COMPLETION REPORT
Rusontsubo: Trade and Aesthetics in Philippines-Japan Relations in the Time of Hideyoshi
Dr. Ambeth Raymundo Ocampo
Associate Professor
School of Social Sciences,Ateneo de Manila University
In January 2008 Dr. Genshitsu-sen, 15th tea master in a line of the Urasenke family, prepared tea in
Malacañang Palace for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, President of the Philippines. On this occasion he made reference
to two heirloom tea storage jars he had in his residence in Kyoto known as rusonstubo or “Luzon jars.” These wereimported into Japan in the 16th century from the island of Luzon, then known to Japanese as “Ruson.” The jars
were highly prized by practitioners chado not just for their ability to maintain the freshness of tea leaves but also for
their rustic charm.
Some of these jars are still extant. One named Shoka previously owned by Hideyoshi is presently in theTokugawa Museum, Nagoya. Another with the signature of Sen-No-Rikyu is in the Gotoh Museum, Tokyo. The
Freer Gallery in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. owns a fully documented tea-leaf storage jar called“Chigusa.” Recent ceramic research has shown that rusontsubo were not made in the Philippines by Filipinos,
rather these were ordinary storage jars of Chinese origin.
Rusontsubo are referenced in early Jesuit accounts of Japan, and other European accounts of the period like theItalian Franceso Carletti, who visited the Philippines from 1596-97, and Antonio de Morga who published “Eventsof the Philippine Islands” in Mexico in 1609 who both relate, with amazement, how these simple and crude jars,
acquired cheaply in Luzon commanded high prices in Japan. One of the most famous Sakai merchants wasRuson Sukaezaemon who grew wealthy overnight from the sale of rusotsubo.
It is significant that in 1594 the Franciscan Pedro Bautista wrote a report to Gomes Perez Dasmariñas,
Spanish Governor-general of the Philippines, who had sent him as an envoy to Hideyoshi’s court, requesting thatrusontsubo be sourced and sent to Japan as gifts for Hideyoshi and his ministers who valued these very much. So
important had rusontsubo become that Hideyoshi tried to monopolize the trade in them, thus rusonstbo played apart in the diplomacy of early Philippines-Japan relations.
Rusontsubo once formed an integral part of tea practice but today these are hardly brought out, with theexception of the annual delivery of tea from Uji to the Sen family in Kyoto where the ritual opening and sealing of
the rusontsubo is a reminder of a time when these the jars were brought out in parade, adorned with silk cords andcovers, given names, and whose appearance was recorded in tea annals during the time of Hideyoshi as symbols ofstatus, wealth, culture and power.
Rusontsubo are but a footnote in the history of tea, and shared histories of the Philippines and Japan but
the story of these jars form an interesting picture of Japan in the time of Hideyoshi as markers of trade,evangelization, diplomacy and cultural exchange. These jars also suggest the importance of Manila as an important
trading port at the time this being one of the end points of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade that can be seen as
the beginning of globalization.
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