The Origin of Shokuningura or Shoyu Workshop

In Yuasa, birthplace of Soy Sauce, there still remain some old workshops with very thick and crumbling walls here and there. Some workshops are now converted to the residences. With the disappearance of Shoyu makers, we can no longer see craftsmen who used to tiol and moil here, and traditional Shoyu things, the fruits of their wisdom and efforts. (Today we have several museums of folk craft throughout Japan. But I feel responsible, as one of the Shoyu craftsmen, for collecting and preserving these old Shoyu things as well as "the taste of old days.") Kadocho Shokuningura with the size of 80㎡ was one of the fermenting houses built in Keio era. All these Shoyu things kept here are the tools used for making Shoyu and each of them has sweat and pains in it of the craftsmen of those days. I welcome you to my Shoyu workshops of about 100 years old.

The History of Yuasa Shoyu or Soy Sauce

Shoyu, the world famous seasoning, was originally produced in Yuasa from Kinzan-ji-miso or soy bean paste, which was brought from China in the early 13th century by Hoto-kokushi of Kokoku-ji Temple of Yura. In those days, Shoyu was only for use at home and not for sale because of poor traffic facilities. But about 400 years ago, in Azuchi-Momoyama era, Shoyu was first shipped to other parts of Japan as a commoditiy here in Yuasa. Since then, Shoyu industry developed a great deal thanks to the protection of the Lord of Kishu, and it is said that in Bunka-Bunsei era, there were 92 Shoyuya or Shoyu-makers in about one thousand houses of Yuasa. In the meantime, people in Yuasa showed how to make Shoyu to the people in some parts of Japan, such as Choshi near Tokyo. Today Shoyu industry in Yuasa is dwindling, chiefly owing to the promotion of some major Shoyu companies. But we still have the traditional method of making that Yuasa Shoyu once called Yuasa Tamari in Kamakura era.

How Shoyu Started its Story

White-wall wooden warehouses along a stone-wall canal. The soy sauce brewery, Kado-cho, is still working in a medieval elegance. A car park is at the East end of the canal, and the fragrance of soy beans and molt leads you into a tiny street which runs along the warehouses. Along the alley, you can find the antenna shop of the brewery and the museum run by the company.
The brochure of the museum says, "Shoyu, the world famous seasoning, was originally produced in Yuasa from Kinzan-ji-miso or soy bean paste, which was brought from China in the early 13th century by Hoto-kokushi of Kokoku-ji Temple of Yura."
The company still sticks to their handmade style. The museum exhibits old facilities and tools for producing soy sauce. Its DVD shows how the soy sauce is brewed. After exploring the area for a while, you can hardly resist buying prestigiously crafted soy sauce.
Jinshan-si (or Kinzan-ji in Japanese pronounciation of the Chinese characters) Temple is located in Zhenjiang City along Yangzi-jiang River. I have been there a couple of times. The city is in the middle of Shanghai and Nanjin and on the Southern bank of the river, and the temple is on an island near the city. When we made the first school trip to China, whose major destinations were Shanghai and Nanjin, we stayed at the city for a night because the highway between the two mega-cities was still under construction. Kinzan-ji-miso had had a long way to come to Japan.
Miso and shoyu's story didn't end at Yuasa. As you know, Japanese people used to have vegetarian tendency, and soy beans used to be the major protein source. Miso spread all over Japan to become one of the most imoortant soy-bean foods, along with tofu and natto. Every major templs came to have its own version of kinzan-ji-miso. Shoyu made its way to the East, too. It arrived at Chosi in today's Chiba prefecture. The town became one of the biggest providers of shoyu to Edo.
The number of soy sauce consumers has increased, and they also spread around the world. The number of the soy sauce makers in Yuasa, however, has decreased significantly. According to the brochure, there used to be 92 of them, while we can find only 3 today.
It is a pity that many Yuasa makers have closed notwithstanding the fact that the consumption and brewage of soy sauce has spread around the world.

February, 2007

Re-organizing or re-structuring of teachers' ways of routines is a must. What we have achieved so far is owing to the increase of our invested working hours.
We develop ourselves situationally. The situational human development is the key to understand and improve the way teachers train themselves. The facilitation of teachers' training needs appropriate allocation of their jobs.
The low compliance is what is needed in educational society, especially in public schools, where bureaucracy is culturally still in hegemony. The low compliance includes, logically and practically, the manual compliance.
The lecture by Mr Eiji Saito taught us the importance of embedding English sentences, or the structures of English sentences, into our minds. That enables us to reproduce or utter accurate English sentences at will.
I should start preparing for the next school year, English education and management, or the management of English education. Here in English education, I imply the international communication in English. Many high schools have organized study tours abroad, and have certain store of teaching materials for them. How about organizing a new textbook out of the materials?
How should English classes be innovated? Or, let me put it, what contribution should I make to innovate them? According to what I have done, it must be something like to introduce authentic English discourses and texts into the classes. That is, to introduce authentic English context into them.
Every person has primitive theories to understand surroundings; such as primitive physics, primitive, chemistry, primitive psychology, primitive sociology, and so on. I am not going to talk about whether they are apriori or a posteriori. That is another question, and should be dealt with at another chance.
When students are asked to write an essay describing their "own ideas" against the idea presented, what they are supposed to do is to search for their primitive theory in the corresponding field.