Shukado News Letter No.3

Dear customers & friends

Good morning, this is Tanaka Chiaki of Shukado, Ginza.
It's Shukado News Letter No.3.

These days,it is freezing cold here in Tokyo!

I recently went for golf with my senior of the art dealer. I started playing golf just a year ago, and I am a very beginner of it. Last time, I was criticized for my bad manner of playing golf, so I decided to go with my senior (he told me that he would teach me good manner,).

We went through, surprisingly, one and half round (27 holes)…it was really cold to stay outside. We were playing golf as if we were in a ski resort. We said by ourselves that here is not a golf course, but a ski resort in order to divert ourselves from coldness.

By the way, is golf famous sport in your country? For Japanese business people, golf is very popular and all mountains seem to be golf courses.
For example,I heard that the owner of Yahoo! Japan (and CEO of SOFTBANK corp.), Mr. Son , has his own super private golf practice machine at his home ,usually checks his swing with the machine ,and he now has acquired professional golf skill. I am wondering his friend, Bill Gates, also plays golf.

As for me, the golf score of that day was really bad as usual. You may figure out my score with the fact that I hit as twice much as my senior did and a lot of golf balls went missing in the ponds and among the trees.

It has already been one and a half months since our “Japanese Fine Arts.com” established. Thankfully, we receive orders from all over the world such as the east and the west coasts of America, Germany, the Czech Republic, Netherlands and Japan.

We did not have many hits on our website from overseas when our website was available only in Japanese. Through our new English site, I am surprised to see that many people all over the world including not only North American and EU countries ,but also Russian,North Europe and Asian people are viewing our site.

Last week, through not by way of our English site, a customer from Asian country came to visit our gallery, Ginza. He bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print and framed Japanese-style painting from us before.

It is surprising to me that there is such an Asian customer who is really interested in Japanese arts. I thought many Asian people evaluate Japanese arts lower than their own arts, so I did not imagine there are some people who are very interested in Japanese culture.

Originally, Japan, China, and Korea share the same Kanji(Chinese character) culture and big influence one another and the much Japanese culture came from China and Korea, in fact. However, the Meiji-ishin (Meiji Restoration : a chain of events that led to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure) let Japan go ahead for modern and this caused the gap and cultural conflicts between Japan and other Asian countries. In Japan, we have a proverb “ Kawaisa amatte Nikusa Hyakubai” meaning "The greatest hate springs from the greatest love". As the proverb, even now we East Asian countries have big problems which caused by the things we cannot share some matters though we have the same base.

However, when I take a look at the history of the last four hundred years history of Europe and America, they had many bloody complicated conflicts but, it seems like they became to live at peace dealing with the politics and national sentiment. So I have a little hope we Asian people will respect each other someday about several hundreds years later.

Like the customer who visited us all the way and did not have prejudice against other countries’ culture, individuals who admit both cultures may create such atmosphere, I believe.

Finally, I would like to introduce you a recommended item of this week : Kujaku (peacock) of Kishi Renzan.

http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107007070/

Kishi School was specialized in flowes and birds (kacho-ga) paintings. Renzan was flourished in the last days of Tokugawa Shogunate. Detailed and spirited description of feather, sharp eyes, and firmly staying his feet were tactfully depicted in perfection by Renzan. In addition, rocks and pine trees are drawn exquisitely. Please enjoy this valuable vintage, scroll painting.

Well, I hope you are spending wonderful weekend and please take care not catching a cold.

See you next week!

Yours, sincerely
Chiaki Tanaka


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Address: Sone Building 7F, Ginza 6-4-8, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
TEL:(international number)+81-3-3569-3620 FAX:+81-3-3569-3621
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