Hand Carved Koto Ji (Bridges)

The dark wooden bridges holding up the koto strings were carved by my father,

Hatsuki Kagawa. During the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII my two older sisters learned how to play the koto from Chihoko Nakashima, the first qualified teacher of

the Ikuta-ryu style. How my parents found kotos in camp, I do not know, but one

koto had ivory bridges, too precious to use for practice. So, my father handmade

bridges with evergreen ironwood that are found in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.

Ironwood is a slow growing tall “nurse tree” where shorter plants and animals find

protection under its canopy. Purple flowers blossom in the spring, and some

ironwood trees are over 800 years old. Like all incarcerates, my father’s livelihood

was taken away. At camp, he had time to learn how to carve bird pins, a skill he

applied to making koto bridges.

Who Is the Culprit?

The Kenwood area of Bethesda, Maryland is inundated with visitors, causing traffic jams and nuisance to this swanky neighborhood. Are cherry blossoms the blame? In a koto piece taken from the noh play, Saigyo Zakura, the hermit monk, Saigyo enjoyed his retreat in the Western hills of Kyoto but resented and complained about the cherry that attracted trespassers, disrupting his solitude.  That night he was visited by a spirit of an old cherry tree (like Stumpy) who reprimanded Saigyo for blaming the blossoms. Cherry blossoms cannot help but be what they are, beautiful. Saigyo relented, and the two then listed all the places in Japan celebrated for beautiful cherry blossom. 

The Ephemeralness of Cherry Trees

Every spring, the 10th century poet, Ariwara no Narihira’s poem comes to mind. It is the

third poem in the koto piece, Haru no Kyoku by Yoshizawa Kengyo. He said, “If in this world

there were no cherry blossoms, life would be carefree.” I understand that this negative

sentiment was Narihira’s way to complement the beautiful of cherry blossoms. Every spring

in the Washington, DC area, particularly along the Tidal Basin, there are heightened worries

among cherry blossom festival and parade planners, tourists, and merchants. Everyone is

concerned about when the cherry trees will blossom and when will they peak. This year

(2024) we learned that the trees as well as the blossoms are ephemeral. Stumpy (photo) is

over a hundred years old, as are 300 more, and they will be replaced to make room for

younger cherry trees donated by Japan.