In the Pines

About a week ago Aki* and I couldn't resist the spring-like weather and decided to take a walk along the Ugui-gawa which flows down from the mountains that form the southern boundary of the Otaki watershed. This area--like too damned much of Otaki--is national forest and therefore off limits to the general public. I should clarify: the road into the Ugui-gawa area is gated and therefore cars are not allowed in--technically not off limits I suppose, but definately not geared towards recreation. Anyway, people aren't lining up to come to see the Ugui-gawa. That's a shame. The Ugui-gawa has some of the most amazing water I've ever seen. Turqoise, I suppose, is the best color to describe it, but seems inadequate. Pictures, unfortunely, also fail to capture the variegated color palette of the river in its interplays with the sun. On this day white snow capped many of the river rocks, adding further contrast. In the woods lining the river tufts of green grass stood glee...

Last week I made a short presentation about my fieldwork during an anthropology seminar at Kyoto University. The paper I presented covers some of my early thoughts about thinking of landscape transformation in the context of resource extraction. Resource extraction and landscape transformation in Otaki Today, many of Japan’s rural areas are in a state of crisis. Rapid depopulation, lack of capital investment, and the withdrawal of government assistance have left rural communities with few options; many have amalgamated with neighboring municipalities under a program meant to simplify the national bureaucracy. Those communities that have been unwilling or unable to amalgamate have, for the most part, been left on their own to maintain basic services while trying to find sustainable paths into the future. The situation has left these communities economically and politically disadvantaged, as well as environmentally and socially vulnerable. The historic presence of these asymmetric r...

Walking through the village the other day I had a chance to see a couple of re novations that are underway in Otaki. The first are two small homes that were purchased recently (for change) by I-san. The homes were built in the post-war period using local wood. This, for I-san, was crucial. Structures built with local wood, he suggests, will outlast their more contemporary counterparts that consist of foreign timber. Looking at the shape of the two homes, while considering their long neglect, I tend to agree with I-san. In the past these homes where belonged to the forestry agency and were used to house employees. About a dozen more of these homes sit in the Nakagoshi section of the village, where the largest forestry agency office in the Kiso Valley was once located. There's been talk of the village buying those homes, but economically it might not be feasible. I would like to suggest that the national government just give the homes to the village, rather than simply letting ...

A while ago a resident of Takigoshi 滝越 lent me a DVD copy of a television program produced by NHK (nihon housou kyoukai 日本放送協会--Japan Broadcasting Corporation ). The program was called 追い詰められた村 ("Cornered Village") and suggested that the village may be in the most dire situation among rural areas in Japan. NHK’s assessment of Otaki can be said to be true in several senses. First, geographically Otaki is located at the back of a long canyon that leads to the base of Ontake-san. A single winding road links Otaki to Kiso-machi (木曽町), the nearest modest sized town with a hospital, train station, and large supermarket. The presence of this vital road means that Otaki is socially oriented towards the Kiso Valley and Nagano prefecture; however, accounts of interactions with residents of present-day Gifu, which borders Otaki on the west, suggest that this orientation has not always been exclusive. Second, environmentally speaking, 95 percent of Otaki’s surface area is comprised of fo...

I have, as of yet, to write in any length about Ontake-san (御嶽山), the volcanic mountain upon whose southwestern slope Otaki sits. Ontake-san is an integral part of Otaki's geographical, historical, ecological--and probably any other "-ical" one can think of--landscape. There's a lot to say about the mountain and so I've labeled this entry as "Pt. 1"; I don't pretend, however, to have any depth of knowledge about Ontake-san (in fact I know very little), but I do hope to learn more, and as I do I plan to add more entries. Anyway, here goes Pt. 1. Standing at 3,067 meters Ontake-san is Japan's 14th tallest mountain, and it's second tallest volcano, second only to Fuji-san. Ontake-san has been revered for hundreds of years as a reihou 霊峰--a holy mountain--and may have once rivaled Fuji-san in this respect. Every year hundreds of pilgrims come, dressed in white, to pay homage to the mountain, pray, and undertake various spiritual practices....

Coming through a recent past where economic livelihood came, along with capital and infrastructure, from external sources--forestry, dam construction, and skiing--the residents of Otaki are searching for a road that can take them into the future. There is an interest among residents in developing Otaki's unique cultural and natural resources in order to attract tourists. It was with this purpose in mind that about 25 residents met on Monday, June 9th to discuss ways of developing local culinary techniques and dishes. The meeting was organized by Otaki's Tourism Revitalization Council (観光再生協議会). Their idea was for residents to come together to learn some new recipes, but, more importantly, to generate some dialog about ways of developing local cuisine. A local chef, H-san, who has forty years of cooking experience and runs a pension called Diamond Dust (ダイアモンドダスト) was our teacher for the day. H-san is a straight speaking man who was quick to plead with, and even berate, th...