Yuki Tatsumi was waiting tables at an izakaya pub in Japan’s Kyoto when something on the table caught his eye — a chopstick wrapper folded and fiddled into an abstract shape.
It was the catalyst for a collection that now includes about 15,000 pieces of found “origami art” made by customers folding the paper sleeves that cover chopsticks at Japanese restaurants.
“The very first one I found just looked like a bit of junk,” Tatsumi, 27, said, but it made him think.
“What if this is a message for me from customers?” he said. “Cleaning tables suddenly became something fun, just by thinking about it that way.”
Tipping at restaurants is not standard in Japan, but Tatsumi came to see the little folded paper pieces left behind by customers as a “Japanese tip” and started watching out for different types of them.
He soon found there was a huge variety in the pieces left behind by customers, perhaps no surprise in a country where origami is a popular hobby and taught at schools.
“I discovered many of them were folded in shapes of traditional good luck items in Japan, like a fan, a crane and a turtle,” he said. “I also once found a table decorated like a fish tank, with paper folded like fish and seaweed.”
Enchanted by his discoveries, he decided to branch out and ask other restaurants to donate the pieces left by their customers to his collection.
In April 2016, he set off on a year-long road trip, asking hundreds of eateries from sushi restaurants to noodle stands to share their transformed paper sleeves with him.
He encountered some curiosity, and even reluctance, from restaurateurs bewildered about why he would want something usually headed straight for the garbage.
Yet, eventually, 185 places from northern Hokkaido to southern Okinawa promised to keep whatever they found and send it to him.
“Many of the restaurant owners that helped me told me afterward that they now find it more rewarding than a real tip in cash,” Tatsumi said.
“It may sound hard to believe, especially for those outside Japan, but this way of showing appreciation that is unique to each person is something very pleasing,” he said.
Now working as a researcher at an art museum in Kameoka near Kyoto, Tatsumi has about 15,000 pieces, each stored in its own small wooden box, like a piece of precious jewelry.
Many are simple, with diners just forming a makeshift chopstick rest out of the sleeve, while others are elaborate, like a black-and-white patterned piece formed into a dress, or a blue wrapper twisted into a snake, with the folds following the patterns on the paper.
Tatsumi has already exhibited his collection in Japan, and plans to take it to art events in Paris and South Korea later this year.
He wants the collection to remind people to show appreciation and consideration for what they have.
“Japan is a very wealthy country, where you can find something to eat anywhere, at any time, but I think people are becoming less appreciative of what they have or who makes the food,” he said. “Cash isn’t the only way to show your warm feelings.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not