The story about Tatami mat craftsman
We are organizing Tatami mat factory tour with Satoshi Miyazaki.
This time, let me introduce how he become the tatami mat craftsman.
The biggest reason that he become the tatami mat craftsman is his father.
His father is also a craftsman of tatami mat, so he was always playing in the tatami mat factory. And then, he made up his mind that he also wanted to be a craftsman of tatami mat.
To become the tatami mat craftsman, he went to tatami mat school for 3 years. In the school, first they trained and learned about tatami mats for 6 months, and then they went to a tatami factory for the rest of time. Also, he learned the skill from his father.
There are national qualifications for tatami mat craftsmanship. For example, there are first-class technician and second-class technicians. Having the first-class technician qualification is the easiest way for you to recognize that a craftsman has great techniques.
For first-class qualification, they also have to learn about techniques that they don’t use these days, like how to make tatami mats fully by hand.
Nowadays, many people visit his tatami factory and it is took interview by TV.
Also he want to visit his factory by foreign tourists.
His dream is to introduce tatami mats all over the world. And there are many professional craftsmen in Japan, so he want to introduce those culture to the world too.
If you have chance to come Japan, why don’t you visit his factory??