Round the strip, then fit it. Suruga bamboo work begins by splitting bamboo and then shaving each strip until its cross-section is circular, producing a rod rather than a flat splint, which is afterwards fitted into drilled holes and assembled into a form. Because the elements are round and inserted rather than woven together, the sides of a basket or an insect cage show a rank of fine parallel lines standing evenly apart, which is not an effect any weaving can produce. At the Takumi-shuku workshops the process can be watched and then attempted with predictable results. Nothing is glued at any point; the pieces are held by fit and by tension alone, so squeezing a finished piece makes the whole structure give slightly and then return the moment you let go of it. That return is probably the single best thing about the craft and the hardest to convey secondhand.

The holes are drilled by eye at spacings that have to be right the first time. Central Shizuoka is twenty minutes by car, with Shinkansen access to both Tokyo and Nagoya, and Mariko itself is a quiet district where a car makes life a good deal easier.

The thinner the line, the weaker the object ought to be, according to every intuition you have. The technique was developed for insect cages, which were carried and looked at closely and therefore had to be fine as well as strong. Modern pieces are mostly lampshades and containers, and the constraints have not changed. A single cage may use several hundred separate rods, each one shaved by hand to the same diameter. It is not weaker, and the reason for that is available to your hands rather than to your eyes.