Seemingly this paper could be made in a slower production with unbleached natural fibers and varying degrees of tororo-aoi without the addition of alum. That night ten inches of snow fell and we awoke to large flakes of snow continuing to fall just the way that you have seen them in ukiyoe prints. We then returned to home next door to the studio, to learn how to hand carve hera, bamboo tools which are used to remove paper from the drying boards. This night we drank tea and listened to papermaking songs being sung by grandmother until everyone retired to tatami mats and electric blankets over futons weighted down with three extra blankets to keep the westerners warm. The morning of our departure, Sally, Julienne, and I walked up the small snowy roads to say goodbye to Fukui Prefecture.
Machinery can never bring out the beauty and strength of handmade paper.
A contrasting experience was our visit to our young and kind translator's large paper factory. This factory has designed and produced machine-stencilled wood pulp and mitsumata paper for origami and announcement cards. Basically a small copper design is soldered in repeated grill fashion to create a large metal relief like a cookie cutter, which is dipped into mitsumata and transferred to base sheets of kozo or wood pulp, covered with gold powder to make an elaborate decorative paper, whether by hand or by machine. We were beginning to understand that the difference between the decorative hand and machine-made papers becomes very blurred in these instances. Members of the paper union declare that they cannot identify one from the other anymore.