A Travel Bag: New Edition

Taro Maruyama was born in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture.
He resonated with the Mingei (folk craft) movement advocated by Soetsu Yanagi and became his disciple.
This later led to the founding of the Matsumoto Folk Craft Association and the opening of the Matsumoto Mingei kan (Matsumoto Folk Craft Museum).

In 1981, Taro Maruyama published “Tabi no Kaban” (A Travel Bag).
Tabi no Kaban is a travel diary chronicling Maruyama’s journeys throughout Japan and Taiwan during the years 1976 to 1981.

Whenever the impulse struck me, I would set out on my travels with ease—seeking out both old and new works of folk craft, conversing with the people I met along the way, and eating whatever foods happened to be available in each place. I imposed no particular aims upon my journeys, nor did I insist on what I should eat; instead, I simply let everything unfold as it came.(Excerpt from the afterword)

In 2023, we Shuosha published a new edition of this book.