Rikki Gill on sun 19 feb 06
minister exchanges public service for kilns and tea pottery
I hope you will find this an interesting article.
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1.DTL
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Sunday, February 19, 2006 (SF Chronicle)
Perfecting the art of life after politics/Ex-Japanese prime minister exchan=
ges public service for kilns and tea pottery
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Morihiro Hosokawa blazed across Japan's political firmament like a comet.
The charismatic descendant of famous feudal lords, he led the reformist
overthrow of a 38-year monopoly on government held by the conservative
elite to become Japan's prime minister in 1993.
Comparisons were made in the American media to John F. Kennedy, but
Japan's Camelot proved short-lived. After eight months, Hosokawa resigned
in the face of criticism about questionable campaign contributions and
left politics.
Now, Hosokawa's back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly. He retreated
into what he hoped would be the simple life of a rural potter, but his
traditional-style tea bowls have brought the world knocking again.
"I'm not a professional potter, and I didn't intend to become a
professional potter," the gentle-mannered Hosokawa said in an interview
Friday in San Francisco.
He's here to deliver a speech this afternoon at the Asian Art Museum, his
first talk in the United States on his reincarnation into the "quiet life"
contemplating the ancient elements of clay and fire.
Commanding prices in the $6,000 to $10,000 range, his work is valued not
just for the fame of its maker but also its quality, experts say.
"His work is gaining renown," said Emily Sano, director of the museum.
"These are works of art aligned to Japanese tea ceremony esthetics. This
is regarded as a very high art in Japan."
Many people have asked Hosokawa why at age 60 in 1998 he abandoned a
three-decade career in politics -- which also included a seat in Japan's
parliament and the governorship of Kumamoto Prefecture -- to make tea
bowls.
"There's a phrase in classical Chinese and old Japanese, seikou udoku,
which means when the sun is shining, till the fields, and when it is
raining, engage in reading," Hosokawa said through an interpreter. "I was
attracted to this type of life from my youth."
He said he watches little television and no longer reads newspapers,
preferring to draw inspiration from classic literature on retreating into
the simple artistic life, including the pastoral poetry of William
Wordsworth and especially the work of great Chinese poets like Tao Yuan
Ming and Li Bo.
He declines invitations to the prime minister's residence, the Imperial
Palace and receptions with visiting leaders like President Bush. He also
prefers to turn down requests for interviews and appearances.
Hosokawa said he agreed to speak in San Francisco because he appreciates
"the heritage of good works in U.S.-Japan relations" by the Japan Society
of Northern California, which invited him -- and because his wife, Kayoko
Hosokawa, planned to conduct a program on the Special Olympics on Saturday
in San Francisco.
He said he came to speak about "the Japanese spirit," but politics
continues to loom large in his reputation.
Analysts say his short time in office had a long-lasting impact.
"The real reformist legacy of his period was the reform of the electoral
system," said T.J. Pempel, a Japan politics expert who heads the Institute
of East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. Pempel said political competition
was enhanced in 1994 when Japan adopted a new system in which citizens
cast votes for individual candidates for some seats in the national
legislature and votes for the parties that will fill the remaining seats.
Hosokawa's grasp on power was tenuous, though, because his administration
was a coalition of eight parties, aligned against the long-entrenched and
powerful Liberal Democratic Party.
"Good looks and charm can only go so far in herding cats," Pempel said.
Hosokawa took up the quiet life about 60 miles from Tokyo in the
hot-springs resort town of Yugawara, where he makes his pottery in five
kilns, reads, gardens, goes fishing and hosts guests in traditional tea
ceremonies.
"The idea of taking oneself out of the world of power and influence,"
Asian Art Museum director Sano said, "has a long tradition that began in
China and spread to Japan."
It's a lifestyle not much in vogue today, however.
"I think it would be rare in any country," acknowledged Hosokawa, wearing
a dark brown sports coat with no tie over cream-colored shirt and black
pants.
Hosokawa's family heritage was steeped in the tea tradition, but he didn=
't
consider making tea implements himself until he attended a friend's
ceramics exhibit in 1998.
"My family has been among the warrior class in Japan for close to 700
years, and many of them were very much involved in the tea ceremony," he
said. "Some of them were very close to Sen no Rikyu, the founder of the
tea esthetic and tea life, and they were adherents of the master. And so
there are many tea bowls of value in my family's collection."
Parts of that collection are housed with other family treasures in a
special Tokyo museum called Eisei Bunko on a former Hosokawa family
estate. The family descends from generations of Hosokawa daimyo, the
cultured samurai-literati who served as domain lords of Kumamoto under the
ruling shogun. In modern times, his grandfather was a prime minister of
Japan during World War II.
Hosokawa's new calling required discipline and no small measure of
humility. He apprenticed himself for one and a half years, training from 6
a.m. to 7 p.m., under the demanding eyes of a master potter named Shiro
Tsujimura, whom Hosokawa called "sort of a wild man."
"He did not care for status or fame," Hosokawa said. "The fact that he w=
as
dealing with a former prime minister meant nothing to him. I was even 10
years or so older than he was.
"But he would tell me things like, 'Oh, you're an idiot! You're not doing
it right! You've got to destroy it and continue working hard.' I was
really trained that way from morning 'til night. And it was thanks to him
I think that I learned the craft and became adept at the craft."
His training and hard work seem to be paying off. Koichi Yanagi, who runs
a New York fine arts gallery, is planning an exhibition of Hosokawa's work
next year. American collectors are taking an interest, including one who
bought a 28-inch-tall jar for $10,000. Yanagi saidHosokawa's work is
selling well in Japan in part because of his name recognition but also
because it is "really well-done, even though he only started in the past
six or seven years."
Robert Yellin, a Japan-based columnist and author on Japanese ceramics,
said Hosokawa works in many styles and excels particularly in the highly
regarded raku type of tea bowls, which are thick and colored red or black.
Raku, like other traditional Japanese styles, appear rustic or imperfect,
a trait that lures Hosokawa to the craft as a means of exploring his
Japanese identity.
"Japanese ceramics are different from Chinese or Korean or European or
American ceramics," he said. "Non-Japanese ceramics, for example, are
exactly circular or very symmetrical. Japanese ceramics are valued for
their slight deformity."
The Japanese reverence for refined simplicity, closeness to nature and
incompleteness can be seen also in Japanese gardens, or in the preference
for flowers not yet in full bloom or for viewing a moon partially hidden
by clouds, he said. Such a suggestiveness offers fertile ground for
cultivating the imagination.
Behind Hosokawa's passion for his new life is a desire to restore "the
fine qualities of the wonderful Japanese spirit that is all but lost in
Japan now. It is rapidly leaving us.
"In the past in Japan, and in America and other countries, people really
adhered to having a noble spirit and simple life. That existed I think
through my father's generation."
But it is lacking in today's materialist, consumer society, he said. He
blamed the current system of education, family upbringing and particularly
"the negative impact of Japanese television."
"There are those like myself who are working hard and have a really stro=
ng
hope that we can somehow bring back that kind of spirit," he said.
Hosokawa will speak at 2:30 today at the Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St=
.,
San Francisco. General admission is $30.
E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com. --------------------=
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Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle
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