If I fail at the last part, we can't sell it. (you don't make any mistakes anymore?) Well, the number of my mistakes are decreasing.

Kagome-pattern:

To put the mekago(a bamboo basket) in front of the house was a charm to ward off evil spirits. It was said that the oni(demon) would count the number of stitches on the basket in front of the house, and because there are so many stitches, the counting would take until the morning, the time when the oni has to go back home. (How about the other patterns?) There are many other patterns such as stripes and iris patterns. (are there any differences in the popular pattern according to the time period?) The patterns that everyone knows are always the most popular patterns.

The old things:

I think the traditional things are getting more attention today. So there kind of bags are getting more popular these days. The customer often tell me they didn't want these things when they were younger, but they want these things as they get older. Customers who are 45years old and up often say that.