Published on July 14, 2019.
Through Masayuki Takayama’s commentary, this article criticizes the historical view presented in The Asahi Shimbun’s Tensei Jingo column and examines its treatment of Arita ware and the Korean potter Yi Sam-pyeong. It records arguments concerning the Nabeshima domain’s policy toward potters, Japanese women’s professional independence, and historical perceptions of culture on the Korean Peninsula.

July 14, 2019.
The Asahi Shimbun’s motive in favoring Korea is base.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The Asahi Shimbun’s motive in favoring Korea is base.
Let us teach Tensei Jingo that there are no traces of culture on the Korean Peninsula.
The truth about why the Korean potter closed his kiln.
A little while ago, I read The Asahi Shimbun’s front-page column Tensei Jingo and was left speechless.
Lies often line up in this column.
And they are lies that denigrate Japan, one of them being the claim that “long ago, Japan packed stones into cans of fish and exported them.”
Everyone tilted their heads, wondering whether Japanese people would have done something like Shina people, but this was merely a lie fabricated by the anarchist Ōsugi Sakae and reprinted as it was.
Even after the lie was exposed, no apology or correction was issued.
This latest lie in Tensei Jingo is also malicious.
The piece begins with the Korean potter Yi Sam-pyeong.
Over there, the name of a person engaged in a lowly occupation such as pottery would absolutely never remain in history.
Because it was Japan, his name remained as the person who, “in 1616, found stone ore suitable for porcelain in Arita.”
Thus Arita ware flourished, but as a result, the surrounding mountains were ravaged by those seeking Arita clay.
The shallowly learned Tensei Jingo does not write about this part, but the Nabeshima domain reduced the number of potters by half, combining environmental protection with quality control of Arita ware.
According to the records, the number of potters, which had been about 1,700, was reduced to 900, and what is interesting is that it says “532 male potters and 294 female potters were forced out of business.”
From that era onward, Japanese women had acquired skills and were working almost on equal terms with men.
Until the twentieth century, when Japan went to Korea, women over there did not even have names.
Still less was there an environment in which women could work as potters.
How did Yi Sam-pyeong look upon Japanese women working on equal terms with men?
Moreover, it is recorded that at that time “Korean potters were given priority in being retained.”
They must have thought it would be cruel to bring them over here and then dismiss them.
The lord of Nabeshima showed that much consideration.
However, Yi Sam-pyeong’s kiln closed in the sixth generation.
The reason can be understood by looking at the Arita ware that remains today.
It is precise, and its coloring can only be described as magnificent.
By contrast, Korean pottery does not even meet such basics as bilateral symmetry; it is warped and distorted.
Tea masters appreciated this, saying that it led to wabi-sabi.
In other words, such kenchanayo, or slipshod, Korean-style porcelain did not work in Arita.
This article continues.