Word: kokichi
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...pearl market changed in the early 1890s, however, when Japan's Kokichi Mikimoto first successfully cultured pearls, artificially mimicking the natural process and allowing pearls for the first time to be matched for necklaces. A century later, Chinese farmers have further perfected this technique, yielding more than 1,500 tons of freshwater pearls last year, or 95% of the world's pearl production. "Today, the quality of Chinese cultured pearls matches some of the best natural pearls ever found," says Hong Kong gemologist Henry Cheng...
Once pearls were considered far more valuable than diamonds, since only 1 in 10,000 oysters may contain a round natural pearl. In Roman times, pearls were so sought after and expensive that Julius Caesar barred women below a certain rank from wearing them. It wasn't until Kokichi Mikimoto, founder of Mikimoto pearls, successfully cultured pearls in the early 1900s that they could be easily matched and made into necklaces (before that, it could take up to 10 years to find enough matching pearls to make a strand). It was Coco Chanel who exploited the discovery of cultured pearls...
...question before the special meeting of the board of directors was as difficult as it was unique. Kokichi Obata, 57, managing director of Japan's Nagano radio and television network, wanted to take a leave of absence. And for what reason, director-san? Why, to be a movie star-to play the role of Admiral Nomura, Japan's prewar ambassador in Washington in Tora! Toraf, Tora!, Darryl Zanuck's multimillion-dollar spectacular about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The board members were dumfounded. Eventually, says Obata, they agreed because "they were convinced that if I could help...
...Died. Kokichi Mikimoto, 95, onetime noodle merchant who became the world's largest producer of cultured pearls; of a kidney ailment; in Nagoya, Japan. Perfecting by trial and error a method of seeding oysters known since the 13th century (a fleck of sand or a tiny bead is forced into the oyster, which seeks to counteract the irritant by coating it with layer upon layer of pearl-making nacre), spry, fun-loving Mikimoto (who entertained his employees with feats of magic and parasol-twirling) scandalized Paris in 1913, when he first brought his quarter-price pearls to the international...
...modest, unpainted four-room house atop a narrow headland overlooking Japan's Ago Bay, a wizened little man in a brown kimono and a black derby hat shuffled about in a pearly haze. He was Kokichi Mikimoto, who has annoyed more oysters for more profit than any other man. Last week the longtime king of Japan's culture-pearl industry declared the largest personal income in Japan in the first year of American occupation. He had netted three million yen ($200,000) selling pearls to the conquerors...