NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉

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2008/2/18


キセル Kiseru Kiseru

Jp En

Kiseru is an old style Japanese smoking pipe. Kiseru were used for smoking flake tobacco, but some use for smoking a cigarettee or others for a half-cut cigarettee recently. The word kiseru comes from the Khmer word “ksher.”

Kiseru were invented in Japan in the 16th century, when the Portuguese came to Japan for the Nanban trade after the arrival of guns. The origin of kiseru making is not clear but it is said that Japanese craftsmen began to make kiseru by modeling after smoking pipes the Portuguese were using.

In the Edo period (1603-1868), when flake tobacco were extremely popular, kiseru were indispensable items for tobacco smokers. The kiseru was a kind of a status symbol and a fancy accessory. There were many kiseru in different sizes, length and shapes and of different materials. Tobacco smokers had their own favorite kiseru according to their finaccial positions. However, since extravagance was prohibited by the Tokugawa shogunate, only warriors, wealthy merchants, and prostitutes were allowed to use kiseru until the end of the Edo period.
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2007/6/14


吉田宿 Yoshida-juku Yoshida-juku

Jp En

Yoshida-juku was the 34th of the 53 post stations of the Tokaido Road in the Edo period (1603-1868). It was located in current Toyohashi City in Aichi Prefecture. It was 6 km away from Futagawa-juku, the next station in the east, and 10 km from Goyu-juku in the west.

Yoshida-juku was a thriving post town because it had developed as a castle town of Yoshida Castle and a port town as well. It is said that so many women called meshimori onna (rice serving woman at inns and also prostitutes) working in this post town that there was a comical popular song about the scene of those women attracting travelers from the second-floor windows of an inn.

In the Edo period, the display of fireworks for the annual festival of Yoshida Shrine was very famous.
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NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉 - 日本語に切り替える NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉 - to english

"Nippon-kichi" leads you to places, people and things that reveal a certain Japanese aesthetic.

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