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A shrub in Nepal supplies the raw material for the bank notes used in Japan
- ho243i2434324 3y agoDoes anyone know how mitsumata got to Japan in the first place. "Traditional paper" I imagine is something they've had since before the age of European colonization which brought all sorts of trade/exchange. Eg. The national-dish of 'curry' in Japan is a British twist on Indian one, and so you almost inevitably find Beef in it.
- kragen 3y agoit grows wild in china, which is where paper was invented, and which is separated from japan by the east china sea; shanghai is only about 1000km from kyushu. korea, which borders china, is even closer, about 200km: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7650836,121.5784141,6z?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7650836,121.5784141,6z?entry... if you count the ryukyu islands as 'japan', ishigaki is only about 100 km from taiwan european colonization is totally irrelevant here
- kragen 3y agospecifically argeli, a term which has no wikipedia article; mitsumata (which the article says is the name of the paper) is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_chrysantha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_chrysantha. the wikipedia article says the papers are washi and, in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tissue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tissue, kitakata. the econometrics from the article > This year, Mr. Sherpa has hired 60 local Nepalis to help him process his harvest and expects to earn eight million Nepali rupees, or $60,000, in profit. (The average annual income in Nepal is about $1,340, according to the World Bank.) Mr. Sherpa hopes to produce 20 of the 140 tons that Nepal will be shipping to Japan. ¶ That’s a majority of the mitsumata needed to print yen ... suggests that the total available profit is 420 thousand dollars, enough to support 313 nepalis (though perhaps the workers' wages are more than the landowner's profit, i suspect that they are, instead, smaller). the population of nepal is 30.7 million people, so this probably will not be a major new nepali export if it's just for the japanese mint. hopefully the article will make it fashionable among hipsters seeking better materials for their moleskines? unfortunately the reporter did not think it was important to include the scientific name of the plant, so i guess we're out of luck edit: as twic points out, it's almost certainly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_gardneri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_gardneri, so i've updated wikipedia
- twic 3y ago> Edgeworthia gardneri (common names: Indian papertree,[2] Nepalese paperbush;[2] Nepali: अर्गेली (Argelee))[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_gardneri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_gardneri
- kragen 3y agohey, this is great! thanks!
- pvaldes 3y agoHum. If is E. gardneri then is not culture, is dismantlement of the nepali forests to make money (literally). That would be very sad.
- kragen 3y agoit says they're planting it and harvesting the plants after no more than three years so the bark doesn't redden, but looking at the photos in the article, it looks like the hill districts in question aren't very forested? google maps makes it look like there are in fact many forests there: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.9,88.5101152,20665m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en&entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@26.9,88.5101152,20665m/data=!3m...
- pvaldes 3y agoThis mean (probably) harvesting the young branches of less than 3 years, but this shrubs should be much older. (Maybe in their native climate they grow faster?).
- returningfory2 3y ago> hopefully the article will make it fashionable among hipsters seeking better materials for their moleskines? If that happens we’ll be reading articles about how unfair it is that western consumers are pricing the Nepalese people out of their local products (a la quinoa).
- dudeinjapan 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPlease don't do this here.
- skilled 3y agohttps://archive.is/2PyPF https://archive.is/2PyPF
- florid 3y ago[dead]
- wenyuanyu 3y agoSourcing the raw material of bank notes from Nepal? Seems a bit off from an environmental standpoint by hauling materials halfway across the globe from Himalaya. How about plastic notes? They are durable, recyclable, and because they are money, not likely to end up in our oceans as wastes.
- MildlySerious 3y agoPlastic doesn't seem like a good solution, considering that notes are moved, stretched, flexed a lot and endure a lot of friction. Seems like a needless source for more plastic particles shedding into the environment.
- a5withtrrs 3y agoYou might be surprised to learn that a lot of the world uses polymer banknotes which are siignificantly more durable and last a lot longer than traditional 'paper' based currencies. The are incredibly hard to tear/break and they do not wear out or stretch. We've been using these in Australia since 1996. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote Having handled a fair amount of US currency I can say it _feels_ disgusting to handle after a certain amount of wear and often reminds me of a moist tissue. It also doesn't help that visually the notes all look very similar (as opposed to on polymer notes which have significantly different appearances and colours)
- codersfocus 3y agoThe national institution that made them (CSIRO) also held the patent on WiFi. Among many other inventions. Very interesting organization of Australias, and wish we had something like it in the US.
- MildlySerious 3y agoI'm aware it's being done already. But I'm not sure it would be a good starting point when designing a new set of notes. Euro banknotes are mostly made from cotton, and a lot of thought and effort is going into reducing the environmental footprint. The most circulated denominations last on average four years, the rest significantly longer I presume. How does that compare to polymer based banknotes?
- cyclecount 3y agoAnd the people of Nepal supply the raw labor used by many of the Gulf states
- zeristor 3y agoGhurkas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha I didn’t realise there were Ghurkas in the Indian army.
- shivz45 3y agoAlso in British army
- zeristor 3y agoApologies I took that as well known.
- hoseja 3y agoAlso increasingly recruited into the russian army for use as cannon fodder, you don't hear much fierce invincible Ghurka news about those for some reason.
- creaturemachine 3y agoThose are not soldiers, rather labourers looking for work who end up with a gun thrust in their arms as they're sent to the front lines.
- hacker_88 3y agoJapan's Currency is around Similar to Nepalese rupees in exchange rates.
- Iambecomedeath 3y agoWe (Nepali) have been using this material to make lokta paper for a long time now. These papers (Nepali Kaagaz) are used mainly today for official documents.
- kragen 3y agoapparently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_bholua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_bholua and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_papyracea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_papyracea, the usual species for lokta paper, are in a different genus in the same family as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_chrysantha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgeworthia_chrysantha; is it possible the argeli mentioned is an edgeworthia species rather than a daphne species? edit: twic found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40039860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40039860 that it's edgeworthia gardneri, which was originally classified as daphne gardneri by the gardner who originally named it
- dartos 3y agoEdgeworthia? Anyone else reminded of the Phoenix Wright games?
- pvaldes 3y agoDaphne is a complicated material to manipulate. All its parts are very poisonous. Edgeworthia is a little safer, it seems.
- kragen 3y agoyou're probably confusing it with the similar-looking oleander, i put daphne (laurel or bay leaves) in my soup. all parts of daphne are supposed to be poisonous but it's not in the same league as oleander oleander is an unrelated plant, being a rosid rather than an asterid, but in some languages people use the same word for both because they both have thick and leathery dark green glossy lanceolate leaves, usually glabrous, with minute reticulate venation edit: no, laurel or bay leaves are not daphne, they're laurus or one of several other genera. laurus is also unrelated to daphne, being a magnoliid. i don't know anything about how toxic daphne is. i regret the error, which was due to Δάφνη being the greek word for laurus nobilis, the laurel from which we get bay leaves for seasoning food
- roydivision 3y agoClarification - not one single shrub
- zeristor 3y agoA veritable shrubbery, Ni!
- pvaldes 3y agoLet me guess... Edgeworthia crysantha? EDIT. Yup. I can see the article now. That photo is unmistakable. Is a famous Japanese shrub used since a lot of time. The only difference is the new area of culture it seems. Formerly known as E. papyrifera. Can be cultured in gardens, reduced size, and very nice fragrant blossoms in early spring. Fluffy flowers with the feel of a teddy bear. Needs acid soil.
- kragen 3y agothe article maybe claims it's a different species? the reporter doesn't seem to know much about botany, so they're a little vague
- pvaldes 3y agoThe photos depict this species[1]. This is the traditional one on Japanese bureaucracy for very important documents so is basically irreplaceable, because historical reasons. Edgeworthia is a relatively small, relatively slow grower so there are also two species more that provide good quality fibers and could be mixed with that. One is a relative of the mulberry tree and the other a member of the same family that includes Edgeworthia. [1] EDIT. Selfcorrection. The photos depict an Egdeworthia, but could be other species in the same genus as other have pointed, yep.
- kragen 3y agothank you, i didn't know that!
- vinni2 3y agoMoney doesn’t grow on trees but grows as shrubs
- PetitPrince 3y agoReading this article, I was I itially surprised to read to Japan had to import raw material given their strong paper tradition (shoji , washi, origami, etc.). But then the article states that > Shrinking rural populations and climate change were driving Japan’s farmers to abandon their labor-intensive plots. Makes sense to try to conserve this resource somehow.
- tim333 3y agoProbably a lot cheaper to get it from Nepal.