Konbanwa !It has been chilly in Edinburgh these days. My home twon in Niigata of Japan has got two metre snow!!
It is surprising isn’t it ?
So
I am writing about a Japanese folding fan today.
This is very common to take with you when you wear kimono.The folding fan (it is so called Sensu in Japanese) is Japanese invention.
Originally, it was functional especially for summer use, however, it later became significant in Japanese etiquette in Japanese tea ceremony and dancing in Nihon-Buyo.The first folding fans consisted of just sticks of Japanese cypress held together by ribbons.
It was only later the sticks were covered with paper.The cypress stick fans first appeared at the Imperial Court in the seventh century an by the eighth century, they had become an indispensable part of Court attire.The folding fans that first appeared in Europe during the middle of the seventeenth century were also derived from the Japanese fan.
Nowadays, the current Japanese folding fan is used mainly in dancing during Nihon-Buyo as mentioned earlier, in doing during Japanese tea ceremony and traditional occasions.
