The city is not the place to be on a sticky Japanese summer evening. The sun has set, but the heat lingers, intensified by concrete high-rises, which absorb it like a sponge. Commuters resort to fans and handkerchiefs as they head for the air-conditioned bliss of home. The moisture-laden air barely moves and, when it does, it feels like a blast from an oversized hairdryer.
But those air molecules also set into motion what is for most Japanese a metaphorical glacier: the Edo furin glass wind chime, whose crisp, clear tone rings like a note from a crystal xylophone.
Edo furin first took to the wind here around 300 years ago. Unlike air conditioners, they cool in a more subtle way – one described by Yutaka Shinohara, of Tokyo’s last remaining producer, Shinohara Furin Honpo, as “mental coolness”.
To make the chimes, Shinohara needs all the mental coolness he can muster. The workshop of the 97-year-old company in Edogawa Ward is a cramped little room, in the middle of which sits a kiln effusing an orange-white glow of molten glass heated to 1,200°C. After blowing, the chimes are decorated with summery designs: watermelons, fireworks and goldfish.
Shinohara produces around 100,000 chimes a year and many stores display them in time-honoured fashion – dangling from a bamboo pole. Literally and figuratively, Edo furin ring in Japan’s sultry summer months. And they’re very cool.