For seven days each Golden Week, a quiet ceramic town in western Kyushu becomes one of the most visited places in Japan. More than 450 kilns, studios, and stalls line the four kilometers of road between Kamiharita and Arita stations. Around a million people make the trip. They come to buy, to compare, to negotiate, and to carry something home that was made by hand in this particular place. Arita has been producing porcelain since 1616, when a Korean potter named Yi Sam-pyeong — brought to Japan during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea — discovered a deposit of porcelain stone in the hills outside town. It was the first true porcelain made in Japan, and the town has been refining the craft ever since. The fair itself began in the Meiji era as a kurazarae — a clearance sale, when kilns opened their storerooms and sold at reduced prices. It is now in its 122nd year. The town is small. The fair is enormous. For one week, the ratio inverts, and the road between two small train stations holds more ceramic work than almost anywhere else on earth.