Sounds from Oyama Senmaida carry straight over to 555. So yesterday afternoon, when I heard a muffled welcome speech, loud applause and then shouted instructions, I was intrigued enough to take a break and walk over to see what was going on.
Aha! A clue.
It wasn’t long before 200 high school students came trooping along in groups to grab up these supplies and distribute them into the rice terraces. The first group was led by my landlord, Kawasaki-san, who filled me in on all the details. Tonight only – lighting starts at 4:30.
I sat and watched a while. The kids worked with lots of shouts and laughter. Inept use of tools. Getting stuck in mud. Some groups planted torches with precision placement. Others freeformed the line along their paddy. It went quickly! I looked away for a moment to sketch and when I looked up again, half of the terraces were completed.
I headed back home with a plan to return when the torches were lit around 4:30. Naomi and I went up together with Matsu a bit closer to five, as the sun was setting.
The torches were lit and the kids were streaming back to their buses, taking selfies and landscapes along the way. The day was so windy that the torches were burning faster than usual and some simply blew out in the breeze.
That didn’t stop it from being beautiful.
As the evening grew darker, the LEDs came on, adding pinpricks of light through the terraces.
Oyama Senmaida
Naomi and I were invited up into the Tanada Club to get a view from the deck. We chatted with Kawasaki-san and all the neighbors who run the experience programs at Oyama Senmaida.
Naomi asked Ushimura-san if they’d do the three day music and lights festival again sometime. She told us that the pandemic put a kibosh on that and now its future is uncertain. Lack of funding and volunteers combined with a general wariness of overtourism are all concerns.
I was really excited to see the materials that Tanada Club had on hand for their experience programs. There were cotton bolls waiting to be seeded and spun. A box of lichen that produces a beautiful purple dye. Ishida-san (both the father and daughter) talked to us for a long while about the programs while Ushimura-san put together kits for the next day’s experience for a school group coming in to make straw turtles. They have experts in natural dyes, spinning, straw craft, papermaking, and all sorts of things that you can do in nature here.
The website, https://senmaida.com/ shows the breadth of all they are accomplishing, not just crafts but also rice cultivation, preservation of local traditions, and sharing knowledge via hands-on participation from growing cotton to brewing sake. They have been at this a while and are celebrating their 20th anniversary with a symposium next month.
Maybe I can volunteer to help with the classes. I would definitely enjoy that, though the Japanese part is scary. And I’d love to participate as a teacher if they have a need for arts activities (in English). Yoga in nature! Group mandalas with found objects. Plien air sketching. I have dozens of possible workshops in my pocket. Perhaps this is motivation to learn the Japanese necessary to teach them.
