Latest / It's All Japanese to Me / Ep. 10 — Furudōgu: old tools, not quite antiques

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Ep. 10 — Furudōgu: old tools, not quite antiques · It's All Japanese to Me

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Rikuto.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: So today's word is furudogu.
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  SPEAKER_00: Furu means old and dogu means tool, or more broadly, things you use.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten defines it very simply as tools that have been used
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  SPEAKER_00: until they are old.
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  SPEAKER_00: Its oldest example is from 1585, from a book about Renga, a kind of linked poetry.
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  SPEAKER_00: The line talks about using old tools in a new way,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it is about poetry, not about actual tools.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the market we visit for notokatachi,
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  SPEAKER_00: we often see furudogu, next to another word koto, usually translated as antiques.
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  SPEAKER_00: According to the Heiwon-sha For the encyclopedia,
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  SPEAKER_00: in the Edo period,
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  SPEAKER_00: the main art objects were tea utensils, and people called them Dogu.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then in the Meiji period, Koto,
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  SPEAKER_00: a word from Chinese,
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  SPEAKER_00: came into the white years, and it took over many of the things once called Dogu.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yanai Soetsu wrote an essay about markets like these called Kyoto no Asaichi or
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  SPEAKER_00: the Morning Markets of Kyoto.
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  SPEAKER_00: He lived in Kyoto from 1924 to 1933 and often went to the markets at Toji Temple
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  SPEAKER_00: and Kitano Tenmangu Shrine.
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  SPEAKER_00: He writes that small dealers were already He compares these markets with
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  SPEAKER_00: the flea market of Paris and the Caledonian market in London.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he says that unlike the shops of antique dealers, there are a world before market prices.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today, Japanese law has one word for all of these things, and there are laws from 1949.
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  SPEAKER_00: Goods that have been used even once are kobutsu, second-hand goods.
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  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of the law is to prevent the trade of stolen goods.
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  SPEAKER_00: So dealers need the permit from a provincial public safety commission,
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  SPEAKER_00: the body that oversees the police.
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  SPEAKER_00: Its regulations divide kobutsu into 13 categories.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of them is dogurui,
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  SPEAKER_00: tools which include furniture,
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  SPEAKER_00: household utensils, sports equipment, music instruments, and even records.
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  SPEAKER_00: Crafts, on the other hand, are listed under art.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm still learning how people in the trade use these bars.
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  SPEAKER_00: So please take this as a rough map.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right, that is it for today's episode about Furudogu.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for listening and see you next time.
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  [music]