Mon

This is my family mon (or ka-mon), or Japanese crest or emblem. We know, because it is on my great-grandmother's mother's kimono; I think that was the last time anyone in my family actually had a kimono. My family has a bit of a confusing history - mons are usually patrilineal, but we had the unique situation of a male person marrying into an all-female family of higher social class and taking the woman's family name.

I asked my Dad for an image of it twice, once was a hundred years ago when I was around twenty, and a particularly ardent Japanese American boyfriend declared his intention to tattoo both his family's mon and mine over his heart. Thankfully my forgetful and spacy Dad never sent it to me! I asked him for it again a few weeks ago. I'm getting into seals and sealing wax and my calligraphy teachers know an artisan who makes hand carved custom wax seals. I think it will be sort of awesome to have my family mon as a wax seal. The practice of applying sealing wax to letters to ensure authenticity and privacy is as old as writing itself.

Mons or ka-mons are usually some kind of nature-related imagery, but stylized and symmetrical, like birds, flowers, trees, vegetables, fish. Ours is a moth. A friend who works for Louis Vuitton customer service told me that the classic Louis Vuitton pattern was based on the Japanese mons.