Was I a Model in Japan?

During my time in Nagoya I worked and lived at the strangely famous hostel and café Nagonoya. With its chequered floors and florescent lighting it felt quite dated, but I think that was supposed to be part of the charm. The dorms were always fully booked on weekends with domestic tourists and there was always a buzz in the downstairs café. Camera crews were constantly in and out of the place interviewing the Japanese staff members who worked the café. I think it had something to do with the egg sandwiches. At least that was what was on most of the merchandise, except for that one dishcloth with the owner’s face on it. Was I being employed by a local celebrity?

I never quite figured out what was going on in that regard.

I’d booked this job via the backpacker beloved workaway.com and I was given room and board in exchange for cleaning five days a week.

Just as one of my shifts had ended, myself and another volunteer went to the kitchen to pick up our lunch and the owner approached us with fliers for a tour in hand. It turned out he is also a tour guide and needed help on a lantern making experience he was running in a few days and asked if either of us would like to join and participate in the tour for free. Let it be known here and now that this was the extent of information given to me.

The day of the tour came around. I had never confirmed with my boss that I would join so I hoped I could slip away easily. After all the tour started the exact same moment my shift ended so I figured it was an unrealistic proposition anyway. As I did every day after my shift ended, I went to the kitchen to pick up my lunch (which happened to be one of the infamous egg sandwiches this day). The boss was there waiting for me.

“You’re joining the tour, right?” He said.

“Yes,” I said when I wanted to say no. “Can I just have five minutes to eat this?”

He allowed it and told me to meet him outside.

Here’s some key information. Japan has very hot summers and I was “lucky” enough to be in one of the hottest cities in August. We were hovering in the late 30 degrees Celsius (sometimes dipping into 40s) with 80-90% humidity. I could be clean and fresh but within 30 seconds of going outside and standing – not even walking, just standing – I could be dripping sweat feeling like I was walking through a sauna. This kind of humidity cannot be described, only experienced. Even locals struggle.

Now imagine finishing a four hour cleaning shift in that kind of weather and you can imagine how I may have felt and looked this day.

So, with my hair all frizzed and falling out of its bun and in my dirty and overly casual t-shirt and shorts, I met my boss out in the arcade where the hostel is nestled in and he lead me to the lantern shop… Where a whole set of big lights and a camera crew were waiting for me. What?!

I was quickly introduced to the translator, who beckoned forth a Western woman and introduced her as my CO-STAR(?!). My co-star looked perfectly clean and fresh with her hair nicely done and wearing a put together outfit. In short terms, she did not look like she had been cleaning for four hours.

They sent us outside to act out walking into the shop. Alone with my co-star on the street I asked her what was going on and what we were supposed to be doing. She was confused by my question. Clearly she had been given more information going into this than me. I slowly pieced together that we would be filmed and photographed for advertisements and the tour company website.

I didn’t agree to this! I wanted to scream, but I was already in the deep end.

After we had gone through a couple rounds of establishing shots, we were introduced to the lantern craftsman himself who spoke just enough English to introduce himself to us as Ken-san. Now this was the summer of the Barbie movie so I would be lying if I didn’t say that I had the chorus of I’m Just Ken playing in my head for the rest of this experience. If Ryan Gosling is Beach Ken, this is Lantern Ken.

They took us up a narrow and steep set of stairs at the back of the shop that lead to the craftsman’s studio where even more lights were set up and pointed at two chairs in the middle of the room. My co-star and I were guided to sit in them. Before us were all of Ken-san’s tools laid out neatly.

The camera crew got into place behind us and we were told they would now be filming everything and all we had to do was relax and pretend like they weren’t there. Easier said than done if you ask me.

Ken-san (via the translator) started talking us through all his tools and the history of lantern making. He went very in depth about the quality and the aging of the wood. It was all incredibly interesting, but it was equally distracting to be in a room full of people watching you (especially when a photographer came right up into my face with his giant lens and started snapping away) and I found myself focusing more on how I would appear on camera and was overly conscious about the faces I was pulling. Was my smile too forced? Was I not smiling enough? Too much?

While all this was going on in my head I still found it exciting to watch a lantern be made from scratch and I will admit that this demonstration has changed my perspective beyond the experience. After this whenever I went to a temple and watched white lanterns drifting in a gentle woodland breeze, or walked through narrow izakayas riddled streets at night with their iconic red lanterns I always thought about Ken-san and all the work that went into making each lantern.

Having built the inner body of the lantern, Ken-san started twining string along the outside.

Paper would be laid over this later. With one hand he turned the wooden body on its axis rhythmically, while using the other to guide the string into its place. If the string was not placed exactly, the paper could not be placed properly and the lantern would be destroyed. This was serious work.

So you can imagine how delighted I was when he told us we would get a turn too.

I was quaking in my sandals when they asked us who would like to go first. If I went first, I didn’t get the chance to monitor my co-star’s efforts and learn from her. If I went second, I may have a tough act to follow.

My co-star on the other hand did not appear to have these anxieties as before I had made up my mind she had stood up and was swapping places with Ken-san. I watched with bated breath as she started her work. She was annoyingly very good at it.

With her red hair cascading down as she worked she might as well have been a Renaissance painting. She was the Holy Mary rocking baby Jesus in a crib. She was doing such a good job that Ken-san decided she could finish the stringing by herself. I heaved a sigh of relief.

“But don’t worry,” The translator said to me, “You can get a turn placing the paper!”

Damn.

With the string all firmly in place and the talents of my co-star heralded, Ken-san returned to his seat next to the lantern and started lathering glue onto the string. With gentle hands he lifted the almost translucent white paper and carefully, ever so carefully, placed it atop the string. He told us this was the most important part of the process. Because of the time sensitive nature of the glue, if there was an issue with the paper they would have to unwind the string and start afresh.

Knowing I would be in some way responsible for the paper portion of the lantern making I was in no way comforted or reassured.

Once the paper was loosely in position, Ken-san picked up a brush and used it to lay the paper down. He used short and sharp strokes and told us to pay attention to the sound the brush made as it beat the paper.

It was officially my turn and I was grateful that he at least placed the paper for me because there was no way I would have gotten that right. With the bristles in my hand, the watchful eye of Ken-san, and four cameras pointed at me, I started to brush the lantern.

There is an art to this. You need to brush hard enough to beat the paper down onto the string and remove any bubbles, but you also need to be gentle enough that you don’t shred through the paper. Once I got the hang of it I must admit that it is quite satisfying. The sound of the bristles against the paper is rhythmic and satisfying. I actually did an ok job.

Fortunately, Ken-san did not have me finish the lantern by myself. I was certain the longer I was brushing the more likely catastrophe would be. Ken-san adeptly finished off the lantern and we all clapped and cheered when he lifted it up to show us the finished work and told us it would be sent to a temple soon. I wondered if that was the truth or something they said to make us feel like we did something important. Does it just get added to the display for the next set of guests to see as a finished example?

For people who actually pay go on the tour they get the chance to design their own lantern that Ken-san will build for them and send to their home country. We got a chance to play at this for the camera; selecting lantern shapes and going through sheets upon sheets of vibrantly coloured washi paper.

Our time in the studio was over so they took us back down the narrow steps into the main shop. They let us take a break while they re-set up the cameras. A member of the camera crew set up chairs for us and brought us bottles of water. I soaked this moment in because I knew it would be the closest I’d ever get to being a Hollywood starlet.

We took a few shots of us walking around the shop reacting (on my part awkwardly) to the lanterns hanging around saying banal comments about how pretty they are and how they would look good hanging in a living room or kitchen.

And just like that it was over. We thanked the incredibly approachable Ken-san profusely (as is the Japanese way) and were let go. I walked past the hostel and saw that my boss was being interviewed by yet another camera crew on the café floor. I decided to go to the local Starbucks to treat myself to the chocolate chip scone that they criminally don’t have in the UK branches.

I had a laugh about this experience with my Nagoya friends, but I quickly forgot about the whole thing. It was six months later when I was back living in the UK on a cold winters evening that I suddenly remembered that I never knew what happened to the photos, so I looked up the tour company and found I was the face of the face of the entire lantern tour and while I still didn’t look my best, the photos came out far better than how I was feeling.

My inbox is open for tourism modelling requests.

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Authors Note

Thank you for reading this travel memory! This was cross posted from my Substack Fragments of the World. The Substack version of this post includes images and videos of the lantern making experience (including the photo of myself in question). If you would like to see them you can find the post here. Feel free to subscribe. My Substack will be the home of my travel stories while my Vocal will be short fiction focused. Go on. It's free.