Seto City Aichi

Although Japan has one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world, with earthenwares being created as early as the Jōmon period (10,000–300 BCE), as a heavily wooded country most domestic utensils in Japan were usually made of either natural or lacquered wood. This all changed when Katō Shirōzaemon, the father of Japanese ceramics, began his search for clay that could equal the famed pottery of China. According to legend, Katō was visited in his dreams by a dog that pointed out a spot in the southeast of Seto City in which to dig. Upon waking he sought out the area of his nighttime apparition and found clay of the highest quality. Since then, the town of Seto in Aichi Prefecture has become the watchword for Japanese ceramics, so much so that the generic word for pottery is ‘Setomono’, or ‘product of Seto’. It is for this that the town holds the annual Setomono Festival, bringing lovers of Japanese pottery from far and wide each year. About the Setomono Matsuri Held on the second Saturday and Sunday of September, the Setomono Matsuri sees the town’s famous purveyors of ceramics line the banks of the Seto river with their stalls. Over the…