Zobigasaki, or Elephant Trunk Cape, curves out into the Seto Inland Sea from the Murozumi district of Hikari, Yamaguchi prefecture. It once had a bustling commercial port where trading ships and tax collectors plying the Seto would stop on the way to Osaka and Tokyo, but today it is a fishing community so quiet it sometimes feels frozen in time. Old wooden merchant houses and shops still line Kaishodori street as it runs northeast from the ancient Fugenji temple. Just a few minutes walk along that street is a small building with a hand-painted sign reading simply utsuwa, in white hiragana. The word is usually translated ‘vessels’, but on this sign, what it truly means is ‘pottery’.