Beppu Bamboo

Hot-spring bamboo — madake woven by hand in Beppu, from bath-house baskets to a Living National Treasure of bamboo art; the only Traditional Craft in Ōita.

Beppu is the greatest hot-spring town in Japan, and it has woven bamboo for as long as anyone can remember. The bamboo is madake, and Ōita grows more of it than anywhere else in the country.

In the Edo period, people who came to soak in Beppu's baths used simple bamboo baskets while they stayed, and carried them home. A bath-house convenience became a souvenir, and then an industry.

The craft is henso — weaving, entirely by hand. Eight basic weaves combine into more than two hundred patterns. Some workshops still bend and finish their bamboo in the steam of the hot springs.

When cheap plastic arrived, the everyday baskets nearly died out. Instead the craft climbed: in 1967 a Beppu maker became the first Living National Treasure in bamboo, and in 1979 it became the only craft Ōita has formally protected. The single public bamboo-craft school in Japan is here, and still teaches.

See & touch
The Beppu City Traditional Bamboo Crafts Center shows everything from old kitchen baskets to a Living National Treasure's work; by reservation you can weave a small bamboo bell or a flower basket yourself, with a shop and café on site. The only public bamboo-craft training school in Japan is in the same city.

Where to buy
The Center's shop, a craft shop inside Beppu station, and specialist stores around town all sell the work, and the market now reaches well beyond Japan. (We sell nothing here; this is only where the bamboo lives.)