....I just wrote up documentation for something that's not terribly documentable. Does it help if one throws the word "plausible" around? A lot?
Excerpt:
"Kanebako Masami, a director of the Nihon no Akari (History of Japanese Lighting) Museum, writes:
“Chochin lanterns were made of rolled takehigo (thin strips of bamboo) in a spiral, with Japanese paper pasted on them and a lit candle inside. Originally people covered bamboo baskets with paper and called them chochin.”
Masami goes on to describe the development in the late 16th century of a chochin design peculiar to Japan in which the lantern could be collapsed and folded away when not in use. While this does not provide a precise date for the kaga or basket chochin, it would evidently pre-date 16th century paper-and-bamboo chochin." That's it, people. I've got the word of Kanebako Masami and a photo of an undescribed, undated
kaga chochin from an idiosyncratically translated article on a moribund pop-culture-and-design site called PingMag. I've got fiberglass "paper" on the thing!
Then again, I suppose it beats burning down the Imperial Palace with one of these things:
