Elizabeth Uhlig and others who might go to Japan:
 
The Nishijin Textile Center in Kyoto has working tsuzure-ka (fin-
gernail weavers) who make the layered fabric used for obi, and
small exhibits of traditional fabrics.  Most of the two floors
are taken up by retail.  Some bargains available.
 
While in Kyoto you should try to get a tour of Kawashima Orimono,
a short train ride outside the city.  It's a large textile factory
with about 900 years of technology, from tsuzure to numerical-
control looms. K.O. also makes all the woven theater curtains
in the world, on looms 25 and 40 feet wide where hand weavers
pass the shuttle along the work. Amazing.  You might try in-
quiring at the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce to set it up.
 
In Tokyo, the National Science Museum in Ueno Park used to have
major exhibits on textile production (ten years ago).  It is
really more of a cultural history/industrial history museum
than what we in the US generally mean by science museum.  Well
worth a ramble (great exhibit on making lacquerware).
 
The bullet train also stops at Kurashiki, which was a center of
textile production.  The park along the canal through the
middle of the city includes a textile museum where, for me,
the star attraction was the c.1887 fancy loom made by Toyoda,
the same co. that later made cars (and put a <t> in place
of the <d>).
 
Matt Roth, NHMLAC