Junpei Kawaguchi is a bag maker based in Yonago, Tottori Prefecture. He works with leather, canvas, rattan, and other materials at his studio, Mint Chuchu Leather. Beyond his own craft, he has become the 8th-generation successor of an Edo-period rattan weaving tradition — the hanamusubiami (flower knot weave) technique of the Nagasaki family of Matsue, Shimane.

In 2006, while researching weaving materials, Kawaguchi met Makoto Nagasaki in Matsue. Nagasaki was part of a long line of rattan weaving artisans stretching back to the Edo period, and his family had guarded the secrets of the hanamusubiami technique for hundreds of years. The tradition is passed down through isshisoden — techniques kept secret and transmitted to only one child per generation. Kawaguchi originally asked Nagasaki to make the rattan body of a bag for him, but Nagasaki had by then stopped crafting with rattan. The carefully guarded technique could only be shared under one condition: Kawaguchi would need to inherit the craft as his lifework and become Nagasaki's sole apprentice. He accepted.

The Nagasaki weaving tradition uses unpeeled rattan, which is easier to process and has its own quiet aesthetic. Rattan is light and strong, becomes flexible when soaked in water, and unlike bamboo does not split however much it is bent. The hanamusubiami technique forms a pattern of six-petalled flowers that holds together very strongly. Baskets and bags made with this technique can be used for more than 100 years. After about a quarter of that time, the rattan color becomes tinted — a change long anticipated and welcomed in Japan.