Stamp Art

A couple months ago, I was wandering around the vendors' stalls at the Tokyo Stamp Museum when I noticed someone...it took me a while to place the face, then it hit me -- the security guard at a local community center.

I often go to martial arts practice at the community center and never got a word out of any of the security guards there. I suppose foreigners walking around with swords are not easy targets for conversation.

I must have passed by his post hundreds of times over the years, and not a word passed between us. And here he was, at the stamp museum. After a pause, I ventured a few words. Turns out he is a long-term stamp collector.

Since that time, we have exchanged words each time I visit the community center.

A couple weeks back, he tipped me off about an exhibition in the lobby: works of art made by cutting and arranging postage stamps (切り絵). I should post again later with more details, the name of the artist, and so on.

日本語hints
security guard = 警備員
martial arts = 武道、武術
tip someone off = tell them, give them information

Another stamp museum

Well sort of. I took my daughter to the “stamp show” at the Communications Museum near Tokyo Station. It was not what I expected, but the day turned out fairly well.

I had images of many dealers offering a wide variety of stamps and collecting equipment. Instead, there were a very small number of dealers with fairly limited inventory. But my daughter and I both dug deeply in the “10 stamps for 100 yen” basket and emerged with smiles.

These are the unwanted cast-offs from the dealer. Nothing valuable, to be sure, but much of interest to both my daughter and I. She stuck with her interests – large colorful stamps with animals and wildlife. Those, and old Soviet space glory stamps.

As for me, I scooped up a couple dozen oldies from countries which are under-represented in my collection, many countries from South America and Africa.

While at the museum we poked around all three floors but mostly we stuck with stamp stuff. For me, one of the most interesting exhibits was a collection of regional toys, specific to various prefectures in Japan, which have been featured on the annual New Years stamps (see photos).

We’ll probably go again next year, but with a better idea of what to expect, and more small change for the stamp basket.

Socialist Glory (2): Color

Every time I get a new pile of stamps, my daughter goes through them and gets first pick. I get the leftovers.

How does she choose? Bright colors are good, and things from nature: flowers, animals, more flowers. Anime characters. Maybe another flower (Japan issues so many flower stamps….) She grabs every stamp she likes and has built quite a backlog of unsorted stamps. The work of sorting them and putting them into albums is not as exciting as grabbing the stamps that grab her.

Recently I started trading with someone in the US and got a very nice batch of oldies, some 120+ years old. All old stamps, none colorful, none of interest to my daughter. My friend in Sweden just sent an assortment of recent Swedish stamps – all colorful, all nature-related. I am debating whether or not to show them to my daughter…

The stamp above is full of color. Not so interesting, really – oh boy, tractors in the fields! Workers unite! Yar! But it was issued in 1975 – China was still in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. It was not a colorful time in China – everyone wore drab Mao suits in subdued blues and greys.

And here is a stamp positively brimming over with vivid colors. I would like to know more about how such a colorful stamp was issued at that time in Chinese history.

日本語 hints:
- get first pick = to have the first choice, the initial selection
- leftovers = 残り物 – usually used for food (i.e. curry rice tonight, curry rice tomorrow morning, curry rice again the next night…)
- anime = anime. Like sushi and manga, this word is now used globally as part of English
- backlog = 未処理分, unfinished work, things left over to do
- something grabs me = it gets my attention (this stamp grabbed me); つかむ
- batch = a group, an assortment
- Cultural Revolution = 文化大革命
- drab = colorless, unexciting
- Mao suit = 人民服上下 (Mao = 毛沢東)
- subdued = 色等が和らげられた、地味な
- brimming over with xxx = completely full of; あふれている
- vivid = bright and splendid; 色があざやかな

二宮尊徳

I was walking around Tokyo after an all-day tai ji quan (太極拳) seminar and in the best of moods. I stumbled across a pair of statues, as seen in these pictures. So very different, this pair of famous figures from Japanese history.

西郷隆盛 Saigo Takamori, sometimes referred to as the “last true samurai”. He has had a sudden surge in popularity due to an NHK drama. I recently found a flyer for a mysteriously Saigo Takamori-themed shop in my mailbox.

Recently, I use him and 虻 chan in juxtaposition when teaching about non-verbal communication. His famous statue in Ueno Park never moves, has no facial expression, no hand gestures, etc. (= common communication style among my first-time students). Then there is Abu-Chan, one half of the xxx duo. She is a model of ample use of facial expression, hand gestures, and so on. So I use those two as opposite ends of a continuum.

二宮尊徳 Ninomiya Sontoku – his statues are often found in front of Japanese elementary schools – always reading a book while walking with a load of wood. = hard worker and earnest student. I read once that, while in abject poverty, he collected the grains of rice forgotten or discarded by others, and planted them on tiny plots of abandoned land. From those humble beginnings he rose to become a much admired and respected agricultural leader.

What does all this have to do with stamps? I was thinking about my current approach to collecting. I am gathering the discarded leftovers of others. I thrill to find a marked-down album with a few spare pages that a stamp dealer no longer needs. I thrill even more when walking home after purchasing a box with thousands of stamps from around the world for a very low price.

For the dealers, these are just unneeded duplicates with little or no value. But to me, they are the beginning of a new collection of stamps and have great satisfaction and value.

I wouldn’t begin to compare myself to Ninomiya Sontoku and his accomplishments, but the minor parallel - collecting the unwanted leftovers from someone else and creating something with them – struck me.

日本語 hints
stumble across = find unexpectedly
a surge in popularity = suddenly becoming much more popular
flyer = ちらし
juxtaposition = putting two opposites together, 並列
facial expression = 表情
continuum = spectrum, range, or 連続体 (but this is for math…)
statue = 象、彫像, etc.
poverty = having no money, 貧乏、貧困 (abject = extreme)
leftover = 残り物
purchase = buy
discarded = thrown away, not needed
duplicate = extra (unwanted) copy of something (this is adjective or 形容詞. This word can also be a verb with the same spelling but different pronunciation.

restraint

Why do you collect stamps? Every stamp collector hears this question again and again. As for me, I like gathering things, the thrill of finding and collecting. And the more sober joy of organizing.

Lately I have had to develop a new talent and to find joy in it: restraint. That is, holding back or saying no.

Many collectors are specialized, focusing or narrowing their range. Not me. I am still content with simply gathering large numbers of stamps from every country, every time period.

Just gathering, getting, collecting, those things provide my reward.

Now I have found places where I can cheaply buy very large numbers of used stamps which I don’t have yet. Every dealer has bags of leftovers and duplicates. They want to do some house cleaning. I want some quick acquisitions. I have the spare time to soak the stamps off the envelopes. That keeps my costs down and my interest high.

But once it starts, it seems there is no end. Just one more bag, all these stamps from ABC country. Oh, I will never find that pair from XYZ again! I must buy it now! and so on…

I was sorely tempted the other day by a stack of old albums half-filled with remainders and duplicates from many countries which are – for my collection just now – quite obscure. The selling price was good enough just for the albums, so it was almost like the stamps were free. But the albums were a different size from the others I have.

And more importantly I had to learn to say no. There will always be more leftovers, more duplicates. If too many stamps come too easily, much of the joy of collecting is gone. That’s why the (otherwise dull and dreary) work of soaking the stamps off the envelopes appeals to me.

I was so close….teetering on the brink…but I had to be firm and resolute. Despite the generous reduction in price offered by the dealer, I had to say no. Standing there, seeing the stamps and albums in front of me, I still wanted them badly. But as I walked away, I felt a sense of … not quite happiness, but relief.

Self-control. Restraint. Waiting. These are also valuable parts of the collecting experience.

stamp girl

my daughter hard at work on her collection....

half a century and more

Some months back, my stamp collection got a boost from an unexpected donation by one of my students.

This collection had belonged to someone living not far from me at all. He traveled about SE Asia for his work and collected stamps here and there in addition to the Japanese stamps he gathered.

1958. Well before I was born. Over half a century ago, like a time capsule buried by one person, waiting to be opened by another. He has passed away. I wonder if he ever imagined a non-Japanese would be sorting through his stamps!

Unfortunately the album itself was no longer usable, though the stamps it contained were a windfall.

Thank you and thank you again.

日本語hints
get a boost = receive more of something
unexpected = 思いがけない
century = 100 years (centimeter, 100 cents = one dollar, centipede = ムカデ, etc.)
time capsule = well.... タイムカプセル
windfall = 思いがけず手に入った (two times for omoigakenai....)