In this issue, I would like to write about what I felt when I came into contact with the culture of a different country.
To begin with, my first contact with the culture of a country other than Japan began about 30 years ago when I spent three years in France to study jewelry.During those three years, I really experienced a lot and had a culture shock.Even now, I often go abroad to buy jewelry, to participate in overseas fairs at OKURADO, for exhibitions that I really want to see, etc.As I mentioned in a previous Journal, last year, 2023, was a year of many overseas business trips to Asia, Europe, and the United States, as the COVID-19 pandemic dawned in earnest.
What I feel most when I live in Europe or go on overseas business trips is not the countries I visit, but the fact that my home country, Japan, is in many ways a “very special country.
A country where if you drop your wallet or smartphone, it will be returned to you at a later date.
A country where courier services deliver on time and apologize if they are late.
A country where the Shinkansen departure time is only a few minutes late in departing and an apology is announced.
A country where, despite being a developed country, almost the majority of people living here were born and raised in Japan.
A country where shiny new convenience stores are overflowing with goods even late at night.
A country where everyone takes a bath every day, where everyone is clean, and where soft tissue paper is handed out on street corners for free.
The thing I feel most when I live in Europe and visit Asia and the U.S. is actually about my own country, Japan.This does not mean that Japan is convenient or the best, or that I am a patriotic person. The beauty of Paris and the countryside in France, the Italian food I ate in Italy, the vibrancy of Singapore, and the gentle flow of time in Thailand are all wonderful and unforgettable.My current goal of designing jewelry with a Japanese flavor comes from my love for my home country, Japan, which I feel anew in this foreign country.
When you come into contact with a foreign culture, you will find that Japan is a country that is obsessed with details, with delicate and beautiful things, with terrible precision, with dexterity that makes things smaller and smaller and more precise, and with a serious, meticulous, naïve, and good-natured person who is inward-looking because of his or her obsession with precision, It is a culture that is truly “rare” in the world.
The metal part is not in the shape of a sphere, requiring delicate and careful craftsmanship in which the craftsman creates the sphere while clasping the gemstone.
And I want to express this unique, yet wonderful, inner culture of my country through my family’s jewelry design and production.
I am probably a typical inward-looking Japanese person who is supposed to talk about “influences from different cultures in other countries,” but instead I end up talking about my own country.
I will write about the fulfilling three years I spent in Europe, which I wrote about at the beginning of this article, at another time.
The “Seasonal Colors” Collection
A series of 12 diamonds and subtly colored gemstones depicting the changing of the seasons
Hitoshi Okura
OKURADO
