Tomioka Silk Mill & ... Red Wine?
Added 2017-09-13 05:05:10 +0000 UTCI just finished up 2 days of shooting at the Tomioka Silk Mill in Gunma Prefecture (90 min from Tokyo Station).
It's a historical place but that doesn't mean it's boring. Well, to be honest, it sort of can be if you're not into history but knowing that these sorts of episodes can be - well, boring - I had he mindset that THIS was the place to be and had some fun! The area is SUPER RETRO! I mean, time stopped in the 1950 and 1960s! The Mill itself is a world heritage site but the places around it steals the show! I don't know if people will want to come visit this place and area. It's not especially convenient, but if no one introduces it, no one will know it exists.
One story in particular was super interesting. Shall I tell you? (Okay, let's do this!)
I'm gonna to keep this general. A French dude came to Tomika with the most advanced machines at the time and with Japan, they set up the factory but no one wanted to work here! After a while, they figured out why. The French dude and his entourage would drink glasses of red wine out in the open and Japanese, having never seen red wine before, thought the worst -- obviously French drink blood!! It freaked out the locals so much that no one wanted to work in the blood suckers factory. Eventually some brace souls were convinced to work and the Mill started taking off. Ha! The story will be in the video set for upload on 9/30. Good little story to tell friends when drinking red wine!
Comments
Great story and yes telling historic tales of lesser known parts of Japan's past will slowly start to open up the paths that will lead people to visit places like this.
Joanne
2017-09-13 19:31:35 +0000 UTCWicked sounds like an awesome story lol.
ChaCha
2017-09-13 12:40:20 +0000 UTCPretty cool story and the place looks very interesting. I think Peter Barakan did a Begin Japanology episode there. Will be great to get more info about the place.
Sascha Bornewasser
2017-09-13 06:13:26 +0000 UTCRetro is pretty cool
Eric Holleran
2017-09-13 05:29:37 +0000 UTCWow That looks pretty neat and That sounds like a pretty neat story! When is the DVD going to be done ( not to rub it in again ) :p
Linda Bee Everywhere
2017-09-13 05:09:40 +0000 UTC
