Japan's best collection of short letters

About

The Ippitsu Keijo Museum of Japan's Shortest Letters opened on August 23, 2015 in Maruoka-cho, Sakai City, Fukui Prefecture, near Maruoka Castle. Its name comes from the letter that Honda Sakuzaemon Shigetsugu, a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu, sent his wife from the battlefield: 'A word in haste - beware of fire, don't make O-Sen cry, fatten the horse.' Only a few phrases long, yet full of care for his family, it has been handed down as a model of the concise letter. Carrying on that spirit, the Ippitsu Keijo Award - Japan's shortest-letter contest - began in 1993, drawing 32,236 entries in its first year alone, and in the museum's permanent exhibition the winning letters stream endlessly down a video installation called Fumi no Taki, the waterfall of letters. On the second floor a viewing room shows the four seasons of Maruoka Castle on screen. Reading the feelings held in a single handwritten line, visitors come away sensing anew the weight of few words.