Subtitles section Play video
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Hi, welcome to China Uncensored
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I'm your host Chris Chappell
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Before starting "China Uncensored"
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I worked as a script writer for a show called "Journey to the East".
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A TV documentary series about traditional Asian culture
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and the people carrying it on today.
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Unfortunately, the show was scrapped before making it on air.
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Not long ago I posted one of the never-aired episodes
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"The Truth Behind Traditional Chinese Kungfu"
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The response to that was so incredible
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that I decided to post more.
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This one is about traditional Japanese carpentry.
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Without the use of any nails, thay can build temples that last for hundreds of years.
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It's a fastinating look at the not-quite-lost art.
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I hope you enjoy.
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Traditional Japanese carpenters built furnitures, houses and temples
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without the aid of screws, nails or bolts.
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No bolts, no nails. It lasts longer.
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In Japan there are temple towers, after 1,000 years
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they are still standing.
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We have two things in our human history:
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against the nature; with nature.
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You have to choose either one.
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So, we do the more natural side, the real craftsmanship side.
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The finished pieces reflect the ancient philosophy of Japanese carpentery
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that is still alive today.
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Journey to the East
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JAPANESE CARPENTRY
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[Zui Hanafusa] My father actually grew up doing woodcut prints.
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This is something that they did in an old country.
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They always learn a trade. So some people were farmers. Some people were electricians.
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But he chose wood working.
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[Mr. Hisao Hanafusa] When I graduated, I had to start setting up my life
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where to stay, where to work.
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So I said: "Oh, this is very easy. I want to get homesick
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I want to know home more
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If you stay where you are, you don't know too much, because you have blind spots.
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When you're far away you can see.
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So, I decided to leave Japan, to go somewhere else.
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Hisao Hanafusa has been working with Japanese carpentery for over 50 years.
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With his son, he now runs Miya Shoji,
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a traditional Japanese carpentery workshop in New York.
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[Laura Fisher] One day I was walking on 17th Street
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and I saw the beautiful tables inside. And I went in to look.
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I met Mr. Hanafusa and I said "One day, I'm going to own one of your tables"
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and of course being a quick sales man he said "Why not now?"
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And when I met Ken, my husband, and we decided we would start another life together,
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we both wanted to change the way we were living.
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I wanted to simplify, you know. I just wanted to simplify my life.
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All the pieces in Hanafusa's showroom have been handcrafted using traditional japanese techniques.
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The pieces of lumber have also been individually selected by Hanafusa and his son.
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Every morning, Hanafusa's team of carpenters begins by sharpening the blades of their hand-forged planes and chisels
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00:05:31,308 --> 00:05:36,178 Caring for these hand-tools, takes almost as much time as using them.
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But in the right hand, the Japanese hand plane
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produces a smoother cut then a machine plane.
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As the blade passes through these Shoji screen beams, it clearly slices off thin ribbons of wood.
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The process of using and caring for these traditional tools reflects Hanafusa's philosophy
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of working with nature, not against nature.
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[Mr. Hisao Hanafusa] We have two things in our human history:
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against the nature; with nature.
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You have to choose either one.
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When I was a kid I studied Industrial Revolution.
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Fantastic stuff, but it killed all the craftsmen.
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All the personal, individual talent they killed.
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So, we do more the natural side, the real craftsmanship side.
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We're still doing it that way.
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Some people say it's stupid.
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[Ken Woodlock] I knew of Mr. Hanafusa. So I would go by the place with my children.
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We'd look in the windows and there were plenty of screens, and the furniture was all there.
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So we started talking about how we're gonna decorate this apartment after we bought it.
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He became a given.
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All we did initially was go to Master Hanafusa's workshop and we chose the piece of lumber we wanted for the table.
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[Zui Hanafusa] The wood carpentery in the past, the wood within the area would actually dictate what the actual carpenter can make.
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We actually practice the same thing here.
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Where wood in the area we collect,
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would dictate what the actual clients can have.
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[Joe Kleinberg] Well we're taking down an alm tree and giving it a second life.
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We're gonna slab these branches and the big trunk and some day it'll become furniture.
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It's with a disease known as Dutch-Elm disease, which devastates Elm trees.
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It survived the first batch of dutch elm which came here over 30 years ago.
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Unfortunately, we've been hit with dutch elm disease once again and the tree didn't survive.
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This tree is approximately 300 years old. It's a shame to see it go.
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This is real specialty work. it takes a lot of wherewithal
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to tackle a tree like this, not to mention the equipment to be able to manufacture it into slabs of wood.
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Although you know, this tree is dead, it's always living.
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In the spring and summer, it breaths, it picks up moisture and in the winter it loses moisture
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so just think of it as something that's always living.
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"Here's your table". take it to museum, right?
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Everywhere, beautiful.
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After the tree has being milled into slabs,
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it has to go through a drying process for many years
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before it is ready to be made into furniture.
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A fresh tree's water content is like a 100%, right?
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"ready to use it", means that you have to remove the water content.
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That's why 10, 15, 20 years, you air-dry it.
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You watch it; ready to use it or not?
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By the time the wood first hits the cutting bench
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it is already nearing the end of its journey.
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At this stage, the carpenter begins to craft the joints
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that will hold the finished piece together
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like a three dimensional puzzle. without the need for screws, nails or bolts.
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The joints must fit together perfectly
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which is all the more difficult to achieve when using hand saws and chisels
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instead of precise electric tools.
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These butterfly joints will prevent the crack in this tabletop from spreading.
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This rectangular dinning table is an extremely simple and elegant design.
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The base consist of two wide legs attached to a long trestle by two mortise and tenon joints
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...And the legs hold the top in place with four dowels. Although it's extremely heavy,
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the table is held together with only 4 pieces of lumber and 6 joints.
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New construction is usually with nails, bolts, screws.
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But we still actually use joinery which will be wood-in-wood expanding and contracting with each other.
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so this is actually something that'd last forever.
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No bolts, no nails. It lasts longer.
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Also strong for earthquake, hurricane.
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Even in Japan there are temple towers, after 1,000 years
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they are still standing.
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The techniques for building Buddist temples
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originally came from China's Tang dynasty era in the 6th and 7th Century AD.
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This period is considered China's golden age
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where art and religion flourished.
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The mastery of joinery can be seen in the interlaced wooden brackets
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that support the temple's wide roof with the minimum number of columns
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and give the visitors an unobstructed view of the Buddha statue.
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Like the Buddhist temples, traditional Japanese homes and furniture
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are also held together with wooden joints.
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And reflect the aesthetic values of simplicity, modesty and appreciation of nature.
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[Faith Lieberman] Designing in a Japanese fashion or wanting to live that life entails a certain quest for simplicity.
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It's easier to be eclectic
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and it can be wonderful and beautiful to be eclectic but it's not part of anything permanent.
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The Japanese design is what it is.
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I mean it goes way back and it doens't change.
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And I think that you want to be as true as you can be to that vision and that philosophy.
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When you close the screen, you don't see the other side.
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So, it's just paper, but paper makes it a different space.
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I call it a "Mysterious Space".
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What we don't know is very mysterious, I think.
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Just like in life: we don't know tomorrow.
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Ten years later, will you exist?
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You don't know. Maybe we won't exist.
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This is also, you can also take it off. No hardware.
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Gravity sliding. Wooden frame
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shallow groove, deeper groove.
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No hardware. Chopsticks, knife and fork. That's different.
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Bottom of the screen is made from bottom of the tree.
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Trees grow like this, trees don't grow upside down.
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So, these are all made in the same way that the tree grows. So that's why they don't warp.
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If you position them upside down, or mix them they'll all warp.
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it's basically a "with nature", no "against nature" process
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[Laura Fisher] The Shoji screens, they offer a really wonderful diffused light
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It offers us serenity. it's like our sanctuary
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when we come here, and I think that's in part because of the Shoji screens
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[Stephen Globus] I was looking for a space that was more visually peaceful
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and actually a space that would get me away from my Western New York busy life
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into a more contemplative meditative space.
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My current apartment was almost the opposite.
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I've been collecting American ephemera stuff for about 30 years, so it's all over my apartment
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And if you go into the Japanese apartment, there is absolutely nothing that is visible or discrete.
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I find this space very peaceful and relaxing
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and I often go there to meditate.
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You close the Shoji screens and all of New York is now disappearing
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You can be any where in the world.
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It's almost like a little spaceship. Like a little time travelling
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Many Japanese who have seen this space said wow, that's so cool, "su-goi" (awesome)
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Once all the joints have been carved and fitted together, the pieces are hand-planed to a flat smooth finish
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And coated with many layers of traditional tung oil made from the seeds of the tung tree
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The finished table is then assembled
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In this folding table the legs fold out via dowels
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and are held in place by small wooden pegs
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The top is joined to the frame with four sliding dovetail joints
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The genius of the table lies in the flexible wooden beam
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that holds the legs securely open or closed,
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with the help of joints on the base and legs
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[Mr. Hisao Hanafusa] Su-goi. (Awesome)
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Everything is done in a very traditional way that lends itself to pride in what you do, pride in the job.
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And that pride is reflected in the quality of the things that we have in our home
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that make our lives wonderful and beautiful, easy to live in
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So it arrived one day.
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When Hanafusa's men show up at your apartment they will stop at our door
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they will remove their shoes, they would bow, they honor the space itself
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by being so traditionally Japanese
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[Laura Fisher] They have a reverence for their materials,
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for the space, for what they're doing and we can feel that.
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Using the table after they have put so much care into making it.
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You can feel it. it comes through.
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[Faith Lieberman] I cannot say why I chose the Japanese.
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That's why I think it's something in me that came from some remote place.
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I can only think that if there were an after life, then perhaps I was Japanese in some other culture
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because it really comes from something very innate
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Hanafusa is really a philosopher and I think what we have in common is that he's an artist and I'm an artist.
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So I think he's a purist.
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I think when you're an artist you strive for some kind of truth and consistency.
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The concept of beauty in traditional Japanese design is different from that in the West.
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subtle imperfections and signs of age or weathering are prized.
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They inspire the viewer to contemplate the passage of time and the imperfect nature of life.
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A truly beautiful object should inspire a feeling
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of serene loneliness and quiet self reflection.
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In Japanese, this aesthetic is called "wabi sabi".
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Wabi Sabi is talking about beauty, talking about life.
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There are many different kinds of beauty: antique beauty
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rustic beauty, fresh beauty, young beauty.
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It's very abstract and wide. It doesn't say just "this".
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When I go to Japan, people say
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"You came back during a bad season, there's rain. You can't go anywhere."
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No, I designed it that way, so I could see the rainy days.
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If you live there you don't notice;
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you don't have to go anywhere on a rainy day
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tomorrow may be a clear day.
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But, wet temple, wet garden, and no people because of rain...
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I think that's more beautiful.