Beaten Until It Almost Is Not There

On a small street, Polly found a workshop. A machine made a heavy sound again and again. An artisan sat at a low bench. Paper was stacked high. Gold lay between the sheets of paper.

This city makes almost all the gold leaf in Japan. It has done this for four hundred years. A piece of gold as small as a coin becomes one sheet as big as a floor mat. The sheet is so thin that light goes through it.

The weather helps. Gold leaf hates dry, moving air. Here the air is damp and still. The paper is also important.

Nobody can touch the gold with fingers. Workers lift it with bamboo tools. Polly stood very still.