06/03/2026
I took carpentry in high school. Built a coffee table and an entertainment center I was genuinely proud of. Used both for ten years before a flood took them out. I mourned that furniture more than I should admit.
Carpentry never left me. Which is probably why I fell down a rabbit hole one night researching Kongō Gumi, a construction company in Osaka, Japan founded in 578 AD.
Not 1578. Just 578.
The Roman Empire had just collapsed. Muhammad hadn't been born yet. And a Korean craftsman named Shigetsu Kongō showed up in Japan to build the country's first Buddhist temple for Prince Shōtoku Taishi, because Japan had zero carpenters trained in Buddhist architecture. None. Shigetsu built the temple, looked around, and apparently decided to just... stay. His family kept the business going for forty generations.
They survived samurai wars, anti-Buddhist purges, two world wars, and the Great Depression. Their carpenters trained for ten years before being considered competent. Ten years. I did a few semesters and thought I was hot stuff.
What finally killed their independence after 1,400 years? Bad real estate loans in the 1980s bubble economy. Not war. Not famine. Not an act of God.
A bad loan.
They still exist today as a subsidiary, still restoring Buddhist temples, still using joinery techniques older than most civilizations.
My entertainment center lasted ten years before a flood got it. I have been building with my hands for well over 30yrs...but I've got some work to do.