traveling is shopping.

  Among their souvenirs brought back home as their treasures are porcelains. The root of porcelains actually originated in Asia and Japan's technology greatly influenced them. But Japanese tourists seem not to have been aware of this fact.

  In the era of Ming (1368-1644), Europeans began to focus on Japanese ceramics as an alternative to China's Jingdezhen porcelain, because china's domestic situation then made it difficult for Europeans to obtain. So Arita ware, Japan's first porcelain, began to be exported from Imari port. Soon kilns were built in various places in Europe and porcelains featuring regional identities were developed as their tools or decorations matching the custom or culture there.

  The technology of Arita ware may have been the highest one we Japanese could be proud of, but it was not our original one.

  About 200 years later, after the Meiji restoration the government took a policy to promote Europeanizing Japan.

  They thought traditional Japanese culture and customs had been behind those of Europe. The policy resulted in the deterioration of the highly developed and cultivated Edo culture, although they had gained a high reputation and influenced people abroad, and furthermore deprived such an excellent culture from our daily lives.

  About 300 years after the first export of Imari ware, it has been widely accepted at home and abroad that the industriousness of the Japanese people contributed to its postwar reconstruction and rapid economic growth after World War II. The diligence and dexterity of the Japanese people generated a synergistic effect of developing a precise finish and processing of products. Later, a buoyant economy brought about by the special procurement boom from the Korean War increased processing or repairing orders from abroad.

  At that time, the textile industry was also booming. Sewing machines were the highest profit maker among foreign exchange earners. But it was still before our original technology fully matured.

  Through the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964 and the Japan World Exposition in 1970, the world turned their attention to Japan. By that time, the export of optical instruments, especially cameras, was distinguished in number. Soon such brands as NIKON and CANON became widely known worldwide, followed by SONY and HONDA. At the end of the twentieth century, TOYOTA finally completed the hybrid car which established their original technology by making it possible to mass produce.

  If the time before the twentieth century had been the time we cultivated our technology and exported it, the beginning of this century would have been the time we would distribute the "Japan brand" to the world as commercial products with established technologies, adding Japanese tradition and atmosphere, along with, Japanese sensitivity. Though it has already been done in the garment industry for twenty-five years, other industries have just begun to follow the same track recently. In fact, products in which we can feel "Japan" are gaining popularity in foreign countries. Works, especially Hollywood films like "Last Samurai" or "Sayuri" are examples that foreign people have commercialized "Japan" through their eyes. But compared with Mt.Fuji, Geisha, Sukiyaki, and Tempura, they are still "Japan" seen only as a foreigner's viewpoint and are not necessarily the "Japan brand" we Japanese tried to relate to them.

  Among such examples, what is important I think is whether we can send our messages to the world with a solid viewpoint in accordance with each foreign country's interests, while keeping the pride of Japanese identity, and not just being pleased that Japan was picked up as a topic of interest.

  Now we are introducing two products created out of the harmony of a natural phenomenon and electronic technology which we Japanese are good at.

  One is "Hono", designed by Mr. Chiaki Murata, a designer of XBOX360, and released by his own brand. It is an electronic candle whose wavy flames are illuminated by LED (light-emitting diode) and wink out when the built-in sound sensor perceives the sound of a person's breath on it. It automatically ignites again when it is left for a while or tilted toward a contact-free switch shaped matchstick. It is a very mysterious piece that makes a person smile so as to feel the close relationship between light and human-beings thanks to this electronic technology.

  The other is "Sukihotaru", a flat room light which I designed. It is made of LED-mixed hand made Japanese paper. I tried to provide a healing effect by using a blinking light to resemble the glow of fireflies. Seeing a lot of glowing fireflies in the dark, people tend to stare at them for a while in silence. I tried to confine this charm in the paper imaging the scene. This piece has some variations. The square shaped module one is adjustable in number and can be used in a series according to the way users want to use it and be interchangeable when it gets dirty or broken. Another customized large one is also available. It can be used as an interior component or a partition panel by putting it on the ceiling or wall directly.

  The common point between these two items is that they are quite new frontier products, which sensory phenomena familiar to us in nature were expressed with the help of LED and algorithm from the CPU (central processing unit) in a computer.

  The last item I would like to introduce to you is about a company named IKEUCHI TOWEL Co., Ltd., who has been grappling quite uniquely with their operation by harnessing in-house wind-generated power for their entire towel production. It is equivalent to about 370g in terms of carbon dioxide if we convert 1kw electric power to the necessary energy to make one piece of towel. Further more, using as much organic materials as they can, they try to make human and eco-friendly products. Their corporate philosophy to manufacture their products with safe energy as well as safe materials proved them to be worthy of receiving the first ISO14001 in Japanese towel industry.

  The examples introduced above are only a part of the Japan brand. I think these innovations are what are transmitted to the world as the identity of our products from Japan, while having confidence that everyone can share joy and pleasure with them, no matter what culture and custom they have, or no matter where they live in the world. Each one might be a trifle piece, but I do believe these creations exactly show the dawning of the "Japan brand".