AS TIME GOES BY

Illustrated is a vivid gosu tabi-chawan with a classic floral motif decorated on the front and back of the bowl by Kawai Takeichi. Besides being a rather nice piece and certainly a quintessential Takeichi pot, this particular piece has an interesting, at least to my wife and I, back story. This piece is the first Japanese pot we bought off the internet in 1998, a piece we spotted on a Japanese website and decided to try emailing the dealer with what seemed like no success at the time. The email I sent to this dealer was in English with a few cobbled together Japanese written phrases but hours turned to days which in turn grew into months. Then one day, out of the blue and almost three months after our email inquiry we received an invoice email from the dealer for under $90 shipped at the time we were instructed to pay using an International Postal Money Order (IPMO) which we had to track down and order at our local Post Office.

After a week we received the IPMO, mailed it off to the dealer in Japan and about six days later we received an email from the dealer letting us know the pot was shipped by EMS and here was the tracking info. It was obvious that the dealer had used some sort of translation program as the English was not great though far better than my Japanese and here is what really stuck out from the email, it ended with this cryptic phrase and I quote; "never push an alligator" as did nearly all of his emails for the next several years. You always tend to remember those firsts but I will admit, I doubt I will ever forget that phrase and will forever wonder, what exactly does it mean, I am hoping it was intended as some sage advice or practical wisdom as I can image the outcome involving said alligator being somewhat less than positive.