I'm the second owner of this shop. Well, actually, my father and I started this shop together. I was born here(Yanaka, Tokyo), so I've been here for 63years. My father was from Mito, then he came to Tokyo, then worked and learned under his master, then he became independent, and he's been here since before World War II. His master was also from Mito, and where he was born was very close to where my father was born, so his master invited my father into his store. (Is the technique that easy? You just get asked "why don't you come" and you get into the store?) Umm… I'm not sure about that. My father's master graduated from an art school, but he was someone who went to the art school after he got married.

Well, we don't really have one. My father's name as an craftsman is called "Shuko." My name don't have a high degree than my father's. Yeah. So I put the first character of my name "Chu" on small crafts.

(Is the training tough?) Yes. I've been doing this job for 45,6 years. I thought my successor, actually my younger brother, would go to college and he'd be better off than just to stay here and work as a craftsman because he's the youngest one in our family. My brother wanted to do chasing, and I was first opposed to his opinion considering his future, but my parents seemed to be happy that he wanted to do what his father was doing. My parents said why don't he do this job, so he trained here for about twelve years, and he has his own shop now, but I don't think there were many young people who learned chasing, and success his father even when my brother started his training. This is sure a tough job, but there aren't much to do, so everyone chooses different things to do. I started this job a long time ago, and my father told me to do it to help him right away, so if I wanted to do this job or not didn't matter. (did you feel any attachment towards your job now?) Not really. May be I'm not too serious about my job. I feel like I have to because I need to live. I think I'll be better at crafts if I have more interest towards them. (how long does it take to make a craft one can sell?) Many of us say this, and we actually have to study for our whole life, and it's said that the economy is down now, but our craft change within about ten to fifteen years even if we're doing the same sculpting and chasing job. It takes a lot of new learning and training to make the change on the craft according to the time period. You can't continue working when no one wants your craft even if you are a skilled craftsman. So I think if you have a good taste, and have an interest towards the craft, you can learn the basics in about three to four years if you're an quick learner. You can learn while you work. My master told me it didn't take him a year to start working because he had deft fingers. Yeah, so it depends. So I would say it will take about ten years considering this economic slowdown. Then you make the craft that matches the time period. My young brother is a good example, and I made him train for 12 to 13 years, and he was able to have his own shop. He wasn't fully trained at that time, though.

(do the user's preference change among the time period?) I would say yes. This chasing and silverware industry have long history, and there are some crafts that have the same design since the early 1900's, but the change in the needs of the customers have been changing quicker today. The preference of the customer change so quickly now. And the techniques change according to the time period, too. Silverware shops were making souvenirs after World War II because the occupation forces came in. And they also made souvenir crafts when soldiers from other countries came in and out around Korean War etc. I remember sculpting lots of arabesque patterns. (you don't sculpt lots of arabesque patterns any more?) Yes, some people still want that design, so I do sculpt arabesque patterns especially for photo frames. There still are some needs on these designs, but there are only few craftsmen who can sculpt the arabesque pattern. My young brother who passed away when he was 42 years old was making photo frames with arabesque patterns on because it's impossible to make all the different patterns after twelve years of training.

(do you do your chasing all by your hand?) No. I sculpt pictures and I also sculpt letters. Most of the craftsmen only can sculpt either picture or letter. If he's good at sculpting pictures, he can't sculpt letters, and if he's good at sculpting letters, he can't sculpt pictures. That's the way it is for most of them. You can also say that he only has time to work on his specialty, and he doesn't have enough time to work on other things, but most of the craftsmen only do either pictures or letters. When my friends who are on the same business come to my shop they tell me my store is busy, and I tell them I'm a jack-of-all-trades. I don't only sculpt silver. If I narrow down the materials I use only to silver, I might have more free time. So I get lots of jobs to do. I do sculpt gold, too and I also sculpt brass today.

I don't have a successor. I don't have any children either. (do you plan to have any apprentices?) I don't think so. I heard from the silverware store that's in the traditional craft preserving committee of Toshima-ku yesterday that there are more people who want to learn our craft, and work like us, and there are some people who come to my store to ask me if they could be my apprentice. But if I consider this time period, when the economy is not doing well, some are doing this successor training program, but there are many people with techniques and skills who have to quit their job because there aren't many jobs in our industry. So I can't be responsible for the young new craftsmen-to-be today even if I want the young people to do this job so much.

The quality of the old crafts are good. If we take a look at the old crafts, we can tell that the old crafts are better in quality. Craftsmen in the old days used to take more time to make one craft, too. There is a type of sculpting called "Mito-bori," and they used to make weapons such as swords and its accessories in Mito, and there are lots of chasing done on them. It's not that they work conscientiously because of the money they get. It's more that they want to make crafts in high quality. It's not how much it worth in terms of money. There are tons of great crafts. (When was the best time for chasing business?) May be the generation before my father. Chaser used to have a good living. In those good time, apprentices came to the master, and there could be as many as about ten apprentices living and learning in the master's house together. So about hundred years ago was the best time for chasing. My father's master was someone who wouldn't take many apprentices, so he was actually the only apprentice. I think some other masters of that time had about five, six apprentices. (do you think spending a long time for one craft would lead to a great craft?) Definitely. So, you might know, but those exhibition in a department store are carefully made. I don't know how they live, but technically, we only had to work on a craft for two weeks for it to win a prize in a exhibition, and it's said it'll take couple months to win them. The people who are winning are inventing these new techniques, and what they make are technique-crafts more than a traditional craft according to me. They're working that much and that hard.

We have lots of crafts in stock. Having those crafts in stock means if we need to make new crafts for the exhibition, and we can't sell them, they go into our stock. It's a repetition of that. So when my father passed away, my brothers and I divided our father's crafts. My father said if he makes the crafts, he can give them to his kids, but we kids all say that why didn't he leave us some properties than these crafts??

This is an inside-talk among us chasers, but there's no professional chaser in the chasing committee. The committee's doing this successor's education thing, and they don't recruit for successors, but the people who want to do is mostly ladies. Everyone coming to the committee's class is much better and more professional than the community center chasing class. Those kind of people become a part of the committee, and have an exhibition once a year. This person who's been sending his crafts to a large competition was also saying that those committee is more of community center than a group of professionals. So if we go to their exhibition, we see a lot of dyeing crafts more than chasing. If you become a chaser, it's not that easy and it's pretty tough.

(do you compound metals by yourself?) No, I don't. Craftsmen who's in charge of the refining compound the metals. And the blacksmith would do his job, and I would sculpt after him. This flower vase right here was first shaped at shibori-ya with their machines,and the hikimono-ya flattens the bump made with the machine when the flowervase was shaped.

I don't use paint to put colors on the craft. I plate with metal for all the color. This pink for instance, so plated with copper. I think you know, but if you mix gold and silver together, the color turns to whitish gold. If you mix copper, the color becomes reddish gold. And I make the difference of color according to the amount and the type of the metal I mix. There are some other field called shiageshi on coloring the metal that mix in some chemicals.

(are you enjoying your job?) No, I couldn't feel that way, but I think it would definitely fun to forget the living, and just make what I want to make. Artists who make what they want to just continue making what they like regardless of financial profits from the exhibition. We all say after ourgroup exhibition that we'd be so happy if we could make what ever we want, show what we made to people, and make a living out of the exhibition.

(an artist?) Yeah, and it's kind of hard to know where the line between craftsman and artist. I think our store is somewhere around the middle. It's difficult to make the living out of only exhibitions. I have seven brothers. So I usually get orders from our customers sculpting gold and silver, and make money out of the sculpting fees. On the other hand, my father was more of an artist that he made some exhibitions by himself. My father was an intangible cultural asset of Taito-ku, so I donated my father's work after he passed away, and the supervisor of board of education asked me if my father was a artist or a craftsman, too and I answered my father was both a craftsman and an artist.

I do a good job in a type of sculpting called "keri-bori." You first sculpt with a thin line, and if you use that line as a base to sculpt, the sculpting would look like it's going to pop out. Not many people can do that.

80 to 90% of my works are metal processing. 60 to 70% of my father's job went to the exhibition. That's how he did his job. (how is the whole chasing industry doing today?) Not well. I went to a funeral of my father's friend's wife, and talked to the chairman of the silverware committee. We're around same age, and we know each other for a long time, so we talked about our work a bit, but I think the whole chasing industry is not doing well today.