Tehran, Kashan to host Japan Culture Month

September 13, 2022 

TEHRAN – Tehran and the central Iranian city of Kashan will be playing host to a month-long Japanese cultural festival entitled “Japan Culture Month”.

The Embassy of Japan will organize the festival, which is scheduled to open in Tehran on September 19, with contributions from the Japan Foundation, University of Tehran and several other Iranian cultural centers, the embassy announced on Monday.

The festival will go on with a seminar on the history and culture of Kimono “Kumejima Tsumugi”, which will be held the next day at the Aseman Art and Culture Center.

The embassy plans to invite three experts from Okinawa island to Iran to give lectures on the history and culture of the Kimono.

“Kumejima Tsumugi” provides historical evidence that Japan has been trading with China and Southeast Asia since the 14th century.

Kumejima-tsumugi is the Japanese craft of silk cloth practiced in Kumejima, Okinawa Prefecture. It is the oldest type of tsumugi in Japan, out of the approximately two hundred forms of tsumugi, and is the oldest kasuri fabric. It is recognized as one of the important intangible cultural properties of Japan.

Silk production has been practiced in Kumejima since the 15th century, after a local, having studied sericulture in Ming Dynasty China, transmitted the techniques. Mulberry plants, the primary foodstuff of silkworms, is said to grow particularly well on the island.

By the 17th century, kumejima-tsumugi formed part of the tribute paid to the Ryukyu Kings, and it was transported to Edo via the Satsuma Domain.

An exhibition of the kumejima-tsumugi kimono collection and the photos of Okinawa’s beautiful landscape will be organized on the sidelines of the seminar.

The Aseman center will host part one of a Japanese film festival, however, there was no film lineup listed in the embassy announcement.

The second and third parts of the film festival will be held at the Embassy of Japan on September 26, and the fourth part will be organized on October 3 at the Molavi Hall at the University of Tehran.

A manga exhibition is another part of the Japan Culture Month, the first part of which will be held at the Embassy of Japan on September 28 and 29.

Manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term manga is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside of Japan, the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in the country.

The Japan Culture festival will wrap up with a second part of the manga exhibition, which will be held on October 8 and 19 at Kashan University.

Courtesy of Tehran Times