Hear the Coolness
In the Japanese summer, where many days reach over 35 degrees, many Japanese feel cooler when they hear the sound of a wind chime. There’s a wind chime maker that has been making them for over 20 years and pulls around a wind chime cart, which is rare these days.
Mishima, a city southeast of Mt. Fuji. From olden times, it’s been a flourishing town where you can see the spring water flow in various areas from Mt. Fuji. Even in the middle of summer, if you stick your hand in a stream, it’s cold. There are many parks and pedestrian walks, so during the summer, children and their parents gather around the river walks, surrounded by trees.
Cold, clear water and cool shade from green trees. As you listen in the corner of such a town, you could hear the playful voices of children mixed with the buzzing of cicadas, from afar, but growing nearer, you can start to hear a clink clank that feels good. You can see it’s the famous summer scene of Mishima, the wandering wind chime man. From his cart, you can see around 30 glass wind chimes, hanging like an upside down wine glass. There are various shapes and designs, like round ones, long and skinny ones, ones with Mt. Fuji or a watermelon drawn on them, and ones with nothing drawn on them at all. There isn’t a single one that looks alike. Every time the wind blows or the cart moves, all of the wind chimes begin to swing at once, and the clinking begins.
A parent traveling with their child from Tokyo came up to the cart. “It’s a cool sound, isn’t it? It’s different from the doorbell we have at home, it feels like the sound of the wind chime is natural.”
Want to tell everyone about “Cool Memories”
The man pulling the cart is the wind chime maker Sekine Hisao. Wearing his straw hat, happi coat and workman trousers, he walks slowly through the town. Every summer, from the beginning of June, to the end of August, he wanders around the town selling wind chimes.
“Actually, selling wind chimes from this cart isn’t my number one goal. I started this because I wanted the people who visit Mishima to bring the cool memories back home with them. Don’t you think that the look and sound of the wind chimes passing by makes you feel cool? And, I feel happy if, somewhere during the summer, when someone hears a wind chime, that they think of Mishima.”
Now, the wind chime cart has become a summer seasonal sight of Mishima."
I started walking around with my cart about 20 years ago. Recently, when I’m waiting at a red light, there are some cars, despite running the air conditioner, that open their windows. They want to feel the coolness from the wind chime’s sound. I’m happy because I feel like I could tell them about my feelings of the wind chime,” Mr. Sekine says with a smile.
Fixated on the “Natural Sound”
Mr. Sekine’s house is a pottery shop, and he started to study how to make wind chimes on his own there. Since he was interested in the ancient glass, he started to research about it. When he thought that he wanted to make a Mishima specialty, he thought of making wind chimes. It seems like the image of pure spring water and the coolness of wind chimes overlapped. In his representative piece that conveys the sense of transparency, “Kanoko”, it expresses the movement of the spring water. Now, the “Mishima Wind Chimes” made by Mr. Sekine are certified as a specialty of the town, the “Mishima Brand.”
Mr. Sekine is fixated on the “Natural Sound”. “Natural Sound”, according to Mr. Sekine, is the sound that surrounds you during your daily life, which just comes to your ear and doesn’t bother you, a sound that isn’t too assertive.
“When the wind chime rings, what I want people to feel is the coolness. When a wind chime rings, I want them to feel ‘Oh, the wind is flowing’. For that, if the sound is too loud, the wind chime itself becomes too strong, and it will become noisy. Also, if the sound is too low, it sounds like just glass being struck, and it becomes difficult to imagine the cool breeze.”
While interacting with the glass, he attempts many methods
Mr. Sekine’s factory is on the third floor of his house. He makes the body of the chime on his own, and the steps he takes are so simple that even other glass makers are surprised. Even so, the quality of the glass made is high and Mr. Sekine says “I don’t push the glass, instead, I let it become the shape it wants to become.” Instead of him pushing it for a certain form, he looks at the condition of the glass and interacts with it as he creates the body. Because of this, he can’t make a lot at once.
Mr. Sekine, to make an even more “natural sound” he adds various kinds of metals, and every year, he tries something new. He doesn’t just change the materials, but also the shape of the wind chime and the length of the strips of paper that hang from the chime and he repeatedly tests out different volumes and tones of sound quality. The sound is not the only thing that conveys the coolness. When he draws Mt. Fuji on the chime, it’s not just to show that you can see Mt. Fuji from Mishima, but also to make you feel the coolness that you experience at the top of the mountain.
“The shape, size, quality of materials, the design, they are all elements of the wind chime that have a meaning and intent. To convey the coolness, there are still many different ways to achieve this, so there are still good things to do, I think. I’m often asked which the best wind chime I’ve ever made is and my answer is always ‘the one I make a month from now.’”
Wanting to convey a “Japanese Summer”
Mr. Sekine wants to convey Japanese culture through wind chimes and he also wants to convey the interestingness of glass, so he has opened up an experience classroom for children. Through teaching children, he has even learned some things. “Before, I would always try to make the same shape and same sound wind chimes. But, the children would try their best at creation and I would see various different kinds of designs, so I thought maybe it’s better that they have a little personality. If the glass is a little broken, there’s distortion, or an air bubble formed on the surface, it’s considered defective. But, in pottery, sometimes a defect can be perceived as a positive. If people started to think of glass like pottery, it can be more fun and there are many more possibilities, don’t you think? Of course, this is when a creator has already a professional technique.” Since then, he still aims for high quality wind chimes, but, now he also became to enjoy the personality of each and every single creation.
While walking through the town, pulling his cart, he sometimes meets a mother with her child. Then, the mother turns to her child and says “See, they’re wind chimes. They’re cool, aren’t they?” It’s so, even if the child is still a baby and can’t understand words. When Mr. Sekine sees this happen, he remembers feeling relived. Just like the spring water that starts flowing from Mt. Fuji down underground will continue flowing, parents will continue to hand down the feeling of the “Sound of a Japanese Summer” in the future.
