Talk:Japanese bamboo weaving

Copyediting

I have accepted the request to copyedit this article. I will keep you informed on how things are progressing. David Thibault (talk) 19:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you David. Gryffindor (talk) 08:14, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Gryffindor: I have completed my first copyediting pass. Please review the queries posted below. Thanks! David Thibault (talk) 23:19, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Gryffindor: I have completed my second copyediting pass. All of my copyediting queries are posted below. Please go through them carefully and post any necessary comments. In a number of instances I have provided possible revisions to problem areas, which only require you to sign off on them (but only if the meaning of the text has not been changed). David Thibault (talk) 00:48, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Gryffindor, please let me know when you have responded to the queries. I'm available to consult with you on any queries that require additional discussion. David Thibault (talk) 19:38, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Copyediting queries

Images

• The caption for the first image should be revised for clarity. Below is a possible revision. Please check it carefully to make sure the meaning has not been changed:

“Woven bamboo flower basket from 1892–1950 by Maeda Chikubōsai I, in front of a byōbu (Edo period, 1650–1750) depicting four flower arrangements in baskets”

History

• In the third paragraph, I moved the translation for “karamono” from later in the paragraph to the second sentence, so readers understand what it means when it is first mentioned. Please review the change and sign off on it. Thanks!

• In the third paragraph I noticed a clause that may need to be rewritten. Below is a possible revision:

“…who advocated for a simple, austere wabi-cha tea style tea ceremony with natural and "spontaneous" or seemingly artless utensils.”

• In the fifth paragraph, the word “terroir” appears in the first sentence. Is this a typo? The definition on Merriam-Webster.com for “terroir” defines it as a noun: “the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character”.

• The sixth paragraph jumps from past tense to present tense. I am unable to enforce a consistent tense throughout the paragraph without inadvertently changing the meaning. I will leave it to you to make the necessary changes. Is the apprenticeship process the same today as it was in the past?

• The last paragraph in this section has a similar issue with tense. Are these three areas of production the same today? If not, perhaps the phrase "In the past..." could be added to the beginning?

Kansai artisans

• In the first paragraph, the first sentence should be revised for clarity. Below is a possible revision:

Original: "Sophisticated sencha flower baskets and tea ceremony utensil baskets were in especially high demand the area of western region of Kansai with Osaka and Kyoto at its center."

Revision (please check that the meaning has not been changed): "Sophisticated sencha baskets and tea ceremony utensil baskets were in especially high demand in the western region of Kansai, with Osaka and Kyoto at its centre."

• The end of the second paragraph shows two dates for when Shōkōsai V was designated a Living National Treasure (2003 and 1953). Please reconcile.

• In the fourth paragraph, the very last clause may need to be revised. Below is a possible revision (adding the word “with” and italicizing “The Gate”, if it is the title of a work of art):

"…, or with The Gate in 2017 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art."

Kantō artisans

• In the first sentence of the third paragraph, it’s unclear who was a disciple of whom. Below is the original plus two possible revisions:

Original: “Ishikawa Shōun (1895–1973) was a disciple of Iizuka Rōkansai, as well as Yokota Hōsai (1899–1975).”

Possible revision one: “Ishikawa Shōun (1895–1973) was a disciple of Iizuka Rōkansai, as was Yokota Hōsai (1899–1975).”

Possible revision two: “Ishikawa Shōun (1895–1973) was a disciple of both Iizuka Rōkansai and Yokota Hōsai (1899–1975).”

Techniques

• This entry may need to be revised for clarity. I recommend rewording the text in parentheses so it's clearer which translation (or translations) refer to western Japan. Previous entries in the list use the wording “known as _____ in western Japan”.

"Hexagonal plaiting (mutsume ami 六つ目編み, kagome ami 籠目編み, kikko ami 亀甲編み in western Japan)."

• This entry may need a similar revision.

"Mat plaiting (gozame ami ござ目編み, nuki ami ぬき編み in western Japan). Also known as Simple plaiting."

Bamboo weaving in art

• The first sentence of the second paragraph talks about a “Nabeshima ware porcelain dish from the late 17th century”. There is an image below, presumably of the very same dish, but the dates in the caption are from the late 17th century to the early 18th century. If it is the same dish, both dates should be the same to avoid ambiguity.

• The last sentence in this section is difficult to understand, and also gives an opinion about how much effort the artisan put into the work. Below is a possible revision:

Original: Here the artisan went so far to realistically imitate the surface of the bamboo by stoneware with cream slip and brown glaze.

Possible Revision (please check that the meaning has not been changed): The water jar is made out of stoneware, and as the image below attests, the artisan was able to realistically imitate the texture of bamboo.

Further Reading

• The following entry may need to be revised. If “Arts of Asia” is the title of a magazine or journal, it should be italicized.

Coffland, Robert T. "Japanese Bamboo Art." Arts of Asia 29:2 (March-April 1999): 78–91.

• In this entry, “Japanese Contemporary Bamboo Arts” should be italicized if it is the title of a book.

Coffland, Robert T. Japanese Contemporary Bamboo Arts. Santa Fe: Arc Media Resources and Tai Gallery, 1999.

Copyediting completed. If necessary, I can be reached at my talk page. David Thibault (talk) 04:34, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Hallo David, thank you for your help. Most of your corrections have been incorporated, and I have made some new additions. Gryffindor (talk) 11:53, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Gryffindor: Thank you Gryffindor, it was a pleasure to work on the article! David Thibault (talk) 18:30, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Gryffindor: Hi Gryffindor, I reviewed the corrections you made to the article. The article as a whole looks great! I do have three recommendations, all of which pertain to the History section:

• In the third paragraph, I still recommend revising the third sentence for clarity. After giving further consideration to what is trying to be said, I feel that the following revision would be best (but only if it is accurate):

“It was the 16th-century tea master Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591) who advocated for a simple, austere wabi-cha style with natural and spontaneous or seemingly artless utensils.”

• In the seventh paragraph, the revision you made to the bottom looks good, but the shifting in tense in the earlier part of the paragraph should still be addressed. It may make it difficult for readers to understand what took place when. Below is a possible revision, but only if the information is accurate:

“As is similar in other Japanese crafts, the acquisition of knowledge usually involved a lengthy apprenticeship with the master of the workshop, often the father of the young disciple, in a system called shitei (師弟). Learning the basic skills and techniques generally took five to ten years, but mastering them and developing an individual style could require decades. Hard work was required from the pupil almost every day in exchange for little or no pay. Living in the master's household and participating in household duties, apprentices carefully observed the master, senior students, and workshop before beginning any actual training. Even in the later stages of an apprenticeship, it was common for a disciple to learn only through conscientious observation. This has changed in more recent times, as younger generations are unwilling to go through this traditional system. They instead learn the basic skills in technical schools such as the centre in Oita, and later go to a master.”

• In the last paragraph there is still an issue with the present tense appearing in the first sentence, and the past tense in the second sentence. I recommend the following revision, but only if the information is accurate:

“The three main production areas of bamboo weaving are the western Kansai region around the cities of Osaka and Kyoto, the eastern Kantō region around Tokyo, and the southernmost island of Kyūshū. Each has their own plaiting techniques and styles.” David Thibault (talk) 20:02, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Hallo David. I honestly cannot say much about the last two suggestions. The situation is a mix really. You have the traditional way still existing, but not at the same time. The same applies with the areas, it used to be clustered, but now could be anywhere. So I don't really know how to solve that tense-wise. Gryffindor (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Gryffindor: Hi Gryffindor, based on what you are saying, I propose the following revision to the second issue:

Possible revision (but only if the information is accurate):

“As is similar in other Japanese crafts, the acquisition of knowledge usually involved a lengthy apprenticeship with the master of the workshop, often the father of the young disciple, in a system called shitei (師弟). Learning the basic skills and techniques generally takes took five to ten years, but mastering them and developing an individual style can could require decades. Hard work was required from the pupil almost every day in exchange for little or no pay. Living in the master's household and participating in household duties, apprentices carefully observed the master, senior students, and workshop before beginning any actual training. Even in the later stages of an apprenticeship it was common for a disciple to learn only through conscientious observation. This traditional approach is still practiced today, although not as prevalently as in the past. This has changed in more recent times, as younger Younger generations are unwilling to go through this traditional system and learn instead the basic skills in technical schools such as the centre in Oita, and later go to a master.” David Thibault (talk) 00:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Here is a proposed revision to the third issue (please read it carefully and ensure that the information is accurate):

"The Traditionally, the three main production areas of bamboo weaving are were the western Kansai region around the cities of Osaka and Kyoto, the eastern Kantō region around Tokyo, and the southernmost island of Kyūshū. Each had their own plaiting techniques and styles. These clustered regions of production have since expanded, and the craft of bamboo weaving can now be found throughout Japan." David Thibault (talk) 00:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Gryffindor, if you need to reach me regarding the two suggested revisions, please leave a message on my talk page. Thanks! David Thibault (talk) 20:18, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Bamboo weaving in Japanese

Congratulations to the nice work.

I would suggest that 竹編み "takeami" be mentioned in the lead as it appears that the article covers multiple bambooworking techniques including 竹編み "takeami" and 竹織り "takeori".

The verb "織る" (oru) as used in "竹織り" will usually produce something flat, such as blankets or carpets. Materials used in "織物" (orimono, woven products) are in many cases stringy, such as wool.

"編む" (amu), on the other hand, can produce three dimensional objects including baskets, but flat products as well.

As a matter of collocation, "bamboo" goes better with the verb "編む", while it is may still be used with "織る" with limitations. Go a.k.a 薬師末 業 (talk) 06:48, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Your suggestion has been incorporated, thank you for pointing it out. Gryffindor (talk) 11:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Over-emphasis on Japan

Like so many wiki articles on East Asia, this has a heavy and undue bias towards Japan. This is especially obvious in the title. Do we really need individual articles for the different types of bamboo weaving from every country that practices it? Also, I note that there is no equivalent Japanese wikipedia page. The page for Bambooworking does have a Japanese page, and gives far less undue weight to Japan. I would suggest merging these pages, but I'd like to hear what other editors think first. Retinalsummer (talk) 00:44, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Retinalsummer: We don't have to follow suit with our sister Wikipedia projects; English Wikipedia is a sperate project to Japanese Wikipedia, and we don't take direction from them, and vice versa. Our articles don't have to match up in terms of what's there, what's separate, and what's not, and we don't determine notability based on what they're doing across the internet pond.

As for "heavy and undue bias"...this is the article for Japanese bamboo weaving. If you look on the see also section of the bamboo weaving article, you'll see links to the articles Chinese bamboo weaving, Taiwanese bamboo weaving, the Korean art of sokuri, and other bamboo crafts from other Asian countries.

If a craft is notable enough to have its own article, then there's no reason to merge; in fact, I'd argue that there's probably a lack of articles on the different bamboo crafts of East Asia, as arts and crafts articles on Wikipedia tend to be lacking in terms of what we could be writing about and finding sources for.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:33, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and you'll notice the poor quality of sources for those other bamboo weaving articles. Wikipedia is not supposed to do original research and invent terms and categories. Is there a special page for French basket weaving? No, because research has not been done to show that French basket weaving is so notable and particular that it requires its own term and page (you'll note the Japanese term used in the lead (竹編み) doesn't say anything about Japan, and is instead a generic term for bamboo weaving that could refer to bamboo weaving anywhere). The craft is notable, but an individual page for the craft in each country does not meet notability standards. Retinalsummer (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Retinalsummer: If those sources are poor-quality, I would highly suggest putting the work in to discover better ones before deciding the topic is not notable.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot of editors contributing to arts and crafts articles, and help would be much appreciated. I know full well I have sources available to me for Japanese bamboo weaving as a specific tradition, but I have very little time to add them in; most of my contributions these days are formatting fixes, as I cannot spend a few hours doing little else but research and editing.

A brief aside; I wouldn't put much stock on the argument of "[竹編み] is [...] a generic term for bamboo weaving that could refer to bamboo weaving anywhere", as there's a lot of Japanese arts and crafts terms that translate very generically. The term for describing how someone wears their kimono is kitsuke, which literally means 'dressing'; the term kimono itself is a compound that roughly means 'thing to wear on the shoulders' – but we wouldn't consider the generic translation of these terms to be indication of their lack of notability or of being too generic. The evolution of kitsuke standards is vital to, for instance, understanding the development of the kimono retail market post-WWII, and it's a term that crops up continually in the sources I own on kimono, their development and their modern presence. I don't think this is any different, nor do I think it's an indicator of notability.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 16:35, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

There's very little to respond to here. As it stands, we don't have any evidence of notability beyond your assurance - and anyway we're looking for notability that justifies a separate article rather than content that could appear in a section on another article - and your argument about kitsuke actually supports my position, as kitsuke is integrated into the article for kimono. Retinalsummer (talk) 19:13, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

First-time edit

I'm new to Wiki editing, and fairly new to Japanese bamboo weaving. Approx. 4 months ago I was asked to interpret JP to EN for Tanaka Kyokushou Sensei, a master weaver from Tokyo. He arrived in our city on Aug. 3, 2023, and demonstrated his craft on Aug. 4 & 5 at our city's public museum of art, and returned to JP on Aug. 6.

As I prepared for the assignment, I noticed that on the base of most modern works, the artists engrave their names. For example, Tanaka Sensei uses: 田中旭詳造. The first two characters are Tanaka. The 3rd & 4th characters are Kyokushou. The 5th character is zou, which typically means to make or to create, but in this case, "made by."

Limited credentials to be messing around on Wikipedia, but I started learning Japanese 45 years ago, I read and write it now for my employment, and my wife is Japanese. And I occasionally, do some translation or interpretation on the side. Shinnosuke626 (talk) 21:57, 7 August 2023 (UTC)