Wind chimes originally came to Japan from China and were known at the time as futaku (wind bells). They developed into a tool to ward off evil spirits and protect against disease and negative vibes. During the Heian and Kamakura periods, nobles began hanging them from the eaves to ward off evil, and it is said that this is when they began to be known as furin. While they had typically been made of metal or ceramic, the Edo period saw the first appearance of wind chimes made of glass. This was about when the first Edo Furin were created. Emi Shinohara runs Shinohara Furin Honpo, one of just two such studios in Tokyo, located in a quiet residential neighborhood in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo. She told me that “These wind chimes are named Edo Furin because they are made in Tokyo, which was once known as Edo, and they continued to be made according to the same methods used during the Edo period” The brand name Edo Furin emerged during the time of the second-generation owner, Yoshiharu Shinohara. Even today, only one clan, approved by Yoshiharu, continues to maintain the production methods used in Edo Period. As just about everything around us is modernizing, it is surprising to hear that they have preserved those methods that go all the way back to the Edo period.

 

Edo wind chimes have three distinct features. First, the glass is hand-blown rather than molded. Most typical glass wind chimes are mass-produced by pouring glass into molds, but each Edo wind chime is formed by hand, and no two are alike. To start, a small ball, or kuchidama, of molten glass that has been heated in a 1,320°C kiln is taken up on a tomozao (blowpipe), a long glass tube. This kuchidama will later be cut off to form the sound hole. To achieve an even thickness, the blowpipe is rotated over and over in the fingers as the glassblower breathes into it to gradually inflate the glass. Once this piece reaches about the size of a 500 yen coin, the glass that will form the body of the wind chime is taken up from the kiln, and the process of inflating the glass is repeated. Many of you may have seen this on TV or elsewhere, and it is truly a battle against heat and time. Nervously, I decided to try it for myself. The craftsman held the blowpipe for me as I breathed into the tube… but nothing. I tried breathing a little harder. The glass bulged out in a strange shape and then, heartlessly, cracked in two. As I stood there astonished, the glassblower laughed and said, “It’s not something you can learn overnight—your body just has to get used to it.” In front of my eyes, he blew a new piece of glass beautifully. Before the glass cooled, he used a wire to open a hole at one end for the string to hang the wind chime, finally inflating the glass again and forming the final shape with one breath. This series of steps took only a minute or two to complete. As I looked on, in no time he had made a beautiful, transparent wind chime. A piece of true craftsmanship!