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Shigaraki-cho
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Potter's house in Shigaraki, Japan. Note the tanuki statue at the corner of the house
A crowd of tanuki garden statues
The main street of Shigaraki pottery town near Kyoto
I had been told that this village not too far from Kyoto had been a wonderful place to visit thirty years before. Now, I feared it would be a strip mall of pottery shops. In many ways it was, with the village's trademark ceramic animal garden statues of tanuki everywhere. But not entirely. Like many Japanese rural towns the overall effect was somewhat shabby. There is a mix of concrete and wood; the jumble lacks the aesthetics of a farm or temple compound. We were recommended to a "true traditional potter of the area" whose work was indeed exciting, and who had only one tanuki on display, an older one more subtle than the usual mass-produced figures. But it was the family members working in the store that really impressed us, the ones who don't make the pottery but sell, and enjoy meeting people. When we bought a vase, they said, "This is the countryside [oinaka]; we don't do credit cards." They were good people, easy going, but still they were dependent on the high velocity economy elsewhere. The less artistic shops down the street pointed up the economics and politics of the situation. The town was not as simple as its self-proclaimed image.