“My father owns a factory that makes white cotton gloves. Randy gets from
my parents the gloves he uses to unload the kilns.”

Remembering all the white cotton gloves I’d seen people everywhere
wearing, I wondered if Yoshimi’s parent’s were rich, selling millions of pairs every
year.

“Is it a very large factory?”

“No, Morley. Not very large. In Japan nearly all the businesses are small, a
few hundred employees, or less. There are only a few very large companies in
Japan — the famous ones everyone knows. Small companies have contracts to
supply larger ones. They have contracts to supply larger ones and so on.”

“What are you studying in your classes?” I ask.

“Right now, I doing drawing and learning to tie-dye and batik fabric. Here,
I’ll show you.”

Yoshimi brings a sketch book of drawings, a wall hanging and a few
garments of her own design. I like her work. It not only shows craftsmanship, but
manages to evoke a mood of stillness and clarity.

“Batik is not native to Japan,” she says. “It’s originally from Java. But it’s
quite popular here, so I’m learning to do it.”

“How do you do batik?”

“I sketch what I want first. Then I pour wax over the areas I don’t want to
be dyed. Then I dye the material so it colours the parts I want to have that colour.
Next I wash out the wax with solvent, usually gasoline, and start with the next
colour by pouring more wax where I don’t want the next colour. Where one colour
combines with another a third colour is created. But I have to know before I do it
what will happen when dyes combine. When I’m finished, I have a completed
picture.”

“I like these! I think they’re good, Yoshimi. Randy says you and he might
someday go to Canada for a while. Why?”

“I would like to see what Canada is like, Morley. I think women there have
more freedom there than women have in Japan.”

page:

36

Japanby Morley Evans

November 21, 2000