Minimal Bonsai

LivingArt

i know you do not do it for the money walter but if you wanted to trade a tree with someone in japan or sell one to someone in japan could you via mail?

i was thinking logically why trees in japan would cost more.
1. Because there is more demand and respect for the art
2. Collecting old trees in the wild has been outlawed, so, therefor good material is limited to old bonsai and what people can do in their life time with raw materials or mass grown stocks.

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Walter_Pall

livingart,

very good trees cost more in Japan because there is a well established body of knowledge to appreciate the substantial difference in quality. This quality is very rare and there is a demand against it which is backed by money, big money. The top Japense masters are rich people while the ones in the West are beggars usually. Even at a comparable state of quality.

It is impossible to import any living plant into Japan. Therefore they have to rely on what they have got. On very rare instances trees are smuggled into Japan, but then it is a non-Japanese species and it wil never be possible to exhibit such a tree.

In the West there are only a few people who really know the difference. They DO NOT usually have big money, they are a poor and starving lot. There are more really good trees (as material) than good people to work on them. Altogether there are probably about ten to one hundred times more trees with outstanding potential in the West than in Japan.

Visiting Japanese say that in my garden there is almost as much of quality material than is left for still to be styled in the whole of Japan. I don't know what exactly this means, but it must mean that they have a scarcity and we an overabundance.

This is why real quality material is a bargain in the West.

On the other hand there are much more serious bonsai enthusiasts outside of Japan than in all of Japan together. This is most interesting, because one would not have guessed this. It only recently has become a hobby for Japanese to do what we have always done: make bonsai from shrubs. Japanese people would buy a finished tree and try to further refine it or pay someone for this traditionally or live with the fact that it deteriorates and dies eventually and then buy a new one.

So this explains why there is a strong demand for low to medium priced decent material in the West where 99% of bonsai enthusaistss want to do their own. This costs about 3 to 10 times as much in the West as in Japan.

best regards
Walter Pall

Emperor Fish

Walter, now I'm feeling sorry for you. However, if you are seriously suggesting that your collected trees only fetch 1,000 (£? $? €?), then I'm hopping on a plane to come and help you and your family buy tomorrow's dinner!

Regards,

Fish.

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LivingArt

Very interesting. I completely understand the situation now. Visiting japanese men must be very envious of you walter.
Thanks again for that information
Jonathan

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Emperor Fish

LA,

Visiting Japanese men are ALWAYS envious of us Westerners!

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Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.

HEALTH WARNING: Engage brain fully, before typing into keyboard.


"We are the average gamers and we'll kill you badly. There'll be no finesse. no fancy tricks, no inventive attacks, just 2 whole smg clips and a rain of 'nades."

Walter_Pall

Pomacanthus imperialis (for those who do not know, this is the Latin name of the most beatiful emperor fish),

There are always exceptions. I am not exacly starving. Life was good to me and I can afford to do what is fun, like bonsai. If I tried to make money with bonsai I would ba a poor sucker like the others.
You can still buy me a nice dinner, you can also get some of my collected trees for a bargain.

best regards
Walter Pall

LivingArt

Count me out to be envied as i have no evergreens.

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TreeBay

The rules concerning import may be different for a Japanese, and particularly for one of influence. I was told by one of the Japanese Masters that frequents California, that he returned with a dozen California and Sierra junipers, but they did not adapt well to the climate.

Regards,

Matt

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FredL

Ron, your Math is making me crazy!

Let's see now, if we have 200 trees with 100 Bonsai Experts choosing the best 10, and they choose 30 different trees means they disagree 70% of the time, does that mean that if they all choose 1 tree, they are disagreeing 99% of the time?

This is the typical sort of thing that I will obsess over for days before finally getting it straight in my mind.

Ron, how could you do such a thing to me!!!

Fred