
Japanese firemen’s coats from the 19th century - oska
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/japanese-firemans-coats-19th-century
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tasogare
> they would destroy the buildings surrounding the fire in an effort to
> contain it

Anecdota told by a Japanese friend: father used to be a volunteer fireman in
his town. He really liked it, but not from the reasons you might expect.
First, it was because there were frequent drinking gatherings. But also,
during a fire in a house, the firemen would go inside and throw everything out
(often destroying them in the process) to avoid the fire being fed. This
includes the family ancestors shrine, which the father took a great pleasure
to destroy (I think because of how sacred it is). He enjoyed that for years
before his wife made him stop because she was fed up of him going home drunk.

Also, a some point in the year in Winter, volunteers firemen go in the street
and shot aloud things I didn’t understand for as a tradition to warn the
neighbors.

~~~
bingerman
I don't get it. Why did he enjoy destroying those family ancestors shrines?
And surely that kind of behavior would be noticed by others and result in
serious social damage, no?

~~~
buckminster
It's like a carnival, an opportunity to do something taboo without the social
blowback. Many, maybe most, enjoy this.

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jolmg
From my non-Japanese background, it sounds equivalent to destroying cremation
urns. I would expect outrage.

~~~
dmix
I'm assuming the owner of the units wasn't around for it at the time so there
wasn't the backlash while saving the whole rest of a community from the fire
spreading.

Don't ever discredit a certain percentage of humans urge to destroy and break
things, especially in a drunken rage. We spend a great deal of effort keeping
people well socialized, despite plenty of pent up anger.

That's why we have professionally trained police and firemen now. Things are
always improving for the better.

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njudah
The Edo Tokyo museum has an exhibit on these coats, and the influence of
firefighting in Japanese culture in general - definitely worth a visit.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo-
Tokyo_Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo-Tokyo_Museum)

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ryanmercer
>The scene is from the story of the warrior-hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu
(948–1021) who, once when sick, was visited by an evil priest in the guise of
a giant spider. Yorimitsu saw through the disguise and attacked the spider
priest, and his four attendants (who were playing a game of Go while guarding
him) leapt up to track the intruder back to his den

That's... an interesting thing to put on your fire coat. I bet a lot of modern
departments would love these. They are all about identifying as their
individual groups and taking pride in being a team. Aramid is naturally the
yellowish color that bunker gear already is but can be dyed, although you
might have issues with fumes from the dye being heated in fires.

You could skip bunker gear entirely though and just do a startup making custom
jackets like this. The aramaid used for bunker gear is woven so just develop a
machine to weave using x number of colored threads and do fairly simple
patterns like this. This would beat the heck out of embroidered jackets for
teams/agencies/social clubs too and you could even resurrect some historical
art like this spider. There's already computerized embroidery, computerized
custom woven jackets would be awesome. Forget "ugly Christmas sweaters".

In the past beautiful patterns and designs in textiles showed pride and
wealth, now a name sewn on the label does. Resurrecting stuff like this with
tech, so that it is affordable to the masses, would be an awesome thing.

~~~
huebomont
not everything is a startup

~~~
ryanmercer
People always need textiles. People will always like textiles that are flashy
and look cool. What's so wrong about making cool woven textiles with modern
practices given they mostly don't exist anymore via traditional methods
outside of living history pursuits like the SCA and living history museums?

I for one would love to have something akin to my winter Carhartt gear with
some cool woven scene on them instead of plain, boring, without-imagination
black. I'd even be willing to pay a 10-20% premium for it and order it months
before the seasons I'd be wearing it in.

The only real place you have cool customization like this still going on with
any regularity is sneakers.

~~~
hfdh434535
There's nothing wrong with making cool woven textiles. I suspect if someone
had a problem with your comment, it's because it sounds like you're
workshopping a startup idea. I get that this is a very startuppy place, but
even other startup founders probably get exhausted by all the business ideas
shared on this website. (As the saying goes, ideas are cheap and execution is
what matters)

I'm not saying you did anything wrong. Just sharing why I think your comment
was downvoted.

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cool-RR
Damn, I'd wear a replica of this. Just make it machine-washable.

~~~
Shank
While not the same, a company called Hikeshi Spirit actually sells products
with similar designs:
[https://hikeshispirit.com/en](https://hikeshispirit.com/en)

~~~
cool-RR
These are nice, thank you!

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Ididntdothis
If you are into tattoos this looks like it has some great ideas.

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elhudy
>Made of several layers of quilted cotton fabric, using a process called the
sashiko technique, and resist-dyed using the tsutsugaki method, these coats
would be worn plain-side out and thoroughly soaked in water before the
firefighters entered the scene of the blaze.

Very surprised that wool was not used (it is fire-resistant and wicks sweat).
Was wool not available to Japan during this era?

~~~
nabla9
It seems that Japanese did not have much experience with wool and sheep. Wool
would be imported product.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep#Japan)

~~~
elhudy
That's fascinating - you would think they would have some sort of access to
sheep, alpaca, goats, or _something_ that could provide wool. I went down a
bit of a rabbit hole and found Japan was still one of the largest importers of
wool if not the largest) in the world until this paper was written in the late
1970's. Their wool has historically come from Australia.

[http://press-
files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2207/pdf/ch12...](http://press-
files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2207/pdf/ch12.pdf)

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
They never practiced any form of mass animal husbandry. Arable land for fodder
would be at a premium for human consumption. Stripping the mountainsides are a
danger in earthquake country.

~~~
elhudy
Found another really interesting paper on this idea that animal husbandry was
never really practiced in Japan.

". 'As animals are not used for milk, draught, or food, and there are no
pasture lands, both the country and the farm-yards have a singular silence and
an inanimate look.'1 She missed the sounds: '...a mean looking dog and a few
fowls being the only representatives of domestic animal life. I long for the
lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep.'2 There were also very few horses:
'there is little traffic, and very few horses are kept, one, two, or three
constituting the live stock of a large village.'3 Horses were not used for
ploughing, nor, even, were they used for carrying. 'Very few horses are kept
here. Cows and coolies carry much of the merchandise, and women as well as men
carry heavy loads.'4 So rare were domestic animals even in the later
nineteenth century, that they were exhibited like exotic species: '...monkey
theatres and dog theatres, two mangy sheep and a lean pig attracting wondering
crowds, for neither of these animals is known in this region of Japan."

[http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ANIMAL.PDF](http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ANIMAL.PDF)

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yeahdef
I'd love to wear that spider + go board coat.

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WalterBright
These are beauties. Heck, I'd likely buy a nice jacket like that!

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slynn12
I'd prefer to look at it on the _web_ :)

