It was 2020 I wrote the script. After so many struggles, I uploaded the video about “Sashiko & Cultural Appropriation”. It is on our Youtube.
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There is a significant “twist” in translation (or filtering) when Sashiko was introduced with “mending”. Many people think Sashiko is a mending technique. It is true that mending is a part of Sashiko, but not sufficient description. Mending is a small part of Sashiko. Let me bring up a challenging analogy to explain this twist.
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When we have a headache, we take pain-killer pill. Although there is nothing wrong with pills, it is better to take care of our health so we do not need the pain killer. Sashiko is “self-care (before taking the pill)” and mending is the pill itself. The Japanese practiced Sashiko so they didn’t need to mend so often. Now, people are enjoying Sashiko as if they enjoy taking the pain-killer with neglecting their health. Even more strange, some damage themselves to have a headache so that they can take aspirin (damage the fabric to have “Sashiko mending”). There is nothing wrong with depending on the medicine. However, it is not a core of our health-care. If we start accepting that we all need to take aspirin without caring about our health, or even damaging our brain on-purpose to enjoy the aspirin, something essencial will be lost.
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In 30+ years of my life with Sashiko, I personally never used the word “Sashiko mending” in Japanese. Yes, mending is a very important part of Sashiko, but not the core. Since many misunderstand, when non-Japanese get profit out of this “twist”, then I consider it as “C/A” which I hope I successfully described in the video. Boro is also NOT a word for mending technique (please read the past posts. The description to your question is there).
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文化が違う場所で何かを説明する時、たとえ話はとても大切です。そして、そのたとえ話が真実からズレていないか確認して下さる方々の存在はもっと大切です。たとえ話なので完全に一致はしません。でも、意味が壊れてしまうのは駄目。刺し子は味噌汁。運針は登山。英語圏での「刺し子＝補修」という流行においては、体調管理をしないで痛み止めばかりを服用している人のたとえ話を思いつきました。また配信で話すか、ビデオ作ります。薬の半分は優しさでも、半分は化学品ですからねぇ。そりゃ服用しないにこしたことはないわけで。
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