Repairing pottery with gold so the break becomes the beauty. Real craft, real meaning.

What a Japanese person actually thinks
Well liked and correctly understood. The 'my scars are the best part of me' reading has travelled from the West back into Japan and is now accepted here too, so you won't be misread.

Meaning

Literally: gold + joining
Actually: The technique of mending broken ceramics with lacquer and gold dust, leaving the fracture visible and gilded rather than hidden.

Scores

Naturalness●●●●●

Real word for a real craft. Also written 金継.

Coolness●●●●●

金 is one of the most solid characters there is. The trailing hiragana ぎ softens the block a little.

Watch out

lowIt names a technique, not a philosophy. Japanese people will read 'the pottery repair method' first and the metaphor second — the metaphor is a modern, largely foreign addition.

On skin

金継ぎ

Orientation: vertical

Mincho or brush.