Walking the Path: An Apprenticeship in Japan
This article was originally written for publication in “The Wooden Post,” a newsletter published by the KEZ organization. For a variety of reasons the issue never made it to publication and so I decided to share it here. They are a wonderful organization, check them out here: https://kezuroukai.us/
My phone alarm rings, the sound is still new to me; I changed the tone to mark this change in location and change in experience. It is a little after 4:30 a.m., not always typical, but not always rare either. The early light is just beginning to filter through the neglected shoji screens on one side of my futons. As the sleep ebbs away from my body, my mind spins up with excitement; today is a raising day: a tatekata, when so many months of labor culminate in the birth of a new structure. I should get up.
I unzip the mesh tent which encapsulates my sleeping area; and while making my way to the bathroom, say “good morning” to the giant, saucer sized Huntsman spider in the hallway from which the tent provided protection. Breakfast is a hastily made tamago gohan: an egg, some pickles and seasoning mixed with the fresh rice that the Zojirushi has been kind enough to automatically prepare for me while I slept. Coffee, many filled water bottles, I tie a bandana around my head and I’m out the door.
Ahead of me lies a sleepy, misty valley. The sun has not yet crested the lush hills to the east, and steam still hangs above the rice paddies. A few cars and scooters are buzzing in the distance. The occasional crane squawks and takes flight as I make my way on winding paths down from the old farm house in which I'm staying. Life is abundant in the Mitsu valley; toads and enormous grasshoppers bounce out of my path, while a slug or land crab continues their plodding commute.
It is only a short minute walk through the old and renovated farm dwellings, along rice fields, grape vines, and peach trees until I arrive at the shop. It is an ancient, dilapidated building rusting away with loose ceramic tiles, made useful again to protect stores of timber and a large log bandsaw. This older building is situated next to a new building, built entirely of scaffolding components. Inside stacks of shelves overflow with tools; items I once dreamed of are commonplace and numerous: bins of chisels and planes, groups of mortise machines, axes and saws everywhere. The morning air is infused with a mixture of damp greenery, cedar, hinoki, and just a hint of another pot of coffee brewing in the office.
There isn’t much talking at this time, only a brief good morning to my teachers and coworkers: “Ohayo Gozaimas”. There are things to do. One doesn’t ask for a task, nor is offered one. There is no heel cooling by the coffee maker, no small talk, just action. The truck must be loaded. Boxes of tools are checked and slid into place, wood is hoisted and strapped down. The scene is of a geared transmission, and you simply find a place for your gear to fit and start turning. There is excitement for sure, but it is also 5 in the morning. We pile into the truck and drive off to meet the day.
A Chance Meeting
From late June, 2019 until the end of March 2020, I lived in the town of Mitsu, north of Okayama, Japan, and worked as an apprentice carpenter for the Somacousha Company, under the instruction of Yamamoto Kohei and Jon Stollenmyer, referred to as “Yama San” and “Jon “ respectively. Our friendship actually began way back in September of 2018 while I was attending the Mini Kez event in New York. I had recently returned from a self organized six week trip to Japan, where I helped a carpenter at a Zen retreat center. I traveled from one end of the country to the other absorbing the culture, food, architecture and spirit of Japan.
Two men walk in, both clad in indigo pants, Japanese work shirts, straw sandals and sporting large hewing axes. “Who are these guys?”, I’m thinking, but it was obvious from observing their interactions, that they were clearly accomplished and skilled woodworkers. I recall a conversation with Jon along the lines of me mentioning my interest in getting some real experience in Japan. He mentioned their willingness to host people if they were serious, and I explained that; if I say I’m serious, it’s gonna happen.
KEZ is really, and always about the people. I remember having such a good time meeting and reacquainting with everyone at that event and bonding with my would-be teachers over many a beer. Several months passed with many emails exchanged, video conferences held, and visa application details ironed out. But finally timing and logistics were settled: I’d fly out to Japan with a crate full of tools, a 1 year cultural visa and spirit eager to submit myself to the lessons that were to come.
The Work
Somacousha specializes in traditional Japanese buildings following the ishibatate style, or “standing on stones”. A timber frame would be erected sitting on small foundation stones, the floor raised slightly off of the ground. The walls would be lathed with bamboo and covered with a natural clay plaster. The whole home consisted of wood, soil, bamboo; and in time it would return to the earth.
This is how nearly all the homes in Japan were constructed until post war regulations shifted the building styles into something akin to what we call “stick framing” here in the States. Unfortunately, through years of trendy “must do” renovation fads, many of the existing historic homes have been modified out of existence. In the original form, the houses formed a balance with the natural, moist and insect infested surroundings. Air and light could circulate beneath the buildings; natural plasters would absorb some of the oppressive humidity and cool the interior. Renovations enclosed the foundations with concrete walls, and paneled the exteriors. All too often we would find these modified, historic homes deteriorating from rot and termite damage, whereas adjacent unmodified outbuildings were in much better shape.
As with any small, eager firm, work consisted of a mix between passion projects, and a hustle to pay the bills. The focus, however, was on carpentry. During my time in Japan, I helped raise a potters studio, a combination bakery and residence, renovate several traditional structures, and build furnishings. We also participated in raisings of more modern, pre-cut frames for which a large number of carpenters were needed to place members as fast as the crane operator could lift them into place.
When in the shop, the work consisted of milling wood to size, either from full logs, or purchased stock. We cut joinery with a combination of circular saws, mortise machines, and tenon saws, and finished them with chisels and hand planes. The focus was on accuracy, productivity and speed. The romantic idea of a Japanese carpenter quietly working with a hand saw is largely a myth; our goal was to crush out joinery as efficiently as possible. This often meant hogging out waste with a plunge chisel mortiser, cutting with a precise circular saw, trimming to size with a router, a few quick chisel adjustments and that was it.
Site work was either related to the finishing out of a raised frame or on site renovations of existing buildings. We trimmed and installed various window and door frames, spliced in new wood for rotted sections, and re-made roofs. I learned much on how to create reference lines on existing structures so that you could cut and fit new members to old ones. As with shop work, my impact driver and circular saw were used as often if not more so than my chisels.
To engage in any craft is to submit oneself to the constant assault on one’s ego and understanding. This is no truer than with the art of hand planing wood with a Japanese plane. Prior to this apprenticeship I had delivered hand-planed cedar shoji doors to a client that I was quite proud of, and by all accounts, looked great. I thought I knew about planing wood. Nope. Sorry. Start again.
The best parts of the experience in Japan was a deconstruction of my preconceived notions and a rebuilding of them to a higher standard, caliber and attention to what “good” actually meant. Yama San instructed me in plane body (dai) making and after a few attempts I could finally get a nearly respectable shaving. Jon emptied my mind of sharpening dogmatism, and replaced it with pragmatic and above all fast techniques. I was continuously confronted with the realities of what carpentry required, and these washed away the romantic notions that had inspired me in the first place.
As an example, the bulk of plane and chisel sharpening began at the bench grinder with a healthy hollow grind. Gasp! In fact, this sped things up such that one only needed a few minutes at a rough and finish stone, and a whisper of a micro bevel to attain a deadly sharp edge. There is the knowing of the techniques; but proficiency and high speed is what really put my teachers into the category of mastery.
Oh the Tools
One thing appears to never have changed since carpenters were building the new capitol at Edo, hundreds of years ago. Carpenters in Japan love tools, and we talk about tools constantly. The stories abound from all generations of apprentices pining over tool catalogs and blowing their paychecks on a new chisel or hand plane. My experience was no different. As I watched my teachers work I’d make mental notes of which tools they used, how they used them, what was important. I’d grill them for details and tips, and recommendations. And then one weekend after our monthly stipend was meted out, off to the home center or tool store I’d go, trying not to also spend my food budget on amazing new tools.
It’s not just the hand tools that are exquisite in Japan, their power tools are on another level. All made in-country, and of a quality simply not seen in those we are used to in America. It was not uncommon at a break time, to crowd around whatever new tool a worker had recently purchased. We’d poke and prod, learn and congratulate, and make our own reminders that, “Oh yes, I’ll need to get one of those too.”
It had always been my attitude about tools that I should get one when I was ready to use it, or had a job which justified the expense or use. Yama San taught me the opposite notion that he had learned from his teachers, “if you have the tool, the work will come.” It was the culture that if a superior noticed you with a certain tool, the expectation was that you knew how to use it and were ready to put it to use on whatever task required it. This lesson was helpful in justifying my shipping (at great expense) a whole slew of tools and equipment back from Japan. At least that is what I’m telling my wife.
Concentrated Learning
I spent about 9 months in Japan, but I think I aged, grew, learned double that, if not triple. It was the kind of experience where you don’t fully realize all the lessons you learned until large swaths of time have elapsed. Yes, I learned much while I was there, but the cultural impressions, ways of working, and what was judged important are like seeds that will sprout when they are ready. On the surface, many of my lessons were the technical ones related to woodworking, but the most powerful lessons were those universal to the act of working.
To think so much could be accomplished in 9 months, along with various side trips, friends visiting, illness, and travel, is a testament to the work ethic and hustle of the Japanese. One major lesson I learned while in Japan was “don’t think, do” (or as Jon would often say, “don’t think, buy.” While it may sound inadvisable, it is actually a key component in getting a lot done, especially when approaching work from the American “work smarter, not harder” mentality. Often we would find ourselves in a situation where a “right tool” would have made a task very easy, but that tool wasn’t around, and the only solution was to just power through.
Sure it would have been easier to rent a crane to lift 200 lb foundation stones into place, but why do that when Yama San and I could just lift them ourselves in the 90+ degree Japanese sun! It was as if my coworkers simply had a greater capacity for suffering through the tough work, whereas I might have originally just stepped back and tried to figure out a more comfortable way. This was made so much clearer upon my return to the States, while helping with a timber frame gate raising. A large heater was in the way and needed to be moved, so I just jumped in and started rolling it, preparing to ease it down a ramp. I was quickly reminded to “not worry cause the fork lift will be over in a little bit.” So we just stood around. In Japan, if there is a job to do, it will be done immediately with whatever is available, until something better becomes available.
Something Jon said to everyone at a pre-raising meeting, only a few days into my apprenticeship, stuck with me throughout the whole experience. Essentially, it amounted to, that if you pay attention to the well being of everyone around you, the raising will go well. It was not just a safety idea, it was about everything having to do with working with other people: anticipation of need. We learned to watch where everyone else was at, what they were doing, what they might need next. Does that person look like they might need an extra set of hands? Ok I’ll go over there. Is that guy about to run out of nails in his nail gun, well I have an extra coil, I’ll pass it over. Is my teacher literally about to reach for a pencil I saw him drop? I have one out before he reaches for it. When we are all working toward a common goal, to constantly help others will make reaching that goal successful.
An Early Goodbye
I was supposed to stay a full year in Japan, and just as I was starting to get more responsibility and tasked on larger, more complicated projects, rumblings of a global pandemic started finding their way into our little country town. Emails from the state department warning of being stuck “indefinitely” in Japan raised our concern. Would my pregnant wife be able to get care if the hospitals are overrun? Will we be unable to fly back to the US? Though as I write this, I feel that I might have been better off staying in Japan, at the time we decided to end our trip early and return to America at the end of March.
I had about a week to go from work mode to travel mode, so I spent most of that week buying up whatever tools I could think to ship back, building boxes, and tying up loose ends at the shop. It was bitter sweet; I was excited to see my friends and family again, be in a country where I could speak fluently with anyone, and restart my woodworking business. At the same time, I was sad to end my training early, and disappointed that I couldn’t deliver the year of commitment that I had promised to my teachers. All of the sudden it was over.
I’d like to end this essay with a heartfelt thanks to all of my teachers and coworkers. Yama San, you taught me immeasurable lessons, and continue to inspire me to be a better woodworker and business owner. Jon, your morning chat sessions were both deep and hilarious, you taught me a ton and I can’t thank you enough for helping me through my winter blues. It was amazing to work with and learn from my fellow co workers Shimizu San (Shimizunator) and Jon Billing; you both set examples that made me want to elevate my game.
To the readers, in summary, if you want to work in Japan, you can: just do it. You will never get the time back. Be prepared to be humbled, accelerate your learning beyond what you thought was possible, and have a fantastic time.
