Although bonsai is a Japanese art there was prior to 1990 not a lot of contact in the United States directly with Japanese bonsai masers. Bonsai conventions and an occasional master visiting local clubs were just about it. In the mid 1990’s Kathy Shaner went to Japan and served a five-year apprenticeship with a Japanese master and returned to the United states to teach what she had learned. Through her efforts, knowledge indirectly from a Japanese master became widely available to American bonsai enthusiasts. Kathy was the first non-Japanese person to study in Japan. Now there has been a waterfall of people traveling to Japan, either to serve a full apprenticeship or to study with a Japanese master.

While most of us will not go to Japan for study you might like to learn about what the life of an apprentice is like. We may have visions of being able to frolic among extraordinary bonsai, but the life of an apprentice is sobering. Kathy wrote an article for the 1993 May-June issue of Golden Statements entitled For Apprenticeship Dreamers: An Open Letter to Hopefuls of Japanese Bonsai Study which gives details of her experiences. Her comments mirror those of other people who have more recently gone to Japan as apprentices indicating that her experience is typical. Below are excerpts from her article.

“If you do not speak Japanese now, go to night school for at least a year. Without being able to converse easily with your sensei, much information is lost. It is not fair to your hosts and much more difficult to get around.

You are going over as an apprentice to a businessman. He is not a hobbyist that has time to spend catering to your wants. Be prepared to work long hard hours in any weather. You will work most of the winter with fingers stiff and numb from the cold and no way to warm them. Many times, you will be working in wet clothes, summer and winter.

Do you take time off when you are sick? You work here, everyone does.

Do you now complain at work about something that you think is unfair, or putting in extra time? You cannot complain here -and it is all their time. No Pay, no overtime bonuses.

You must be able to lift heavy objects and lift them carefully. Two people in the United States are needed what for trees that are carried here by one person unless it is a very expensive pot. (Some pots cost upwards of $9000). You might work on a tree that costs as much as your house.

Road trips to clients are a mixed bag. The pressure is great. The time is limited at client’s homes and so you must work fast and accurately. This is not the time to make mistakes. Many times, the working conditions are cramped or difficult at best.

At the home workshop you find that there are no instructions for the first hour or two. You must be a self-starter and know instinctively what needs to be done, or what your teacher wants done.

Much information is gathered by observation and common sense. By observation I do not mean sitting around and watching your teacher work. This is not a Convention workshop.”

Having read Kathy’s comments, one would wonder why one would knowingly expose themselves to such a daunting experience. Her concluding remarks provide an elegant answer to this.

“If you think that you can take it and lots more and do it for at least a year because less would be unfair to your hosts and would leave you with big gaps in your bonsai care information and your life currently exists for bonsai, there is no better place to be! I would do it again knowing now even what was ahead.”