| Original Message: Probably Mistaken All Around |
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The Japanese did not "import Chinese glassmasters to run their bead factories." This is a garbled statement from someone who clearly does not understand beadmaking and history. In the early 20th C. (at a time when Japan was occupying China), the Japanese set-up glass-beadmaking factories in China—most likely to exploit cheap labor, and to facilitate the making of beads to be exported to "barbarian" people (which would have included the Ainu, "Chinese minorities"—and the Aleuts, and Inuit of North America and Siberia. At this time, the Japanese had a much stronger and more dynamic tradition of glass-beadmaking, in terms of creating more than just plain furnace-wound beads (as the Chinese did). Japan would learn very little from China, in this arena. The Japanese had already developed lampworking (in their versions of Venetian styles), and proceeded to introduce this into China. The designation, "Made in Japan," is a post-WWII phrase, that has nothing to do with the beads being discussed here. In fact, most of the "Made in Japan" beads are derived from the spread of recent Czech beadmaking traditions—and these beads look Czech and do not look Chinese. It is unfortunate that such a short post should contain so much misinformation. JDA. All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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