My grand father started this butsudan shop, so it's been 85,86years. We've only made butsudan. The one who made the Tokyo-style butsudan is my grand father. (So there are Tokyo-style butsudans?) Yeah. Kyoto has Kyoto-style butsudan, Kanazawa has Kanazawa-style butsudan and so on. Tokyo-style one is simple than the western Japan ones which use gold and is gorgeous. The texture of the wood is more important for Tokyo-style, so I guess sashimono shop(wooden crafts and boxes) originally made butsudan. My grand father was from Kasukabe, Saitama, and started as a koto(Japanese musical instrument) craftsman, then moved to tategu(something like sliding paper doors etc)shop. The technique for tategu-shop craftsman is very similar to that of butsudan-shop. Tategu-shop not only makes shoji, but also makes many other furniture for home. My grandfather was asked to make some butsudans, and the stores in the same trade as ours increased after ours.

Almost 90% of the butsudans sold in Tokyo are made in a factory on the country side. Cheaper ones are already, made and sent from Korea and Taiwan. There's no butsudan factory in Tokyo, and there are 25, 26 craftsmen. They make butsudan by hand because most of them only run their shops with their families. But most people never know butsudan is also hand-made in Tokyo. Hand made butsudan was common before World War II, but the machine made butsudan came into the market around mid 1950's from Shizuoka. But butsudan will never be gone from the Japanese society unless all the Buddhists are gone from Japan.

People in Tokyo come from many parts of Japan, so the starting point of the Tokyo-style butsudan is the butsudan that can be used by any branch of Buddhists. Each country side is most likely to be in the same branch of Buddhism depending upon where the place is, so one type of butsudan will be okay for one region. But there are people with many different branches in Tokyo. So one of the characteristics of Tokyo style butsudan made with imported woods is that it can be used for any branches of Buddhists. Even some Christians use them.

The wholesale dealer calls our products "Tokyo butsudan," but it's actually "karaki(foreign woods) butsudan." We use kokutan(ebony) shitan(rosewood) for imported materials, and we use kuwa(mulberry), tamo, keyaki(zelkova) for Japanese materials. Well, butsudan should be made with hard and tough materials because we use the butsudan for a long time once we buy it. We always order the woods asking how thick we want boards to be cut from the log. We order from the same log because the texture of the wood will be different if the woods are from the different log. But we can't find the materials tall and thick enough today. We can't get a mulberry over 6feet today. We used to get ebonies and rosewoods in logs, but I guess for the South Eastern Asian economy, we get them in boards now. So the people in South Eastern Asia sends us only in number of the boards we ordered, and we get all different kinds of woods mixed up together, which is a problem. It's getting better, but we couldn't use the imported ones in the before because they are all mixed up.

The biggest difference is the basic technique we use to make our products. Sashimono shops makes bumps and convex on the wood, and put the woods together, but we patch woods over where we put the bumps and convex together to make our products tough. We also use nails on vital points. We don't use nails on the roof, but use nails where we put the roof together and some other parts that you can't see from the outside. We also make in 3layered structure(we stick 3 thick boards together) on the side part of butsudan to strengthen the butsudan,where it is one layer for sashimono. So the butsudan made by sashimono-shop is more likely to crack on the side. That's how we are different from sashimono-shops, and that's the characteristic of the Tokyo butsudan. We use the material called "muku," but using muku doesn't exactly mean the product is tough, so we call the 3layered muku a "muku" in Tokyo butsudan making. (do you season woods?) Yeah, but the wood is something came from the nature, so it's difficult to have the woods in the way we want. For instance, if I work with these woods for a week and leave them during the campaigns for the butsudan and I come back, they can be out of measure. In that case, I burn the wood, and fix the error. (how long do you season them?) A timber merchants season them for 5years, and we season them for about 3years before we use it. "Mulberry" needs to be seasoned for more than 10years. We often repair the butsudan made by sashimono shop (probably made before WWII), and we put more woods on the side using woods with similar color as the customer's butsudan.

We use the measurement called "go," and the normal size is18go. 20go is about 2feet or 2shaku(old Japanese measurement). 20go means the height is 2feet tall in eastern Japan, and 20go means the width is 2feet wide in western Japan. We couldn't use "shaku" on our advertisement for a period of time, so we changed the mesurement unit to "go." Many of the customers prefer lighter color today. It's probablly because the room is brighter, and ladies tend to prefer lighter color today. The ebony used to be the major one, but people don't buy the dark colored ones anymore.

The bottom shelf is for putting heavy things such as apples and Japanese confections on a dish called "takatsuki." It's also for putting tea and rice. The middle shelf is for a golden colored aluminum called "jyo-ka," and the top shelf is often for the Buddhist memorial tablet and the founder of the religious denomination. (what about incense stick?) There's a drawer in the bottom part called "mae-daki," and you can pull it out and put the incense stick and the flowers etc. The larger butsudan has the "kyo-zukue" instead.กก(does the shape of the butsudan mean anything?) The shape resembles the inside of the Buddhist temple called "nai-jin". That's why the butsudan's got a roof on it. (do you do the work all by your self on making the butsudan?) I hand the job to a sculptor to sculpt for example. Everything except sculpting and coating is my job. I come up with the design, and I change the sculptor every single time I make the butsudan. I can get a different butsudan with the same size by changing the sculptor. Some sculptor is good at sculpting human figures, and another sculptor is good at sculpting arabesque patterns. But on the other hand, it's difficult to say "could you make the same butsudan again?" It's possible to make the same thing if it's been about couple years since a particular design was sculpted, but it's impossible if it's been 20,30years since a particular design was sculpted because the sculptor could be gone some where else, and because the wood used is also different.

Each of them has a different design. We can't make a exactly same products because our butsudan is hand made. We change the design by the customer's ideas and by our own ideas. If our butsudan were made by machine and once the butsudan is on the pamphlet, it's more likely that we can't change the design. But the Tokyo-style butsudans are hand made, so we can change around when ever we want to. We can make our original butsudan by changing around the design etc depending upon what the customer wants. Our butsudan is just like an order made butsudan. We look at the material, and come up with the size and the design that matches the texture of the wood. We come up with the basic design, give it to the sculptor, and the sculptor decides the final design.

The painter who coats the butsudan should have a high level technique. Even if we use a high quality material, or if we the butsudan maker work hard, the butsudan will have no value if the painter's technique is low. You can paint the butsudan over again, but if you try to paint it over too much, the urushi(Japanese lacquer) you painted on before won't come off, and the butsudan will also loose its value. The painting technique differs depending upon the material. We ask the painter not to make the coating too shiny for mulberries because it'll look too cheap. Rosewoods are nice and slick after coating.

My father came up with this shape. The kyo-zukue usually has bumps on both sides to put the writing brush for writing Buddhist scripts, and the bumps are in our way when we try to put the daily Buddhist tools on the kyo-zukue. And we don't need these bumps for kyo-zukue, so my father thought of this new shape, and made a drawer to put the tools. You can put things you use everyday like candles, incence stick, Buddhist scripts(it's like a bible).

The large butsudans have shoji(sliding paper door), and the whole butsudan weights about 115 to 120pounds, but the large ones are easier to carry because we can separate them into top part and the bottom part and carry them. It takes 3people to carry for the large ones that are not separated.

The apprentices my father had went to different store after a while, and my father and I were working together, so we hav no apprentices now. Most of my colleagues are in their 40's or older, and some of them have sons, but their sons are too young to work. (Then will you have apprentices from outside?) That's almost impossible. Even if we had some, it takes a long time to train them, and butsudan making needs a special technique in wooden crafts, so not many people want to do it, and the sons of the craftsmen are most likely to be their apprentices. My son is in 3rd grade, so it'll take a while for him to grow up and be a craftsman like me.

It takes about 10years to learn the basic technique. (how about the training in design?) We learn them in parallel to the basic technique. Design becomes very important because the basic technique we learn is similar. (When did you start your training?) I started when I was 22 after graduating college. (When do you think your son would start?) Well, he's still young, so I don't think he has already thought of becoming a craftsman or starting his training.

To make the design that the customers like is the most difficult part. If there's a craftsman with attitude like "this is our design, and this is how it should be," the customers won't like him. So for example, we make the top shelf detachable to make the butsudan easier to clean. We listen to the customer's voice even on the small parts, and use their opinions when we think of a new design. We don't have to stick with the traditional ways or structures of the butsudan. I noticed when I talked to my father's apprentices that the apprentice who listens to the customer's voice and makes new designs is very popular, and the apprentice who strictly sticks with the traditional design is not popular at all. Having high techniques are not enough to make popular butsudans.

There are people in their 20's who lost their father or their kids, so I would say there's no particular age of customers. It's not just the aged people who come here. Well actually, Buddhism was the new, unknown thing when it came in to Japan just like medicine. So these Buddhist tools were even 'new' to Japanese culture. According to the survey 2years ago, 2/3 of the families in western Japan have the butsudans, and only 1/3 of the families in eastern Japan have the butsudans today. So I guess there still are some needs for butsudan. There are many people around Tokyo who are from northern Japan, and the oldest son would have the butsudan in their home, and the other brothers or sisters won't get it unless someone dies in his/her family. Unlike the people in eastern Japan, many of the people in western Japan strongly think they have to worship their ancestors, so many of them have the butsudan.

I was talking to an 80years old lady when I was selling the butsudan in a department store, and she told me there's no butsudan in her home because she's got no ancestors. I guess she was trying to tell no one has passed away recently because there's no way for someone to exist with out any ancestors. Many people get mixed up between the butsudan business and the funeral business. We have no relations with the funeral business. We just get in touch with people before or after the funeral.

I can see when I sell butsudan in the department stores(we go there and sell butsudans couple times a year) that someone can just come and decide if she wants to get a expensive paulownia drawer or not, but all the family members need to agree on which butsudan they're goung to get. It's a family thing. It's harder to sell butsudans than to sell drawers. Some department stores don't understand and they sometimes refuses us to come and sell because we didn't sell much butsudans on the first year. But it takes years for many customers to realize "that department store's butsudans are in high quality and are in reasonable price every year." The customers then come and buy butsudans. The customer we delivered our butsudan recently had our calling card we passed out 6years ago in a department store. Some people with our calling card from 17,18years ago even calls us and order our butsudan. People who really wants our butsudan comes even after a long period of time, so we need to explain our butsudans thoroughly to have more customers. Butsudan is a thing you would buy at some point of your life.

It takes about 3months to coat and to finish the butsudan from a piece of wooden board. It takes 6months for the large ones. (are the butsudans basically order made?) We need some stocks to do a business, so we always have 4 to6 butsudans in the most popular design. (Do you have a lot of stocks?) Yeah, but it was easier for us when we were asked to make number of butsudans from the wholesale store. We would get the order, we make them, send them, and we can get our profit. We don't get those orders anymore, so we should have some stock, and we should sell some by ourselves today. I guess our business faced a difficult time from the 70's.

I had been traveling with my father since middle school to look at some temples and some Buddhist statues, and that traveling is helping me a lot these days. I not only look at the temles, but I also study about Buddhism because I get asked a lot of questions from the customers about it. People ask us questions that they can't ask the temple.