top of page
< Back

Recollections of Zaimokuza Beach

When recalling Kamakura’s Zaimokuza Beach, perhaps it was there that I underwent my own epiphany and was subsequently firmly placed on the path to becoming a potter.


Before proceeding, however, I should offer something in the way of a backstory for the reader’s benefit. Specifically, as has already been mentioned, I arrived in this world as the son of a business that has engaged in the sale of pottery for many generations. To wit, when young, I did not really think consciously about what I would do other than to take over the family business at some point. Thus, I reached the ripe old age of 18 years without anything specific being said about my future. Back then, when I was a high school student, it was thought that everybody in my age cohort would seamlessly proceed to university. However, personally, not much thought had been given to where I would end up or what I would study. Nevertheless, I took the challenge of taking the entry exam to an institution whose academic standards were far in excess of my own very modest school results. Accordingly, and quite obviously, I failed to gain admission to university by such a route. Meanwhile, and by comparison, among my high school classmates, there were some individuals who had clear aims, and who thus were quite clear on the subject of what university they wished to attend. Among their number, some then proceeded to do the study required to pass the entry exams of the schools in question. By contrast, many were like me in that they failed to pass their entry exams first go, and thus they ended up so-called ronin (or cram school students). Likewise, in that I personally had nothing better to do, I ended up in the same boat. In my particular case, however, for a second time I proceeded to fail the entry exams of the university of my choice.


After that happened, initially I felt very remorseful toward my parents. Thus, in that the resulting atmosphere at home was stifling, I rushed to catch an express train from Kyoto to parts unknown. When morning broke the next day, I accordingly found myself getting off at Ofuna, Kanagawa Prefecture. What is more, in that during the night I had decided to head for Kamakura/Shonan, instead of waiting for the morning trains to start, I got a move on and headed for a nearby beach so as to see the sunrise.


Although that plan did not work out, I ended up right on the coast at a place called Zaimokuza. However, I only learned of its name much later. While on the beach, I sat on the sand and threw numerous pebbles into the water. It must have been for hours. Who knows how many? In any case, at a certain point I realized that I was not alone. Rather, there were people on the beach who were walking a rather fashionable dog. Just their presence was a crushing experience because there seemed to be such a gap between them and my own circumstances. Such thoughts made me so bereft that I subsequently threw so many pebbles that my shoulder began to hurt. Next, having regained my composure, I visited Enoshima and the Kamakura Daibutsu. I also walked somewhat aimlessly along the Enoden Railway. Later, I found myself at Tsuruoka Hachiman Shrine in Yokohama, and I then spent some days down on the harbor in the vicinity of both the statue of the “Girl in Red Shoes” and the Hikawa Maru (a retired luxury cruise ship that was tied up at the dock). Next, when I was in a Japanese pub one evening, somebody I didn’t know, a timeworn fisherman, bought me a meal out of pity. How many days had I been on the road? My meager finances were long exhausted, and without really figuring out what I should do, I returned directly to Kyoto. Having done so, based on the subsequent recommendation of my father, I decided to attend a vocational school in order to study pottery. Then again, up until that point in my life, I had never handled clay or seen a potter’s wheel. Nevertheless, while still largely ignorant as to the details of what it was that I proposed to do, I filled out an application and was lucky enough to be granted admission. That put me on the path to where I am now.


Subsequently, when it had been decided that I would hold the first private exhibition of my works some years later at a gallery in Ginza, I related to the owner the same story. Having done so, he asked me about the location, and then drove me all the way to Kamakura on little more than a whim. Of course, his destination turned out to be the same beach, and it was then that I learned that Zaimokuza was its name. As to its history, the location had served as an unloading point for the city as far back as the days of the Kamakura Shogunate. As to what was unloaded, it represented part of the trade that was then taking place between Japan and Sung China. To mention that dynasty briefly, it was strongly associated with both the celadon and temoku pottery glazes. Meanwhile, as to the contemporary situation here in Japan, at around the same time there were still the famous six sites where the production of local ceramics had commenced. Regarding such matters, the gallery owner said the following: “Please look at the beach. You will notice the lack of pebbles. In actual fact, what you previously threw into the sea were probably pottery fragments that dated back to the Kamakura Period.”


Upon reflection, I realized that he was no doubt correct in that what I had thrown were pottery fragments whose previously-sharp edges had been worn down by incessant wave action over many years. Examining around me, among those fragments still on the beach, I could discern the sort of celadon glaze encountered at Tenryu-ji Temple, as well as the transparency of the same glaze as may be witnessed in relief. Additionally, there were also fragments of iron glazes and inscribed jars. The gallery owner also commented that years previously, Koyama Fujio and Munemaro Ishiguro, both celebrated potters, met at the same beach as friends in order to both collect such old fragments and to cast shards of their own works into the sea. That made me think, in the future, somebody might gather such fragments as well in the mistaken belief that they represented shards of Song pottery. Indeed, those fragments finished with an iron glaze might have been the same. In any case, while I felt very privileged to unexpectedly be told such an interesting story, I liked to think that, as a result of my having picked up some fragments of the past, the spirit of some long-deceased unknown craftsmen from 1000 years ago had passed into my body. Thus, I have visited Zaimokuza subsequently on any number of occasions so as to cast shards of my own pottery into the water when feeling down, and to possibly receive the spirit of a professional forebear via any fragments of old work that I gathered.

Recollections of Zaimokuza Beach

© 2023 Ikai Yuichi All rights reserved.

bottom of page