Schreiben über Juteseile

Ich bitte um Entschuldigung, dass das Folgende auf Englisch ist. Es ist für mich schwierig zu übersetzen. Sie möchten vielleicht https://www.deepl.com benutzen.

Descending Mount Stupid

At the end of the 1990s, two psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger published their findings on the objective evaluation of competence and incompetence, or cognitive bias of illusory superiority – the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability, and awarded a Nobel Prize for their work.

This gave us in graphical terms what is known as the Kruger-Dunning curve, where with very little knowledge and/or experience individuals will rush to a perceived peak of self-acknowledged ability, before better information faces them with a dilemma: attempt to bluster your way through your ignorance, ending up looking a complete fool, or admit your error, correct yourself, realize there’s far more to discover than you can possibly ever know, and reset your opinion of your abilities. In subsequent interpretations this peak has been referred to as Mount Stupid.

Most of us have scaled it. I’ve planted my flag at the summit. We take snippets of information and arrogantly roll them up into the findings we want them to be without them actually being factual. After crashing down my descent to the valley of despair, I hope I’m now tentatively hiking up the slope of enlightenment, aiming to reach the plateau of sustainability.

When I wrote Year of The Bakushi during 2014-5, I was armed with only so much information. It’s now accepted to be limited, and more knowledge is out there to be gleaned. But in making and owning up to mistakes, our objectivity begins to improve. Rather than get into endless observations on some of the more ridiculous assumptions we might view on an almost daily basis in the wider scene on what is or is not bondage in Japan and how they execute it, I wanted to restrict this writing to only jute rope.

Clearly, there are things that I do know. I have rock–solid evidence. But also, there are things where I only have limited information. To help me, I’ve courted the advice of an Indian university specializing in jute production, the National Jute Laboratory of Bangladesh, jute agents, yarn mills, jute rope manufacturers in Bangladesh, China, Germany, India and Japan, historical experts in The Netherlands and Japan, and the Meiji University Museum, Tokyo. This is what I have understood so far:

The conditions for growing jute are very particular. 98% of the world’s jute is grown in the Ganges delta in Bengal due to the temperature, oxygenation and irrigation into the soil. This ranges from clayish to sandy, affecting fiber quality. Small quantities of jute were historically cultivated in Kyushu, Japan for making hand-twisted cannon fuses. There is zero evidence of any rope production.

3.9 million tonnes of jute was cropped in 2019. 15,000 tonnes of yarn spun per day. An estimated 140 tonnes was made into rope, with the prime application due to excellent biodegradeability. The major jute markets are for sacking, carpet backing and Hessian cloth.

Jute was commercialized by the British East India Company from 1690. In 1833 Thomas Neigh patented whale oil batching and spinning and industrialization turned Dundee, Scotland into Juteopolis. By the 1890s so much spinning machinery had been exported to Bengal that Dundee manufacturing collapsed. Interacting with jute rope manufacturing in Germany or Japan today, you will hear English and Bengali terminology, and they’ll be using British Imperial measurements.

It is highly unlikely jute rope would have entered Japan during the 265–year Tokugawa jidai. It appears from research that during the Edo period, peasants would have been restrained with rough reed–grass Aranawa, and nobility with Tochigi Prefecture–grown nettle ramie (which the Japanese confusingly called ‘silk’). Ramie appears to have become obsolete since World War II because it is very labor intensive to process the fibers, so expected salaries cannot be maintained.

If one looks to the images of Ito Seiu, or submissions to Kitan Club (1946–75), we see everything used for restraint: metal chains, magnetic tape, Obi belts, curtain sashes, ribbon, Aranawa, and cotton, linen, Manila, polymers, ramie, sisal rope, etc. of ø4 to ø12mm in diameter, sometimes mixed, and of wildly varying lengths. On careful analysis, none are jute, or for that matter hemp, which I’ve personally never come across in all my visits to Japan.

As far as research shows, it was probably Suma (Minomura Kou) and Nureki who introduced jute as a bondage rope during the 1980s while investigating better materials. Before, it was common to find media by Kinbakushi commonly using cotton, which still purveys to a certain extent in the Japanese scene even today. Jute has become predominant. I believe because it is the nicest and most applicable to use for our purposes.

Written Japanese is logographical, and its meaning highly contextual. It is unlike our simple western alphabets. Often, our false translation is the tool that helps us scale Mount Stupid. Asa (麻) is a general term covering multiple bast fibers (hemp, linen/flax and/or jute), and/or the hemp plant, and/or cannabis (Cannabis sativa). Ergo, Asanawa can be rope made from either hemp, linen or jute – the olitorius Tossa, or the capsularis white corchorus variety.

A few years ago, I was under the impression at least two Japanese factories actually manufactured jute rope. I have subsequently discovered they sub–contract to cheaper sources abroad and add mark–up. All over Japan, high street general rope vendors sell jute rope. They are not the manufacturers.

Jute is a difficult material to twist into rope due to its delicacy. Very little traditional machinery escaped the scrap heap during the modernisation since the 1950s. Current manufacturing systems can be aggressive, leading to minor faults and flaws.

Fiber quality, batching oil content and twist dynamics are highly variable by batch and require stringent quality control. This is relatively unimportant in general industrial biodegradeable jute rope. If one purchases rope over many production batches from multiple manufacturers and/or retail outlets in Japan over several years, one will see these variations. This makes it impossible to match requirements unless one knows from which batch the comparison is being taken.

Finally, some concerning news. We’re hearing global reports to expect significant supply problems for the foreseeable future. We are informed this is due to the COVID-19 crisis arriving just before this season’s jute planting, growers, kutcha, mills and factories under lockdowns and more powerful sacking, carpet backing and Hessian procurers fighting for stock.

Best respects,
Sin