Learning alongside a master in Okinawa

摘要

I spent almost three months during the winter of 2009-10 on the little island of Iejima in Okinawa, working with 81-year-old Ryujin Shimqjo, in my fifth apprenticeship with a Japanese boatbuilder. He is one of the last three men, all now elderly, who can build the sabani, the traditional fishing boat of this region. Shimqjo had built more than 100 sabani in his career, and, like most of my teachers, he used no drawings. He worked entirely from memory, and my job was to document his techniques and record his secret dimensions.