Satoyama Experience 

The number of foreign travelers who visit the countryside in Japan are increasing year after year. Why do they go there? What do they find there? Many Japanese people, who live in urban cities and in the countryside as well, don’t know the reason why foreigners visit the countryside where there is no interest for Japanese. Since one hundred and fifty years ago Japan has pursued the western industrial society and system. Moreover Japanese people have not turned their faces to the countryside. For many Japanese people, the countryside in Japan is not a living place but a only heartfelt hometown which they think far from the countryside. 


One of the reasons why foreign travelers visit the countryside in Japan might be that the countryside close to nature is beautiful and pleasant. One hundred and fifty years ago many foreigners visited the countryside in Japan, many of them said in their travel diaries that the countryside in Japan was beautiful like painting pictures. Nowadays the countryside that has kept its beauty is little, but the  active countryside might fascinate foreign travelers.

The countryside is called “satoyama” in Japanese. Satoyama means a rural field and hills in a broad sense. The sound of satoyama in Japanese is more tender than “inaka”(countryside) in Japanese. By the way many animals live in the hills. Satoyama in a narrow sense means a buffer zone between a field where people live and hills where animals live. In satoyama in a narrow sense people get something like nuts, vegetables in the hills and wooden things to use for their lives for the time when there are not animals, on the contrary animals get nuts for the time when there are no people. Of course the coexistence of people and animals in satoyama is not simultaneous. When people feel a sign of an animal they free, and when animals feel a sign of a person they free. The place that people and animals aren’t close to each other by keeping some adequate distance is surely satoyama. However this satoyama that existed at every turn before in Japan is disappearing actually, then active satoyama is valuable for foreign travelers. And this value has been unknown to Japanese people, but foreign travelers found out for the first time since over one hundred and fifty years before.

There must be the other reason besides beautiful scenes and the coexistence of people and animals in satoyama. I think that it is the kindness of the people living in countryside.

By coincidence, I found an article written in a local magazine about the facing point of the countryside people for their lifetimes in their minds. The writer said in this article;

“I had wondered why there is no impatience in the countryside people’s minds. In their minds there is no bewilderment nor purpose of life. In Japan, traditional relationships with their children and grandchildren, to their living area and other people and against local deities have changed over one hundred and fifty years. And this change deserted a significant thing. People who live in an urban city think that present time is on the line between the past and the future. On the contrary those who live in the countryside think present time is only now in a season or a year, because the nature surrounding them will never guarantee to present the harvest as same as the previous year. Many agricultural workers in the countryside have the same axis of their lives that they grow rice or vegetables as one year work. So they are used to thinking about things along a short span. Of course they aren’t bound to achieve no impatient mind only by their short span thinking. In addition Buddhism, especially the thoughts of “Teikan”, must play a big role for them. To stay away their idle thoughts. To face to the truth and the faith. To live with making every effort.”

In short some people who live in the countryside of Japan are tender, sincere, tolerant and blissful. These tendencies of minds heal other people. I think probably that these are drawing foreign travelers to the countryside in Japan.

There is a travel tour called “Satoyama Experience” that is centered in Hida region in Gifu prefecture. I will introduce to you one of some of the packaged trips in the Satoyama Experience. All these spots of the trip are places where there are traditional cultures since one hundred and fifty years ago.

What you will experience in this tour is premium nonchalant daily life. Beautiful natural landscape, singing by frogs in rice fields, insects and birds and pretty chats of children.

 Satoyama Experience

1) A natural outdoor hot spring

Hot spring, close to nature with gentle breeze or small stream will heal you.


2) Takayama Town

The old town where people have lived since the Edo period will transport you a different world from your ordinary life.


3) cycling in satoyama

You can feel satoyama near yourself. Communicate with the people in satoyama aggressively. You can touch the living bliss from them.


4) Gokayama countryside village

I want you to visit it! It attracts even Japanese people. The invariant living style of Gokayama will amaze you.


5) Kanazawa City

It is not the countryside, but you should visit it. Kanazawa has premium refined food culture.


6) Oku-Noto

Noto peninsula that sticks out into the Sea of Japan has abundant food ingredients. It is said that not only people are gentle but its soil is soft in Noto.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Karuta competitions by the 100 Poems

Image
I saw on TV news that many young foreigners competed karuta competitions by the 100 Poems. I was surprised at that, as well as I was interested why they played karuta competitions and why they knew how to play. Because karuta competitions are so difficult that the number of those who play the game isn’t large even in Japan. Eventually, I never have played karuta competitions. Incidentally, the 100 Poems, “hyakunin-issyu” in Japanese, are familiar with Japanese People. Japanese people in most cases learn the 100 Poems in their junior high-schools or high-schools, and they sometimes play a game of competing accuracy and quickness with several people that players grab a card written with the only second phrases of a poem from cards on tatami listening to full phrases of a poem. Of course I learned the 100 Poems in my junior high school and sometimes played the game, but I was a weak player of karuta games. Karuta competitions are a severer sport than the game above, so the sport dema
Read more

Warikan Custom In Japan

Image
Culture in a country is the result made by the specific customs based on the thoughts of the people, if it is true, to try to look out for the specific custom of a country where you visit is a joyful challenge during your traveling time. When I visited foreign countries I experienced the different customs from Japan and I was happy to know it. Many anthropologists say that Japanese culture is especially different from cultures of other countries. Then foreigners visiting Japan will feel pleasure by finding out the different customs from their countries. Warikan is the one specific Japanese custom. Warikan is to split the bill among members who ate dishes and drank in restaurants and it is generally a popular custom in Japan. I have a foreign friend who has been in Japan from Australia and I sometimes have drinking parties with him. He knows Japanese customs but perhaps his true sense depends on western customs. At paying the bill when I suggested “sloping warikan” to him as a mat
Read more

Satsuma-biwa music

Image
Hiromi Hakozaki, who is a Satsuma-biwa player, played biwa music at the machiya of Onishi-tune-shoten and explained how biwa instruments became its present form. I want to write about one of Japan’s specific sound instruments according to her explanation. Before my explanation I want to mention my impression after listening to her play, I said to her in this way. “The sounds of Satsuma-biwa is calm in terms that it allows a human physiological phenomenon like that blood pressure will be peaceful, but is very deep in terms that it lets the human spirit vibrate strongly.” Biwa v.s. Lute Biwa(Japanese lute) came far from Persia in the 8th century via The Silk Road. The picture above is an ancient Persian lute instrument(front and back) which is stored as a national treasure in Syosoin next to Todaiji or Kasuga Shrine in Nara City from the 8th century. There is an opinion that the lute in Syosoin is the original biwa(lute). And the long history for thirteen centuries in Japan tra
Read more