… there appears to be some idea that every unwrapping is detracting a little from the value of the item.
… This is something the human hand must do, and only loving care enables us to perform such troublesome manual tasks to the very end.
This is from Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Presentation and Power in Japan and Other Societies by Joy Hendry (1993):
… It is … thought to be polite to wrap a single-page letter in a plain sheet of writing-paper … For example, when my son’s passport had to be left behind at the travel agent’s office for a correction to be made to a visa, it arrived a few days later in an envelope big enough to hold a foolscap folder. This envelope opened, I drew out a slightly smaller one, sealed again but with nothing written upon it. Opening this one, I found yet another smaller sealed envelope inside, again with nothing written on the outside. My son’s passport was to be found inside. On another occasion I received some photographs by post. The number of envelopes was the same as with the passport, but the photographs were then further sealed inside a plastic packet inside the smallest envelope.
Another expression of the value of wrapping in a Japanese view is to be found in the way precious objects are stored. Unlike many Western collectors, who display the objects of their interest in a glass case, or in some other visible location, the owners of precious objects in Japan are quite likely to keep their things well hidden away. If a visitor should express an interest, he or she will be treated to an often deliberately slow and careful unpacking process. Pots, for example, may be folded first in silk or some other soft material, then placed in a purpose-built box, itself often a work of some art, and the box may even be wrapped again in paper or some other substance.
Indeed, some artefacts may be enclosed in multiple boxes. The Kizaemon tea bowl, described and discussed in an essay by the folk-artist Söetsu Yanagi, is apparently considered to be the finest in the world. Yanagi had been wanting for years to see the bowl, and some element of suspense is communicated in Bernard Leach’s English adaptation of his work. ‘It was within box after box, five deep, buried in wool and wrapped in purple silk.’ One aficionado of ceramics told me that a collector’s best pots are kept for only a very few eyes, since there appears to be some idea that every unwrapping is detracting a little from the value of the item. Thus a visitor may gauge his status in a collector’s house by the number of pots he is shown.
… Kunio Ekiguchi explains in the introduction [to his book on gift-wrapping] that ‘the concept of wrapping, tsutsumi, is not limited to the function of packaging. It plays a central role in a wide variety of spiritual and cultural aspects of Japanese life.’ He reiterates the element of care involved in noting that just as one helps a friend into a coat carefully and courteously, a gift should be wrapped tenderly and conscientiously. ‘In Japan,’ he asserts, ‘it is said that giving a gift is like wrapping one’s heart.’
… Hideyuki Oka takes the line that traditional forms of packaging are dying out in this modern industrialized age, and he laments their ‘slippage back into the mists of history.’ He sees this as a serious loss of human love in a world where taking the time and trouble to create a beautifully wrapped object is seen as ‘inefficient and unproductive.’
Even though the object to be wrapped may be no more than a small confection, someone who truly wants to please, who wants it to taste even more delicious, will go to great trouble to wrap it carefully by hand … This is something the human hand must do, and only loving care enables us to perform such troublesome manual tasks to the very end.
… In practice in everyday life in modern Japan an enormous number of beautifully wrapped gifts change hands for a large variety of different ostensible reasons, but the wrapping process may have very little connection with the notion of human love. As Mauss was at pains to demonstrate, gifts which are in theory voluntary, are often subject to strict bonds of obligation, and Japan is no exception to this rule. [Jane] Cobbi makes an important point when she notes that the hedonistic perspective — ‘une notion de plaisir’ — associated with the French word cadeau is not generally the same in the case of Japanese gifts, and elsewhere there may even be entirely inauspicious associations. People wrap gifts, or, more often in today’s world of department stores, have them wrapped, because this is the appropriate way to present them. Without wrapping, the gift would fail to carry the message as properly intended, and the procurement and delivery of the gifts one is obliged to present may indeed by a very time-consuming and troublesome activity.
It is true that a gift wrapped by hand in home-made paper may in certain circles carry a special message of love in today’s Japan, as it may have in times past, but a gift entirely unwrapped may carry the same message. Indeed, many of my Japanese informants explained to me that the formal wrapping of a gift expresses a certain distance in a relationship, so to leave a present unwrapped is a way of expressing intimacy.
… Iwao Nukada, the author of a comprehensive book in Japanese devoted to the subject of wrapping, goes into much more detail about the variety and meaning of wrapping in Japan. He discusses the way in which wrapping has developed aesthetic, religious, and magical qualities over and above the original functional ones, as well as becoming subject to strict rules of etiquette and courtesy. He too couches these developments in the context of a scheme of cultural evolution or civilization (something akin to that of Norbert Elias), providing a plethora of examples from different historical periods to support his view, which dovetails with the notion of value placed on refinement and restraint outlined by Ekiguchi. To be able to wrap things properly becomes a measure of refinement and civilization which is applied within Japanese society, but also by implication since Japan is supposed to be so advanced in this respect, as a way of giving Japan an edge over the rest of the world in cultural achievement.
Nukada further divides types of wrapping into three: the wrapping of goods, which has been the focus of this chapter, the wrapping of the body, and the wrapping of space. In subsequent chapters, we will be considering Nukada’s second and third types, but we will also turn to examine the notion of wrapping in a wider context which includes language as a form of wrapping. On the whole his theory about refinement applies there, too. It is a phenomenon by no means peculiar to Japan, and it is in considering this type of wrapping that we will find ourselves most comfortably in an area which lends itself to cross-cultural comparison.
My first post from Hendry’s book is here.
-Julie
