In the Pines

I've been busy of late with preparations for the American Anthropological Association meeting in San Francisco next month, and a series of discussions about "resilience" here in the village this month. However, a visit by friends from Miyako-jima in Okinawa gave me a good excuse to get out and enjoy fall in Otaki. Days here in Otaki are warm--hot, when the sun is hitting directly--but the mornings and evenings are accompanied by a stern cold that nips at one's bare parts. Our Okinawa friends brought with them blue skies; heavy morning rain clouds cleared as we drove from Kiso-Fukushima station to Takigoshi, Otaki's smallest and most isolated hamlet. We started with a walk in the forest where we stopped to gather kuri (chestnuts). At midori-no-buchi we took time to warm ourselves in the sun and to marvel at the strokes of red and orange painted on the trees above us. I-san, who runs the soba restaurant in Takigoshi, is in the middle of harvesting soba for the fi...

Last Monday Chizuko and I were invited by a friend, S-san, to try making buckwheat noodles ( soba そば , in Japanese) at her home. Soba making is one of several hands-on activities that a group in Otaki is beginning to develop for tourists. So, this time was a kind of trial run, I suppose. Although soba is eaten throughout Japan , it is particularly popular in Nagano . In Chizuko's hometown of Kyoto , the noodle of choice is udon , which is a white noodle made with regular flour. So, Chizuko isn't a huge fan of soba, and I can't say that I (even though I previously lived in Nagano for two years) ever have been either. Also, since we moved to Otaki, we hadn't really been impressed with any of the soba we tried. Anyway, the soba we were going to make had a long way to go to get any high marks with the two of us (not that we know squat about giving marks to soba). We arrived at S-san's house at four in the afternoon, as we had previously arranged. As soon as we had p...

Last Sunday a festival was held in Kami-jo , the section of Otaki where I live. For those involved festivities began the day before with a drinking party after we had made preparations. Many events in Otaki are followed, inevitably, by drink and food. I met with the mayor of the village when I first moved here, and he asked, "do you like alcohol?" My answer came back in the affirmative, and he remarked, "ah, then you'll be OK here." On Sunday festivities began at 11:00. Various food both lined the street in front of the Kami-jo community center. There was barbecued fish on skewers, steak, stew, fried squid, doughy balls with bits of octopus in the center, fried noodles, a ring toss for the kids, and of course beer. It was a miniaturized version of festivals that occur all over Japan. The difference being that most food stalls at bigger festivals are run by yakuza --Japanese mobsters. I like the local community version better. The wife and I both volunte...

Good Evening Ontake-san!! Today I visited a section of Otaki called Takigoshi 滝越, which is located about 10 kilometers from the village center at the back of a canyon that rolls out from Ontake-san's southwestern slope. This section was the hardest hit by a landslide caused by a large earthquake in 1984. A section of the hillside that had collapsed and carried a house away with it was pointed out to me, as was a statue that commemorates the site where a mother and her child were buried and killed. My neighbor had invited me out to Takigoshi to visit a small park called Suikouen 水交園. The park is run by a man and his wife, both of whom are in their thirties and have lived in Otaki for a decade. Both were very fascinating to talk with. They live nearby the park in a minshuku 民宿, which is like a Japanese B&B, that was built about fifty years ago. The house is heated by a wood burning stove and they bath in a home-made tub that is also wood-burning--It's also open-air. ....

Happy New Year Hope everyone’s New Year is off to a good start. Mine has been mixed so far. I’m trying to pull myself from the lethargy of the holidays so that I can actually get some work done. As for the holiday itself, it was very nice. This was my second New Year holiday spent with my in-laws in Japan ; I like the holiday in Japan much more than I do in the U.S. The focus is very much placed on preparing to greet the new year, which is good in the end, but a horrible process. “Horrible”. . .that may be strong. What makes it so bad is ōsōji 大掃除 , the “big clean”—of house and car mainly. This may not be such a dread for many Japanese, but my wife is a fanatic cleaner. I, though nowhere near my wife, am fanatic once I get going (however I am often content not to “get going”) . The whole event is made even more pleasant by the fact that Japanese homes do not have central heating, which is actually a moot point as often the windows and doors are left...