【A daily record】The color we've never seen
Hello everyone.
A while ago, a newspaper introduced a class at Rovaniemi High School in northern Finland.
One day in a Japanese class, the students were divided into small groups and asked to close their eyes.
The teacher then asked, "What color do you think the word 'white' is? Try to expand your imagination." I was stumped.
However, the other students did not seem surprised, and answered with serious expressions such as "peach color" and "light brown." They were not assuming that white was white, but simply imagining the color that the sound of the word brought to their minds.
Isn't white white?
This question may still be difficult for us at Yume no Mori.
However, if we lower the level of abstraction a little and ask, "What color is a smile?" or "What color is sadness?" It's amazing. There are truly as many different people as there are people. Various "colors" may come to mind not only for students but also for you, the reader.
So, what color is "happiness"?
There is a pioneer who is searching for the color of happiness through methods such as dyeing.
This is Yoko Oka, the owner of O CAFE in Namie. After the disaster, Oka renovated her home warehouse, which was to be demolished, into "O CAFE," and is working to create a place where various people in Namie town can return to and say "I'm home."
Among Oka's wide-ranging activities is "dyeing."
When she returned to Namie from her evacuation site, she felt that "there was no color in my hometown," which prompted her to extract various colors from nature and use them in dyeing.
Last week, the Dream Forest Exploration Team, made up of third to sixth graders, spent a day learning this secret technique.
So, what colors did they dye?
Hello. I hope to see you today.
I met Oka at O CAFE, surrounded by a rural landscape.
"Welcome, everyone. I hope you will take home many discoveries today."
Mr. Oka greets us with a smile.
Under Mr. Oka's careful guidance, we immediately try our hand at dyeing.
Holding a beautiful piece of dyed fabric in hand, Mr. Oka speaks.
"Look, there is a pattern on this. I attached it by wrapping rubber bands around it, clipping it with clothespins, and tying the folded parts with string. Everyone, try various things to see what kind of pattern you can make."
Each person is handed a white handkerchief.
They wrap rubber bands or marbles around each one, trial and error.
"When you're ready, put it in this pot."
Inside the pot, the tea liquid is steaming. The children lean in close and peer into the pot, commenting enthusiastically, "It's like making oden," and "It smells like soup."
"These are onions from Namie. We boil the onion skins to make the color," says Mr. Oka.
What? Onion skins? Everyone is surprised that food that is usually thrown away can be used as a dyeing material!
Now, what kind of color will come out of onion skins?
Although it is simply called "dyeing," the process is complicated. The dye is boiled to make the dye solution, heat is added to dye, the dye is added, the dye is mordant to fix the color, the dye is cooled and washed with water.
All the children experience this process by imitating.
They pull the handkerchief out of the hot mordant pot and rinse it under running water...
"Oh!" "Wow!"
Cries of joy and amazement can be heard all around.
The white handkerchief is dyed a soft yellow.
"Who would have thought such a gentle color could come out of dirty onion skins..."
A wave of emotion washes over them like a ripple.
Each piece is unique. It is impossible to make the same pattern or color twice.
It's truly a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with color.
"Hey, doesn't it look like the 'yellow handkerchief of happiness?'" Oka-san says.
Perhaps the soft, warm color, without any sharpness, is what evokes happiness.
"Many colors lie dormant in nature. The colors you can see now are not all there are. Sometimes beautiful colors emerge unexpectedly from unexpected things.
If you feel like trying something new, please come and visit us again anytime."
We left Namie Village with handkerchiefs dyed in soft colors, seen off by Oka-san's gentle smile.
Now, next Saturday is the Sports Festival.
This year's theme is "Connections and Expansion." The story of the festival is to nurture the seeds of our dreams through competitions and "make big flowers bloom" on the grounds.
What color will the flowers that we join hands and bloom into the sky be?
I can't help but smile as I imagine the colors that we have yet to see.
This is a commercial for first and second graders. I'm looking forward to the Sports Festival on June 1st.