On 7 August, which was a holiday for our restaurant, we went to the Gojo–zaka pottery festival for the first time in 14 years.

This pottery festival takes place every year in early August on Gojo Street, which stretches from Keihan Gojo Station to Kiyomizu-Temple, and is a major summer event in Kyoto.

However, the pottery festival we visited for the first time in many years was very different from the busy, lively festival we remember.

In the past, the sidewalks on both sides of the big Gojo Street were lined with tents of potteries from all over Japan, and in addition, there were many other items for sale, such as trays and lacquerware, but this time there were only about 60 potteries on one sidewalk.

After returning home, we checked the information again and found out that the pottery market, which had been cancelled by Corona for several years, had been re-started last year as a new organization called Gojo Wakamiya Pottery Festival, mainly by young potters, and that last year a small pottery festival was held on the grounds of Wakamiya Hachimangu, which is also a pottery shrine. This year, the festival was reverted to its previous form, with tents lined up along the sidewalk, but a potter told us that due to various circumstances related to the Kyoto Prefecture’s subsidy, there was almost no participation from outside the prefecture.

What was even more surprising was that the ceramic shops that used to be there had been replaced by hotels and condominiums. A traffic policeman told us: ‘In these days, it is very difficult to sell pottery, and many of them have closed their businesses.

Ceramic ware is an essential part of Japanese cuisine. The sizes, shapes and designs are different from those used at home. We used to think we could always find such things in the same city of Kyoto. The days of Gojo–zaka for good pottery are long gone, we wonder. It is a sad state of affairs.

In October, there will be a Kiyomizu–yaki Festival at the Kiyomizu–yaki ware complex in Yamashina Ward, which is said to be one of the largest in Kyoto. We intend to visit this festival as well.