My parents 1942
Kyobashi, Tokyo, Japan


Scenes of kimono
Old photos of a merchant family taken at Kanda
Kanda is one of commercial districts in Tokyo.

1926 Kanda The daughter of six years old who stood in front of her father's shop which had rebuilt right after Great Kanto Earthquake (1923).

1927 Kanda Children wearing new kimono for celebrating O-Shogatsu (the New Year) at the old wholesale district of Kanda.

1927 Kanda Entrance into institutional elementary school. Compulsory education. Non-coeducational classroom. Boys and girls learned and played separately in the same school.

1928 Schoolchildren in the second grade who visited a shrine, accompanied by their parents.

1929 Children in the third grade who went to a park in the suberbs of Tokyo on their school picnic.

1930 Asakusa A private house in the outskirts of Asakusa (known as a temple gate town, an amusement center and a shopping district).

1930 Nihonbashi Junior players wearing yukata (an informal leisure kimono) on the stage of Nagauta (long epic song played with three-stringed Japanese banjo "shamisen"). About ten years after, the boy at the center of the photo went to the front and was killed in the Pacific War. The man standing behind the boy was his father.

1932 Kanda The celebration for girls in their thirteenth (calendar) year. Shichigosan (for boys of 3 and 5 years of age and for girls of 3 and 7) are still celebrated, but the celebration of a girl's 13 years became obsolete nowadays.

1934 Kanda The Japanese traditional doll which was made by the daughter who had come out of hospital and had been under treatment at home.

1935? Ginza Nagauta concert on the stage of Kabukiza (the Kabuki theater in Ginza). That was held to celebrate a nagauta master(iemoto) who had returned home from America.

1935 Shinjuku Fellow pupils who were exchanging New Year's greetings at another nagauta master's house.

1935 The concert. Costars with her were three No.1 performers of Nagauta music community in those days.

1936 Kanda The tea ceremony lesson with schoolfellows which was held at a traditional tea room in the teacher's private house.

1937 Kanda A daughter who had her own hair done the Japanese style proper for putting on new kimono to celebrate the New Year.

1939 The daughter graduated at the top of the class from a private girls' school of high reputation. She was awarded an honor prize.

1939 Kanda Photo of merchants' wives and daughters who were invited to the New Year tea ceremony.

1940 Kanda Chu-furisode (a semi long-sleeved kimono). Its sleeve length of those days was 2.5 or 2.6 kujirajaku. Kujirajaku is a cloth measure. 1 kujirajaku = 14.91 inches (about 38 cm). The sleeve length of o-o-furisode was 3 kujirajaku. Its length reflects the times.

1941 The guide of the tea ceremony which was written by the merchant with Japanese brush.

1941 Kanda The closed wholesale store in Kanda.

1942 Kanda Uchikake worn over the pure white wedding kimono is the most elaborate and artistic traditional gown.

1942 Kanda The second wedding kimono for the bride to change her dress during the wedding reception. (The kimono for O-ironaoshi.)

1942 Kanda The bride & bridegroom who were dressed in formal traditional kimono.

1942 Kyobashi A snapshot of the newly married couple who were walking along the main street of Ginza (leading shopping district in Japan).

1945
1961 Atami
1985 London
1985 London
1997 Sydney


随想　橡の木の葉