Omi Hino Merchant Museum

The Hino Home of a Merchant House

The Omi Hino Merchant Museum (近江日野商人館, Ōmi Hino Shōnin-kan) is a town-run museum of local history in Okubo, Hino, Shiga Prefecture, housed in the former family home of the Hino merchant Yamanaka Hyoemon, built in 1936, and six of its buildings were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 16 January 1998. The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists the site as the Former Yamanaka Hyoemon Family Residence (旧山中兵右衛門家住宅, Kyū Yamanaka Hyōemon-ke Jūtaku); locally it is simply the old Yamanaka Hyoemon house.

Hino sits in the hills south-east of Lake Biwa, and from the early Edo period its men went out on the road as peddlers. They carried Hino lacquerware and compounded medicines across the country, then settled into branch shops, above all in the Kanto region, where many turned to brewing sake and soy sauce. The museum notes that a good number of those businesses are still trading.

The Yamanaka family is a case in point. According to the history published by Yamanaka Hyoemon Shoten, a liquor wholesaler now based in Shimizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, a young man named Yamanaka Mankichi, later the first Hyoemon, left Hino as a peddler in 1704 and opened a shop at Mikuriya, today's Gotemba, in 1718. In 1800 the house acquired a brewing licence from the village headman and began making sake, later adding shops in Numazu, Odawara and on the Izu Peninsula. The Agency's own commentary describes the Yamanakas as a family that prospered from brewing and from trading in lead.

However far the business ranged, the family seat stayed in Hino, a pattern typical of these merchants. The present house replaced an older one in 1936. The museum says construction ran on until 1939 and was undertaken as an otasuke fushin, a building project meant to give work to local people in lean years. The national register dates the main house to 1936, the gate and the two storehouses to around 1936, and the well house and storage shed to around 1943.

In 1981 the family gave the house and its grounds to the town, and the museum opened on 3 October that year. The Hino Tourist Association likes to quote a local saying, "Hachiman in front, Hino at the back," which sets the Hino merchants against their neighbours from Omihachiman. Here, it says, the street front makes no display of wealth; the house speaks instead of a strict and frugal way of life, and the association presents the Former Yamanaka Hyoemon Family Residence as a typical Hino merchant's home.

Six Buildings, One Compound

The six buildings carry consecutive registration numbers, 25-0018 to 25-0023, and were entered on the register together. They were not all listed on the same grounds. The main house alone qualifies as a model of design; the front gate, the west and east storehouses, the well house and the storage shed are listed for their contribution to the historic landscape. In other words, the main house is the centrepiece and the other five are the outbuildings that complete the compound.

The Agency's descriptions let you sketch the layout. The main house is a two-storey block under an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof, flanked by single-storey wings: a formal reception wing on one side and a kamaya, or kitchen wing, on the other. The front gate stands south of the Shikidai entrance porch on the west side of the façade, set back a little from the road behind a small stone bridge, with roofed board fences running off to either side.

The working buildings gather around the kitchen wing on the west. The east storehouse stands north of it, with the west storehouse beyond; the well house runs parallel to the kitchen wing on its west side, eaves almost touching, and the storage shed adjoins the well house to the north. Walk through the gate and the main house faces you, while the storehouses and service buildings sit back around the kitchen.

The scale varies enormously. Building areas are 280 square metres for the main house, 58 square metres for the west storehouse, 32 square metres for the east storehouse, 11 square metres for the well house and 5 square metres for the storage shed. The register notes that there were once more storehouses than the two that survive. Even so, with the house and its outbuildings standing together, you can still read how a well-to-do merchant home of the early Showa era was put together.

Visiting the Museum

The main house doubles as the exhibition space. The permanent display traces three centuries of Hino trading through peddlers' wares, travel gear and family codes of conduct, and several temporary exhibitions a year draw on the museum's holdings and on material lent by local families.

According to the museum, staff will guide visitors around the ground floor of the main house on request, except while the doll exhibition is on. The historical displays upstairs are shown only by special request and when enough staff are available, so it is worth phoning ahead if you want to see them.

Each February and March the museum joins the town's Hina Matsuri festival with a show of old Hina dolls from the Edo, Meiji and Taisho periods, set out on a tiered stand 12 metres long. Many of the tatami rooms become galleries at that time, so if the architecture is your main interest, another season will give you a clearer view of the house itself.

Hours, Admission and Getting There

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays; when either falls on a public holiday it opens and closes on the Wednesday instead. It also closes for the New Year from 29 December to 4 January and on some irregular days, such as a short break over Obon. Admission is 300 yen for adults (250 yen each for groups of 30 or more) and 120 yen for elementary and junior high school students, and holders of a disability certificate enter free. The museum's telephone number is 0748-52-0007.

The official visitor information says nothing about photography inside, so ask at the front desk if you plan to take pictures.

By public transport, take an Ohmi Bus bound for Hino Kitabatakeguchi from the south exit of JR Omi-Hachiman Station and get off at Okubo, about 3 minutes' walk from the museum. The same bus route also serves Hino Station on the Ohmi Railway, about 20 minutes from JR Kibukawa Station; the museum is roughly 3 km from Hino Station. On weekends, holidays and over the New Year, the town's public ride-share service is another option.

Drivers can reach the museum in about 20 minutes from Yokaichi IC or 15 minutes from Gamo Smart IC on the Meishin Expressway, or in about 25 minutes from Koka-Tsuchiyama IC or Shigaraki IC on the Shin-Meishin. Head for the Kawara junction on Route 477, drive south, turn left (east) at the Okubo junction, then turn right at the next T-junction; the car park is on the left about 200 metres along. The address is 1011 Okubo, Hino. The Shiga Association of Museums lists space for 30 cars and 4 coaches.