Course talk:ETEC540/2009WT1/Assignments/ResearchProject/JapaneseYatate

The yatate was very difficult to research. I had to depend on a series of e-mails and a translated interview with the curator of the Japan Stationary Museum (Mr. Tsuchida). I travelled to Tokyo and visited the museum, taking several photos that I plan to post on Fickr and my 540 writing technology community blog. I also shared e-mails with the curator of Japanese Arts from The Bristish Museum, Dr. Rosina Buckland. Dr. Buckland admitted The British Museum had very little information on yatate, despite having one in their collection. In addition, Japanese articles and scholarly texts often over looked the yatate. I would love to investigate if it was frowned on for being too "modern". I wonder if its invention by samurai made it a lower class item compared to the traditional boxed writing set. I have no documentation of this, but it may be one reason why literature and scholarly articles on the yatate are difficult to come by. Finally, I would like to note that the images I uploaded as my own can be freely copied or adapted. Erin Gillespie