Dorodango

A dorodango at an "early" stage. In this case, the lack of gloss is due to it not yet undergoing polishing with fine dust particles.

Dorodango is a Japanese art form in which earth and water are molded to create a delicate shiny sphere, resembling a marble or billiard ball.

Etymology

The phrase 泥だんご, reading dorodango is derived from

• 泥 (doro どろ) literally "mud" in Japanese
• だんご (dango) are a type of round dumpling, created from pressed rice flour.

Technique

Making the basic dorodango is a traditional pastime for school children, somewhat like English conkers.

More recently the process has been refined into the art of the hikaru ("shining") dorodango (光る泥だんご), which has a glossy or patterned surface. The core of the ball is made of basic mud, and further dusted with finer-grained soil before the water is drawn out through various methods- even sealing the ball inside a plastic bag and letting the water evaporate and then condense. Once the ball is fully tempered and hardened, it is polished by hand and displayed.

Trivia

In the episode "End with a Bang" (Episode 113) of the Discovery Channel series "MythBusters" that first aired on November 12, 2008, hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman investigated the truth behind everyday sayings. They used the dorodango technique to create dung spheres in order to bust the myth that one "can't polish a turd". Using a glossmeter, they measured gloss levels substantially higher than the value of 70 gloss units which is considered "high gloss". Savage's 106 gloss unit dorodango used an ostrich's feces, while Hyneman's 183 gloss unit specimen used a lion's feces.

External links

• "Shiny Mud Balls: Kyoto Professor Taps into the Essence of Play"
• Illustrated step-by-step guide to making Hikaru Dorodango
• Dorodango: Shining Mud Ball
• dorodango.com A gallery of marble-like Dorodango, and instructions for creating dorodango
• "Shiny Balls of Mud" -(William Gibson, TATE Magazine)