Month: January 2020

Tsuruga Port, Matsuzawa Fumi: a heroine, and Sugihara Chiune: a hero.

Tsuruga Port
This is Tsuruga Port in 2019.

November/9/2019

Tsuruga Port, which faces the Sea of Japan, is located in the middle of Fukui Prefecture. It has a history stretching back 1,600 years and has functioned as a hub linking Japan and the Asian continent. In particular, from 1902 to 1941, Tsuruga Port was the key port on the shortest route between Japan and Europe. As a result, there was a lot of drama there. Polish orphans docked at the port, and Jewish refugees landed there. Because of these events, the port is called the Port of Humanity. read more

Okamoto Shrine, where the god of paper is enshrined and which has the most complex roof of all Japanese shrines

November/23/2019

I’d like to write about the legend of Echizen washi and Okamoto Shrine . (If you don’t know about Echizen Washi, please visit my previous post.(Echizen Washi has a 1,500-year history and is still evolving))

“This story is from about 1,500 years ago.

There was a village, which is now the city of Echizen, among some mountains. The village didn’t have many rice or vegetable fields, so the people there couldn’t make ends meet. read more