Local pastimes: traditional fabric and ...shrimp fishing?

Thursday, August 11 was Mountain Day, a new national holiday. I had the day off so I decided to explore town and see what was on the second floor of Umi no Eki (Seaside station). Turns out there is a small tsumugi shop, run by a kind lady who I ended up chatting with for the better part of an hour.

Tsumugi is a traditional handwoven silk fabric from Amami Oshima. The threads are hand-dyed alternately in a dye made from boiled tree roots and a mud dye before being woven on a traditional loom. Going back and forth between the two dyes 40 times (with dry time in between) yields brown thread, while a whopping 80 times yields black. The shop owner let me try my hand a weaving for a little bit!

The loom as viewed from the weaver's perspective. The weaver sits on the wooden bar (visible in the foreground). She presses on the foot pedals to raise every other warp thread up, and sends a shuttle across. A switch of the pedals in turn switches which warp threads are up, and the shuttle is sent back through. The weaver uses a wooden bar to pack the threads into place before repeating the process. 

Another view of the weaver's area.

Afterwards, the shop owner invited me to go to rowing practice with her friends (all 50 and older) by the pier on the west side of town. Being seriously out of shape, I could barely keep up with all these older folks who could go for a couple laps no problem. Like most Japanese social gatherings, the members brought snacks to share, and they graciously pushed several pieces of watermelon into my hands.


On Saturday, August 13, I was invited by a friend (who owns and is the sole chef for a restaurant in town specializing in local island fare) to go shrimp fishing with him and other restaurant regulars. He drove me and a few others to a small river in the nearby town of Katoku, which was completely unmarked (the fishing spot, not the town) save for a locked shack on the side of the road. We cut down a few bamboo stalks to serve as fishing poles before heading to the water. After attaching some fishing line and bait to the poles, we went at it.

The fishing (or should I say "shrimping") spot

The total catch! I contributed a measly two shrimp.

Later that evening, after we'd all had a chance to wash up and dry off, we were asked to the restaurant to enjoy the catch as part of dinner. For only 1000 yen (about $10) we had shrimp cooked two ways, Italian-style (right) and tossed in salt (left), along with rice, taro, fried egg with a house special sauce, miso soup, rice, chicken and eggplant, beef and goya, and some mango for dessert.

I went home very happy.