Bekuhai Sake Vessels

Back in June 2020, I briefly touched on a project I was working on revolving around sake cups and a Japanese drinking game (not that I'm encouraging everyone to play drinking games and get drunk but let's face it, we've all been there, or will be!). It was in early research stages and then progressed to a simple design stage, which is what I want to share with you today. I have lots of ideas riding off this one that I'd like to explore and I really want to get into a studio to create this little series of vessels! But for now, here's the initial concept and what it's all about:

Bekuhai is a style of sake cup created in the Kochi prefecture of Japan. The word "Bekuhai" translates to "The cup never gets put down". It has become a drinking game where there are three different sized sake cups and a dice. The game uses cups made in the image of traditional Japanese masks; the first sake cup is very small and holds approximately 1 'shot' of sake and can be placed down with ease, the second holds approximately twice the amount and has a hole in the bottom of it and therefore the contents needs to be finished to avoid leaking out of the vessel, then the third holds three times the regular amount a sake cup would typically hold and due to its shape, cannot be placed down until empty. (A sake cup holds approximately 60mls, depending on the cup type). This article HERE explains the game and has information on these cups in the form of traditional masks if you're interested in knowing more!

Inspired by the idea of being unable to place cups down and the fun connection and interaction between people because of this, I designed a series of sake vessels which vary in size and form which cannot be placed down until the contents has been consumed.

I also found this quite amusing as it seems like a very Western thing to do. This game is well known in the Kochi prefecture but the citizens outside of this area seem to be very unfamiliar with it, and I'd never come across this set myself whilst shopping. I could see this being a very popular drinking game here in Scotland and somewhat surprised we never thought about it ourselves, although, I guess we don't need wonky cups to encourage us to down a drink! I loved this fun idea though and it took me back to a memory of my own, when on my first visit to Japan with two friends back in 2018. We were in Osaka for a few nights and one evening whilst exploring the bars we bumped into three Japanese men who invited us to a bar with them. They introduced us to several other friends of theirs and it turned out to be such a fun evening drinking shochu, sake and umeshu with them. They refused to let us buy our own drinks, communicating in broken Engligh/Japanese was hilarious, (especially when Google Translate got involved!), then we taught them a drinking game called 'One Frog' and it was just a fantastic, memorable night which brought two cultures together.

In Japanese culture, sake is a sacred drink and is often found left as an offering to the Gods at shrines and temples in prayer. Nature is also a very sacred and respected element within Japanese culture as part of the Shinto religion, where all things should be respected because Kami (supernatural entities) live in all things: trees, rocks and so on.

I wanted to keep the aesthetic in alignment with Japanese culture and their respect for nature and combined this with the concept of instability due to the nature of the Bekuhai drinking game. So I designed forms and textures based off of Japanese landscapes to tie it together, creating sacred rock-like vessels with an element of play and a sense of community between those drinking together.

I have loads of ideas continuing on from this initial design concept but for this stage in particular, I wanted to make these vessels awkwardly functional to play off the whole idea that they are supposed to be awkward to use as part of the drinking game fun. (drink sensibly guys!) Hopefully I get to try these out sometime and perhaps I'll share my further ideas around this concept later on.

Stevie