Twice a year, a small pottery town in the Kanto hills receives more visitors than it can comfortably hold — and the visitors keep coming anyway. Six hundred stalls and tents line the sloping streets around Jonaizaka, the main ceramic district. Established kilns sell their standard lines at reduced prices. Young ceramicists show work they haven't exhibited anywhere else. Makers from across Japan set up beside local potters who have been working the same clay for generations. A day is not enough to see everything. Mashiko's pottery tradition dates to 1853, when a craftsman trained in nearby Kasama opened the first kiln here. For decades it was a working production town, making the utilitarian vessels — crocks, jars, water pots — that rural households needed. Then in 1930, the mingei movement ceramicist Hamada Shoji moved to Mashiko, and the town's relationship with its craft changed entirely. Yo no bi — the beauty of the everyday object — became the animating idea, and it has shaped what Mashiko makes ever since. The fair has been held since 1966. Spring and autumn combined, around 600,000 people visit each year.