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Less workers, Nishiki Market, hanko seals, koromogae fashion changeups

Kyoto's bustling Nishiki Market attracts all generations for its patina and palette.

Most international tourists and domestic tourists traveling their home country are "ignorant" of just how little hospitality industry service workers make. Even being perfectly bilingual only gets you the earning heights of a licensed tour guide (who either work with busloads of tourists or small private groups). A busy licensed Japanese tour guide or French or Italian tour guide can expect at the top of their niche (there is so much competition!) say USD 3,000-5,000 a month but only if they guide 10-20 days a month. That's not so hard in peak season (summer in Europe and spring and autumn in key parts of Japan). Most tourist service workers are paid peanuts. And young Japanese people, bilingual or bicultural, are avoiding these jobs more and more.

The problem is that Japan's foreign and domestic tourism infrastructure is maxed out already and less and less people want the jobs required to service tourists: changing sheets, cleaning toilets, managing a boring front desk in a hotel, selling tickets and things to tourists. The list goes on . . .

The latest think tank's (published by Kansai's Asia Pacific Institute of Research) analysis of Japan's looming tourism labor shortage sees a deficit of 500,000 jobs by 2030! Crazy as it seems, the Japanese government would like to reach 60 million foreign tourists by 2030. The year 2024 reached a high of 36.9 million foreign tourists, and 2025 is forecasted to hit 40 million.

Some of the workload, as you would expect, can be met by AI. But we know where that leads . . . It leads to less human interaction and lower authenticity in every way.

Add to that Japan's falling birthrate, the lowest of any G7 country, and one third of the Japanese population aged 65 or older, and you have serious labor shortage period. All industries will be affected by these trends, but low-pay, long-hours tourism jobs will be the hardest hit.

And using non-Japanese people, foreign workers from Southeast Asian countries and what have you, in the Japanese tourism industry is a major recipe for disaster. If you go to Japan you want to see Japanese people representing Japanese culture. So Japan and the Japanese government and the Japanese people are in a very tricky situation . . . Time will tell if Japanese tourism quality will fall or remain resilient.

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Content by Ian Martin Ropke, owner of Your Japan Private Tours (est. 1990). I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. I work closely with Japan private tour clients and have worked for all kinds of families, companies, and individuals since 1990. Clients find me mostly via organic search, and I advertise my custom Japan private tours & travel services on www.japan-guide.com, which has the best all-Japan English content & maps in Japan! If you are going to Japan and you understand the advantages of private travel, consider my services for your next trip. And thank you for reading my content. I, Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google Search), am also a serious nonfiction and fiction writer, a startup founder (NexussPlus.com), and a spiritual wood sculptor. Learn more!

Kyoto ancient Nishiki Market street

Just one block north of bus-car-crazy Shijo, lies Kyoto’s famous Nishiki market street. Today, this covered 400-meter-long, stone paved lane is home to nearly 150 shops selling every conceivable Japanese food item you could imagine: everything from fresh fish, vegetables, tofu (all kinds) and dry goods, to boiled fish paste, pickled vegetables, sweets and seaweed. The exotic foods displayed in traditional style, the incredible aromas, the colorful faces of the merchants and their ringing shouts of welcome and promotion all make a stroll down Nishiki a market adventure.

Kyoyasai vegetables: For the finest Japanese cuisines like kaiseki, vegetables grown in Kyoto are the best you can buy! Kyoto vegetables or kyoyasai are a group of vegetables that are unique to Kyoto. The chefs of top-class traditional-style restaurants throughout Japan prefer to order their best vegetables from Kyoto.

Tsukemono pickles: In Japan pickles (tsukemono) are pickled in salt. Japanese pickles are made with a wide range of vegetables, and every region has its specialty and unique styles. Kyoto is famous for several varieties of pickles, including a year-round favorite called shiba-zuke or senmai-zuke (thin slices of fat, round white radishes).

The extended power of Japanese hanko seals

"Sign here, please" is a phrase you will not likely encounter in Japan, for here, as well as in China and Korea, one's "John Hancock" carries little weight as an identifying mark. Rather, it's one's hanko, or seal, that really endorses a document. Small or large, simple or complex, only the hanko's indelible red stamp gives legal significance to a piece of paper.

As with many aspects of Japanese culture, the use of seals was imported from China. Formally introduced in 701 during the reign of Prince Shotoku, a national code established regulations concerning their manufacture and use. After Kyoto became the capital toward the end of the 8th century, seals were made for the emperor, various government offices, and certain temples and shrines, some of which still survive. Ancient Japanese seals were nearly all cast in copper, following Chinese tradition, and as Japan's system of writing was also imported from the mainland, the forms of the characters used for seals also came from Chinese models.

The earliest Chinese characters were derived from the forms of nature, and this hieroglyphic shokei script was the basis for later styles of increasing abstraction, from which the various calligraphic scripts were developed that are used in China and Japan to this day. While modern seals are made in a range of scripts, the most important types usually use one of the ancient Chinese types called tensho, which originated around 200 B.C. and are close to the shokei forms.

Prior to the Edo Period (1603-1868), seals were used on and off by various ruling governments and high-ranking military leaders. During the reign of the Fujiwara family, starting around the 10th century, the use of government seals were replaced by kao (monograms) of the person issing the document. This practice continued until the early Edo Period, when the growth of urban centers and an expanding economy fostered the use of personal seals by the general public. Business transactions required the keeping of careful records, and it became established practice to set one's seal to documents of any contractual nature.

Their universal use led to widespread counterfeiting, however, and to correct this the government ordered the registration of all personal seals in 1694. Thus began the system of registering jitsu-in (true seals) which continues even today. Individuals must register jitsu-in with their local government office, which keeps an impression on permanent file. When an important legal document requires a jitsu-in to be used, an additional certificate from the government office must also be provided, confirming that the seal does in fact belong to the user. Hanko can be divided into two broad categories: jitsuyo-in (practical seals), and yu-in (non-serious seals).

The several types of practical seals which are used by companies and many individuals vary according to the specific requirements of a given document. Separate seals are usually used for banking, stock transactions, signing contracts, acknowledging receipts, titling important papers, and for everyday purposes such as sending and receiving registered mail, or certifying common documents. Non-serious seals, which are a small fraction of the total made, include rakkan (artist's seals), zosho-in (for marking books which belong to collectors or libraries), and any other seal whose design or use is not strictly formal. Corporate seals are invariably carved by hand and have a complex design with many characters. Jitsu-in, the most significant seal for the average person, are also made to order, usually combining both family and given names in an aesthetically harmonious composition. However, the hanko most often used by Japanese in everyday life is the mitome-in, a general purpose seal bearing only the family name, used to certify ordinary documents.

Company employees routinely mark papers which cross their desks with their mitome-in, to signify that they have seen them. Housewives use their mitome-in when the postman brings a registered letter. As teenagers, Japanese students receive a mitome-in, usually upon graduation from junior high school. This type of seal, mass produced in plastic and costing but a few hundred yen, is sold in countless stores across Japan. The fact that thousands of these practically identical hanko are in use seems to contradict their "uniqueness". What matters is that the same seal is used again and again, so that a history of use identifies its owner as "the one and only".

Ranging from about 5 mm to a few centimeters in size, custom made seals are usually round or square, and are crafted from boxwood, water buffalo horn, or ivory. (The recent ban on importing ivory will have no effect on the seal industry, as sufficient stock already exists for a decade or more of production.) Large seals, such as those with name and address together, are often made of rubber which can be carved, cast, or the design may be reproduced photographically.

To make a seal, the style and form of the characters are selected, and the composition is repeatedly adjusted for aesthetic balance and harmony. Seals always have a waku, or surrounding frame line, which is thin if the lines of the characters are thick, and vice versa. The face of the seal is polished flat, painted with red ink, and then the characters are drawn in reverse with India ink, using delicate brushes of various sizes. After rough carving, the lines are carefully brought to their final dimensions, and an impression is made to check that everything is perfect. A simple boxwood seal will cost about Yen 10,000 and takes about 3 hours to make. Complicated seals in ivory may cost Yen 80,000 and take a day or more.

Before using, the hanko is tapped repeatedly on shuniku, the traditional vermilion paste, or on a modern-type ink pad, until the end is fully coated. Then it is placed firmly upon the paper and pressed home. The better grades of shuniku, made from cinnabar and other mercuric compounds, leave an impression whose color will remain fast for hundreds of years. Small hanko for private use often come in special cases, complete with their own miniature shuniku pad, so that they may be used anywhere.

Seals have two more special uses: When someone makes a written error which cannot be erased, the mistake itself is stamped with the individual's tiny, oval teisei-in. The correction is written next to the mistake, and all is well. Wari-in can be any seal which is used in the following way to prove that a document, such as a contract, is genuine: when the original is made, it and another certifying document are brought edge to edge and the seal is placed over the dividing line, leaving half an impression on each paper. If necessary, the two documents can be brought together at a later date, and authenticity will be verified when the two parts of the wari-in match up perfectly.

From the little teisei-in to the massive 4.5-kilogram, pure gold seal of the Emperor, seals are an important reality in Japanese life. As with many traditional Japanese crafts, however, there is a shortage of young people willing to devote their lives to the discipline and selfless labor involved in mastering seal carving. But the practice of using seals, and the companies which provide them, will no doubt continue for a long time to come.

Japan’s koromogae seasonal clothing changeups

In Japan, koromogae culture is all about national clothing and color schemes, and it’s over 1,200 years old!

When Japan entered the modern Western world in 1868, European clothing and lifestyles took over fast . . . but koromogae culture continued in all ways . . .

For the foreign visitor or resident what is most noticeable is the shift in clothing color. In October all the bright colors of summer disappear almost overnight, replaced with dark serious colors (lots of black, grey and brown). And this is extremely consistent and homogenous no matter where you go in Japan (except for tropical Okinawa). And as the cold grows so does the thickness of the outer and inner clothing . . . The shift to summer in June koromogae culture is back to brighter colors and thinner fabrics.

But it’s not just the clothing scene that changes in Japan. There are also major changes in the home. October is for space heaters, properly putting away summer textiles (especially expensive kimono textiles), and closing the windows. In June, the wool carpets are rolled away, fans and air con on, and the windows screened and wide open . . .

Koromogae is a major seasonal shift, and you will notice! What most foreign tourists and many Japanese forget is that the seasons change every 2-3 weeks in Japan. And this is well understood in the nuanced worlds of the tea ceremony and flower arrangement and classic poetry and literature . . .

Content by Japan travel specialist & designer Ian Martin Ropke, founder & owner of Your Japan Private Tours (YJPT, est. 1990). I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. I work closely with all of YJPT's Japan private tour clients and have a great team behind me. I promote YJPT through this content and only advertise at www.japan-guide.com, which has the best all-Japan English content & maps! If you are going to Japan and you understand the advantages of private travel, consider my services for your next trip to save time & have a better time. Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google Search) is also a serious nonfiction and fiction writer, a startup founder (NexussPlus.com), and a spiritual wood sculptor. Learn more!