Dangly bits

The dangly is a hallowed Japanese art form. It encapsulates one`s personality and flaunts one`s sense of style to the world. Everyone has a dangly, from the tiny tot, the schoolgirl and schoolboy, the company employee to the elderly. They range from the kawaii-kitsch of plastic figurines or soft toys - Kitty-chan, Snoopy, Elmo, Pokemon - to simple wooden carvings or traditional-style ornaments depicting the seasonal motif - the cherryblossom, the summer dragonfly, the branch of maples or Mount Fuji in snow. There are also the upmarket danglies - made of silver and gold and set with precious stones; plus the bling-bling danglies: big gold crosses and playboy bunnies and tiny stiletto-shoe danglies.

My danglies are pictured, and include my handbag dangly - a wooden fox with bell, purchased at Fushimi Inari near Kyoto (where all the local shoppes sell foxy trinkets); and my cellphone dangly - a leaping rabbit against a full moon (white from the back) or a rising sun (red from the front).

Sir S and I have debated long on the history of the dangly. At the Peace Memorial Museum, where the tragic debris of the atomic blast is displayed, including scraps of clothes, lunchboxes and crumpled bikes - there is a purse which has still attached to it a painted, colourful wooden dangly. During my wander through Kyoto earlier this month, I visited an artwork museum that featured cloisonne and ceramic work, and in a glass cabinet there were detailed keepsake-boxes that used to be tied around one`s neck, and on the lid of such boxes was strung a dangly. The dangly was an extension of the artwork on the main object, so a box decorated with the sea and a raging koi carp would feature a wooden dangly carved with fishing baskets and nets, or in the shapes of fishermen. These dated from the early 1800s. I wonder if the dangly existed centuries before then? Most curious ...