Japanese | Page 4 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 21, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Haraguchi Rice Mill

The Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society was formed in 1850 to develop Hawaiʻi’s agricultural resources. It was then that rice made its mark in the Hawaiʻi economy. The group purchased land in the Nuʻuanu Valley and rice seed from China and planted in a former taro patch.

At first the Society offered the rice seed to anyone in Hawaiʻi who wanted to plant it. King Kamehameha IV also offered land grants for cultivation of rice. Because there were no proper milling facilities in Hawaiʻi, it didn’t take off as a viable crop right away.

Then, in 1860, imported rice seed from South Carolina proved very successful and yielded a fair amount of crop. This, combined with the collapse of the taro industry in 1861-1862 (as the Hawaiian population declined, the demand for taro also declined,) added value to the numerous vacant taro patches and a boom in the rice industry.

In 1899, Hawaiʻi’s rice production had expanded so that it placed third in production of rice behind Louisiana and South Carolina.

The Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Hawaiʻi encouraged rice production, primarily in Hanalei. As a result the acreage planted in rice on the island rose from 759 acres in 1933 to 1,058 in 1934.

For areas like Hanalei Valley, such efforts, coupled with the valley’s general remoteness and absence of competing demands for the land, allowed rice cultivation to continue as a regional activity.

The Hanalei Valley of Kauaʻi led all other single geographic units in the amount of acreage planted in rice. The valley was one of the first areas converted to this use and continued to produce well into the 1960s.

The Commercial Pacific Advertiser noted on October 3, 1861, “Everybody and his wife (including defunct government employees) are into rice – sugar is nowhere and cotton is no longer king. Taro patches are held at fabulous valuations, and among the thoughtful the query is being propounded, where is our taro to come from?”

When the Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaiʻi, their tastes preferred a shorter grain rice than the Chinese long-grain variety. With the decline of the Chinese population and increase in the Japanese population, more of the Japanese rice was being imported from Japan.

As the Japanese left the plantations, they started their own farms and cultivated their own staple rice.

It was at Hanalei where some Chinese built a rice processing facility; it as later purchased by the Haraguchi family in 1924. At one time, the Haraguchis cultivated about 75-acres in Hanalei Valley.

Fire destroyed the original wooden mill in March of 1930; a new mill consisted of a 3-foot thick concrete foundation with corrugated iron for its roof and siding. Interior spaces included engine room, milling area, and storage area for both finished and unprocessed rice.

This main engine operated all the mill machinery by turning a main shaft that connected all the other machines by a pulley system. The rice in a pit would be delivered up by cups on a belt located on a “triple chute” system. One chute served the belts going downward, another chute for the belts returning upwards and a third to suck the dust up which traveled to the blower.

The cups carried the rice over the wall onto another chute and into the strainer. This strainer would shake the rice and separate any rubbish or stones to prevent it from entering the husking machines. From the strainer, the rice would proceed to the first husker that removed part of the husk.

About 80% of the husks would be removed by this husker. The husks would travel up the air ‘chute to the blower which blew the husks out the back of the mill into a ditch that carried the husks into the river.

The partly husked rice would exit the first husker and was taken up a chute by belted cups and dropped onto another chute into the second husker. The second husker would remove the rest of the husks and the grains would continue up another “triple chute” which would carry it up and over into the polishing machine.

The fine dust from the second husker was collected in a basket under the machine and also taken up the chute into the blower. Cowhide was used to polish the rice which prevented the grains from cracking which ensured high quality rice. The rice would exit the polisher and taken up another chute to the grader.

The grading machine constantly shook to move the rice to the three different grades of rice. The whole grain would bypass the grading holes and a trowel was used to push the rice onto a small trough into the rice bag which hung at the end of the funnel. From there the bags were scaled, sewn by hand and then stacked.

Despite the competition from the California grown rice, the Japanese farmers continued to produce on a smaller scale than the Chinese farmers. By the early 1950s there were about 50 growers cultivating 170 acres of rice on Kauaʻi. Hanalei Valley held 90 acres, 48 acres in Wailua and the rest was split between Hanapepe and Waimea valleys.

In addition to the staple rice, “mochi rice,” used for traditional Japanese cake on New Year’s and other special occasions, was grown.

The mochi rice from Hanalei Valley was noted for its quality throughout the Islands. It was largely a luxury crop and most of it was consumed in the Islands; about 200-bags were shipped to the Mainland.

Some mochi rice was imported from the Mainland but local buyers preferred the local crop since it was said to produce a larger yield of mochi per pound.

In 1959, Hurricane Dot left the mill intact except for an air vent at the roof peak that was torn off and not replaced. The mill ceased operating in 1960 when Kaua`i’s rice industry collapsed. Hurricane Iwa on November 23, 1982 toppled 85% of the building onto the machinery; then came Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

The Haraguchi Rice Mill was the last mill to operate in Hanalei Valley and the only remaining rice mill in the State of Hawaiʻi. A nonprofit organization was formed to preserve and interpret the mill; the organization is guided by an unpaid Board of Directors (many of them are members of the Haraguchi family.) The Haraguchi family now farms taro on the adjacent lands that once supported rice.

Today, the Hoʻopulapula Haraguchi Rice Mill is an agrarian museum located in the taro fields of Hanalei Valley. The Rice Mill Kiosk is open to the public, Monday through Saturday, 11 am – 3 pm. No Public access into the farm & Rice Mill unless through guided tours, available Wednesdays at 10 am (reservations are required.) (Lots of information here from NPS.)

December 8, 2021 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

R&R Facility to Prison

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the Hawai‘i landscape. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in number and size) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed ‘An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,’ a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885; and Filipinos 1905. Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi.

Kalākaua’s meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government and an economic depression in Japan served as motivation for Japanese agricultural workers to move from their homeland. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu on February 8, 1885. Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885.

With the Japanese government satisfied with treatment of the immigrants, a formal immigration treaty was concluded between Hawaiʻi and Japan on January 28, 1886. The treaty stipulated that the Hawaiʻi government would be held responsible for employers’ treatment of Japanese immigrants.

The Issei (first generation) were born in Japan and emigrated to Hawai‘i from 1885 to 1924 (when Congress stopped all legal migration.) (The Immigration Act of 1924 (aka Johnson-Reed Act) limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the US through a national origins quota. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. (State Department))

The sugar industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

Like the other ethnic immigrant groups, the Issei worked on sugar and pineapple plantations. The children of the Issei were the Nisei, the second generation in Hawaiʻi. They are the first generation of Japanese descent to be born and receive their entire education in America, learning Western values and holding US citizenship.

Over time, many Issei and Nisei moved to Honolulu and other developing urban centers. The alien land laws encouraged urbanization since non-citizens could not own land. Many of the Issei became independent wage earners, merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen. They sought and began to achieve upward mobility. (Nordyke and Matsumoto)

On July 7, 1937, Japan invaded China to initiate the war in the Pacific; while the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, unleashed the European war.

If the US and Japan went to war, Japanese in Hawai‘i were seen as potentially dangerous. Both the Army and the FBI gathered data on Japanese residents in the late-1930s.

Fingerprinting and registering of aliens began in August of 1940 under provisions of the federal Alien Registration Act; some 6,000 aliens in Hilo alone were registered and fingerprinted beginning in September of 1940. (Farrell)

During the Fall of 1941 diplomatic relations between the US and Japan, which had been steadily deteriorating, took a sudden turn for the worse.

As to Hawaiʻi, War Department message of November 27, 1941 read as follows: “Negotiations have come to a standstill at this time. No diplomatic breaking of relations and we will let them make the first overt act. You will take such precautions as you deem necessary to carry out the Rainbow plan [a war plan]. Do not excite the civilian population.” (Proceedings of Army Pearl Harbor Board)

An FBI memo, dated December 4, 1941, referenced the “custodial detention list,” a listing of people who should be arrested in the event of outbreak of war. (Farrell)

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor. At that time, Hawaii’s Japanese population was about 158,000, more than one-third of the territory’s total population. (Cohen)

Less than 4 hours after the Pearl Harbor attack, territorial governor Joseph B Poindexter invoked the Hawaii Defense Act giving him absolute wartime power in Hawai‘i.

By mid-afternoon (3:30 pm) the decision to place the territory under martial law was made, suspending the writ of habeas corpus and placing control of Hawaiʻi under Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, who became Military Governor.

The War Department, working under the authority of martial law, ordered that everyone on the list be interned. (Moniz Nakamura)

Kilauea Military Camp (KMC) at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (then known as Hawaii National Park) had been a quiet military recreation facility. By the end of the day on December 7th, it became a detainment camp.

For the island of Hawai‘i, the FBI’s detention list included a total of 82 individuals: 67 consular agents, 3 priests, and 12 “others” (business leaders and other important people in the Japanese American community). (Farrell)

The local police, with assistance from the FBI and Army Intelligence, immediately rounded up and detained the “suspicious aliens” – most of them prominent figures in the Japanese community. (Chapman)

Traveling under police custody in several cars, they passed the Hilo entrance of the park and proceeded to KMC where they were held under military guard in the small camp stockade and in nearby barracks. Within a few days, others had joined this group, which eventually expanded to approximately 130 men.

The detainees included prominent Japanese residents from Hilo and outlying planation areas, many of them familiar to both military and NPS personnel. Many were teachers; others were prominent business or community figures. (Chapman)

“At Kilauea, internees had to walk among soldiers armed with bayonets. While food was plentiful and nutritious, the dignity of the people was taken away. Internees were constantly accompanied by soldiers – even to the latrine”.

At mealtime, inmates lined up to go to the mess hall, which was across the open ground from their barracks, between ten guards with guns and fixed bayonets (Hoshida; Farrell)

In the mess hall, prisoners were initially surprised by the bounty of food that was available to them and as detainee Myoshu Sasai reported, “we could eat all that we wanted to. If they ran out of something, all we had to do was to raise our hand.”

A long serving counter separated the kitchen from the mess hall. Inmates picked up stainless serving trays and silverware and walked single file in front of the serving tables while waiting for kitchen personnel to serve them food, then sat six to wooden tables and benches. (Nakamura; Densho)

A sense of camaraderie developed among the inmates as noted by inmate Yoshio “George” Hoshida who observed that “here, sharing together the same fate in this time of emergency, they were brought together closer as humans on equal plane and closer comradeship.” (Nakamura; Densho)

For one hour every day, detainees were allowed outside for exercise. Inmates also occupied their days reading magazines and books, walking around, or writing letters. For many, letter writing was the only way of communicating with their families and maintaining personal ties.

Although letters were censored with officials cutting out any account of the camp, Hoshida recalled that “letter writing became the main consolation and receiving them was a source of great pleasure to be looked forward to each day.” (Nakamura; Densho)

Building 34, now the Crater Rim Café, Lava Lounge and post office, was used as the internee barracks. Building 35, now the recreation center, was built as an enlisted men’s mess hall and converted to a dormitory in 1919. It was used as the internee mess hall in 1943, but became the recreation hall in 1945. (Farrell)

Internee hearings were held in the Federal Building on Waianuenue Avenue in downtown Hilo. Because the hearings lasted several days, it is probable that internees were held overnight at the Old Police Station, on Kalākaua Street and directly across Kalākaua Park from the Federal Building. (Farrell)

By mid-February 1942, the military government determined that under the Geneva Convention interned aliens could not be held in a combat zone.

On February 15, authorities announced that immediate family members could visit. In anticipation of an imminent transfer to another facility, families were advised to bring warm clothes and that each internee could possess $50.

Noting that the internees were not prisoners of war, the authorities soon began the process of relocation to Sand Island or eventual transfer to the continental United States. The first group of 106 internees departed Kīlauea on March 6; the last group of 25 left on May 12. (Chapman)

In all, between 1,200 and 1,400 local Japanese in Hawai’i were interned, along with about 1,000 family members. By contrast, Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized the mass exclusion and detention of all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast states, resulting in the eventual incarceration of 120,000 people.

The detainees were never formally charged and granted only token hearings. Many of the detainees’ sons served with distinction in the US armed forces, including the legendary 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and Military Intelligence Service.

Following the departure of Japanese inmates in 1942, in June 1944, an addition to KMC was built on the west side, in the area that is now the motor pool. These facilities would serve as a prisoner of war (POW) camp for Koreans and Okinawans who had been brought to the US from islands captured from the Japanese. (Moniz Nakamura)

Military authorities assigned the POWs to maintenance work around the camp. The prisoners generally worked without supervision, mostly on landscape projects and other maintenance work. (Chapman)

The current chain link fence around Tours & Transportation (Bldg 84), Housekeeping (Bldg 81) and Fire & Paramedic Services (Bldg 59) follows the same footprint as the outer wire of the POW camp enclosure. (KMC Walking Tour Narrative)

April 18, 2020 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Generations

Ichi, Ni, San, Shi, Go, Roku, Shichi, Hachi, Kyu, Jyu

That’s counting in Japanese, from 1 to 10.

A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.) The sugar industry grew, so did the Chinese population in Hawaiʻi. Concerned that the Chinese were taking too strong a representation in the labor market, the government passed laws reducing Chinese immigration. Further government regulations, introduced 1886-1892, virtually ended Chinese contract labor immigration.

In 1868, an American businessman, Eugene M Van Reed, sent a group of approximately 150-Japanese to Hawaiʻi to work on sugar plantations and another 40 to Guam. This unauthorized recruitment and shipment of laborers, known as the gannenmono (“first year men”,) marked the beginning of Japanese labor migration overseas. (JANM)

However, for the next two decades the Meiji government prohibited the departure of “immigrants” due to the slave-like treatment that the first Japanese migrants received in Hawaiʻi and Guam. (JANM)

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi.

Kalākaua’s meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government and an economic depression in Japan served as motivation for agricultural workers to move from their homeland. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company City of Tokio on February 8, 1885. Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885.

OK, why the initially counting lesson?

As suggested by the title, the respective generations of Japanese in the Islands and elsewhere are identified by the simple numbering pattern. Literally speaking, the Japanese terms Issei, Nisei, Sansei, etc mean first, second and third generation.

The Issei (first generation) were born in Japan and emigrated here from 1885 to 1924 (when Congress stopped all legal migration.) (The Immigration Act of 1924 (aka Johnson-Reed Act) limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. (State Department))

Like the other ethnic immigrant groups, the Issei worked on sugar and pineapple plantations. The term Issei came into common use and represented the idea of a new beginning and belonging.

The children of the Issei were the Nisei, the second generation in Hawaiʻi and the first generation of Japanese descent to be born and receive their entire education in America, learning Western values and holding US citizenship.

However, to some degree, preservation of their mother language and culture was reinforced by attending Japanese language schools and by being members of the audience at Japanese cultural plays.

The Nisei hold a significant legacy in Hawaiʻi – this is the generation through the World War II years that included internment for some and service in the US military for many.

In all, between 1,200 and 1,400-local Japanese were interned in Hawaiʻi, along with about 1,000-family members. The number of Japanese in Hawai‘i who were detained was small relative to the total Japanese population here, less than 1%.

By contrast, Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized the mass exclusion and detention of all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast states, resulting in the eventual incarceration of 120,000-people.

The Nisei made up the storied 442nd Combat Team and 100th Infantry Battalion (which later became the 1st Battalion of the 442nd,) composed entirely of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

Having been born in the Islands, all of the men were citizens of the US; however, very few had ever been to Japan and most of them could not speak Japanese. The “Go For Broke” soldiers of the 442nd are the most decorated infantry regiment in the US Army.

Another term used to describe some of the generations that followed the Issei were the Kibei (return to America) – those who were American born, but who were educated in Japan and returned home to America.

Subsequent generations follow the simple counting patter; the Sansei were children born to the Nisei (the third generation;) Yonsei, the fourth generation – born to at least one Sansei parent and Gosei, the fifth generation – the generation of people born to at least one Yonsei parent, etc.

The Japanese did not just emigrate to Hawaiʻi and the US. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan (they first started emigrating there in 1908 to work on the coffee plantations.) There were between 1.5-million people of Japanese descent in Brazil; 1.3-million in all of the US, with a little over 185,000 in Hawaiʻi.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

March 18, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kapaʻa Japanese Stone Lantern (Ishidoro)

The first Japanese immigrants to the Islands, like the Chinese, appeared not long after Western contact, but the greatest numbers arrived in the mid-1800s to fill the labor needs of the sugar plantations.

The growth of the sugar industry as the base for the Hawaiian economy in the 1850s gave impetus to an increased demand for imported labor.

Japan was not open to Western recruitment until 1868; that year, the first group of 148 Japanese immigrants included 140 men, six women and two children.

In 1872, Politician Walter Murray Gibson declared to the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaiʻi: “You have considered the races that are desirable, not only to supply your needs of labor but to furnish an increase of population that will assimilate with the Hawaiian. …”

“We must look to races, who whilst being good workers, will not much affect the identity of the Hawaiian, and whose gradual influx will harmonize with, and strengthen, by the infusion of new blood, the native stock.”

“A moderate portion of the Japanese, of the agricultural class, will not conflict with the view that I present, and if they bring their women with them, and settle permanently in the country, they may be counted upon as likely to become desirable Hawaiian subjects.”

King Kalākaua visited Japan for ten days in 1881 while making a global tour. His meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Kingdom with the Japanese government, and an economic depression in Japan served as an impetus for agricultural workers to leave their homeland.

The US Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 stopped the flow of Chinese workers to the Islands; sugar planters turned to Japan. Farmers and peasants from southern Japan (mostly from the areas of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and Kumamoto,) having suffered a series of crop failures at home, filled the Hawaiʻi jobs promising comparatively high wages.

The trickle of workers arriving in 1868 turned to a flood by 1886.

Earlier contracts which provided a wage of $4 a month plus food, housing and medical care were replaced with new arrangements for free steerage passage, wages per month of $9 for men and $6 for women, food allowance, lodging, medical care, fuel, no taxes and a required savings account. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

While only 116-Japanese were reported as residents in the 1884 census of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the Territory of Hawaiʻi recorded 47,508-men and 13,603-women of the Japanese race in 1900. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The Russo-Japanese War (1904 –1905) was “the first great war of the 20th century.” It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over Manchuria and Korea. With Vladivostok only operational during the summer season, Russians sought a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean for their navy, as well as for maritime trade.

Japanese residents on Kauaʻi raised funds to support Japan’s war effort. After the Japanese victory, in appreciation of the community’s support, Japan sent money to be used to build monuments honoring the Japanese soldiers who had lost their lives in the war.

In 1915, two such monuments were erected, one in Kapaʻa, the other in Līhuʻe. They were also intended to honor Emperor Taishō’s ascension to the throne that year.

Emperor Taishō was the 123rd Emperor of Japan, reigning from 1912, until his death in 1926. (The Emperor’s personal name was Yoshihito. He was followed by his son Hirohito.)

(A tasty side note: Emperor Taishō was initially exposed to new foods by the Western diplomatic corps. Through this exposure he created beef fried Taishō Tonkatsu. After World War I, his personal chef released this menu publicly. Today, Taishō Tonkatsu is a very popular dish.)

The Kapaʻa monument was a 15-foot Ishidōrō (stone lantern) placed across the dirt highway from Miura Store.

Over the centuries the Ishidōrō evolved and were adapted for the practical purpose of lighting the grounds of religious sites, and have since become popular by placing them (in varying sizes) in the gardens of tea houses and private residences.

The Kapaʻa project work was accomplished by JS Teraoka, Masanobu Nitta and Mr. Fujiwara; the Ishidōrō was made of concrete, designs etched in redwood were pressed into the wet concrete. Many plantation workers would stop by after their long work hours to help out. (Inspiration Journal)

For many, the monument represented the Japanese immigrants’ respect for their culture and homeland, and for others, their intention to return to their families and communities in Japan, after saving up money from plantation work on Kauaʻi.

However, as World War II heated up, anti-Japanese sentiments grew, and community pressure built to remove the monument. In April 1943, county work crews toppled and buried the massive structure.

According to The Garden Island newspaper, “The monuments were pulled down by the county in response to numerous protests from civilians who felt that they were inappropriate at this time when Russia is considered an ally of the United States.” A headline from The Garden Island stated, “Reminders of Japanese Victory Removed.” (Inspiration Journal)

Over the decades, the Ishidōrō was long forgotten.

Then, in 1972, some children playing at Kapaʻa Beach Park noticed a metal rod sticking out of the ground and feared people could get injured. The County crews working to remove it soon realized that it was part of the old Ishidōrō monument; Kauaʻi Historical Society stepped in and urged it be removed.

It was later re-erected through a community effort led by Mayor Tony Kunimura, the Kaua’i Historical Society and others. For the next 20 years, the damaged and aged lantern stood supported by steel braces.

In 2008, with funding from the Kauaʻi County/HUD Community Development Block Grant Program, the Ishidōrō was fully restored, through the efforts of the Kapaʻa Business Association and others.

Congratulations to the community and coordinators Larry Dill, Pat Pannell and Rayne Regush of the Kapa‘a Business Association, and Leadership Kaua‘i on earning a ‘2009 Leadership in History Award’ from the ‘American Association for State and Local History’ for the Japanese Stone Lantern Restoration, Kapaʻa, Kaua‘i.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

SAMSUNG DIGITAL CAMERA

Restored Japanese Stone Lantern Memorial—Kapaa

SI Exif

Emperor_Taisho's_sons_Hirohito, Takahito, Nobuhito and Yasuhito-1921

Bronze statue of Japanese sugarcane workers first immigration to Hawaii (Maui) 1885

Japan_Russia_Treaty_of_Peace_5_September_1905

Japanese_Coming_Off_Ship-(HSA)-PPWD-20-4-001

Battlefields_in_the_Russo_Japanese_War-1904-05

October 25, 2019 by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Glass Balls

I suspect many people would believe the occasional glass fishing float found on our shores is strictly a Japanese and Pacific Ocean phenomenon.

Actually, the first glass fishing floats probably came from Norway and were used in the Atlantic. From 1762 to 1880, a Norwegian glass company was in business and it is believed they were producing glass floats as early as the late-1700s.

The first time these “modern” glass fishing floats are mentioned is in the production registry for Hadelands Glassverk in 1841. The registry shows that this is a new type of production.

However, there might have been some other versions of glass floats in use before that time. In the early 19th-century, the Schimmelmanns Glassverk (1779–1832) produced dark brown and very thick, bottle glass floats.

Aasnaes Glasvaerk, in business from 1813 to 1883, produced 122,493 glass floats just in the year 1875. A glass float with Aasnaes’s mark on the seal button is a collector’s item.

Early evidence of glass floats being used by fishermen comes from Norway in 1844, where small egg-sized floats were used with fishing line and hooks. Around the same time, glass was also used to support fishing nets.

The Japanese started producing small glass floats in the early-1900s and the first Asian floats came ashore along the West Coast just before 1920.

These Japanese floats are part of early recycling efforts – initial Japanese floats were made from recycled sake bottles. Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from these sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight).

Other brilliant tones such as emerald green, cobalt blue, purple, yellow and orange were primarily made in the 1920s and 1930s. The most prized and rare color is a red or cranberry hue.

To accommodate different fishing styles and nets, the Japanese experimented with many different sizes and shapes of floats, ranging from 2 to 20 inches in diameter. Most were rough spheres, but some were cylindrical or “rolling pin” shaped.

Asahara Glass Company had several factories and made a variety of sizes. Asahara made baseball- to orange-size floats for tako jigs, salmon gillnetting and seine fishing; grapefruit-size floats for seine and long-line cod fishing; basketball-size for tuna operations, bottom trawls and crab trapping; and the small rolling pin floats were used for tako jigs and troll fishing.

The earliest floats, including most Japanese glass fishing floats, were hand made by a glassblower. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process.

After being blown, floats were removed from the blowpipe and sealed with a “button” of melted glass before being placed in a cooling oven. This sealing button is sometimes mistakenly identified as a pontil mark (scar where the punt was broken from a work of blown glass.) However, no pontil (or punty) was used in the process of blowing glass floats.

While floats were still hot and soft, marks were often embossed on or near the sealing button to identify the float for trademark. These marks sometimes included kanji symbols.

A later manufacturing method used wooden molds to speed up the float-making process. Glass floats were blown into a mold to more easily achieve a uniform size and shape.

Seams on the outside of floats are a result of this process. Sometimes knife markings where the wooden molds were carved are also visible on the surface of the glass.

By 1939, millions of Japanese glass floats were being used; although Japanese glass fishing floats are no longer being manufactured for fishing, there are thousands still floating in the Pacific Ocean.

By the 1940s, glass had replaced wood or cork throughout much of Europe, Russia, North America and Japan.

Today most of the glass floats remaining in the ocean are stuck in a circular pattern of ocean currents in the North Pacific Gyre.

Off the east coast of Taiwan, the Kuroshio Current starts as a northern branch of the western-flowing North Equatorial Current. It flows past Japan and meets the arctic waters of the Oyashio Current.

At this junction, the North Pacific Current (or Drift) is formed which travels east across the Pacific before slowing down in the Gulf of Alaska.

As it turns south, the California Current pushes the water into the North Equatorial Current once again, and the cycle continues.

Although the number of glass floats is decreasing steadily, many floats are still drifting on these ocean currents. Occasionally, storms or certain tidal conditions will break some floats from this circular pattern and bring them to ashore.

They most often end up on the beaches of Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Washington or Oregon in the United States, Taiwan or Canada.

Today, most of the remaining glass floats originated in Japan because it had a large deep sea fishing industry which made extensive use of the floats; some were made by Taiwan, Korea and China.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger