Janet Dwyer is currently in Japan as she is setting up the resources and planning for her new four-year project SATOCONN. She recently wrote a short blog about her experiences to-date about her time in Japan. This is the second part documenting her experiences in Japan.
Autumn and winter are arriving in quick succession now, here in Kyoto; the leaves started to turn rich reds and yellows just a couple of weeks back, and now the cold wind and rain have swept in, although nothing yet as severe as you have seen back in Gloucestershire, I gather! Today I took a long walk along the main temple route in Higashiyama district to appreciate the trees and the tourists dressed up in their Kimonos and wooden sandals, ‘clippy-clopping’ around and posing to have their photos taken in the colourful temple surrounds. The sun came out on and off, so it was a chilly but enjoyable Sunday.
The last two weeks have been very busy. Lois Mansfield came out to join me and we went ‘on mission’ to Sado island to visit Jas and Mitsuyo, our collaborators there. Europeans (UK-inclusive) would like Sado – it’s a bit of an undiscovered gem, very green in the many meanings of that word, and a bit alternative because the land is cheap and the population in steady decline, reminding me just a little of West Wales. The sea is always visible and was perfectly nice for swimming even this late in the year, and the hills are clothed in semi-natural woods which were colouring up beautifully while we were there. We visited a great community-oriented, nature-friendly farm run by two young men who grew up together on Sado and did degrees in economics at Kanezawa down the coast – although at first they said they just played baseball whilst at University! They grow old rice varieties and sell them online, as well as producing a wide range of veg which in part provides all the dinners for the local primary school children. Their philosophy is to enjoy their work and to give something back to their local community, which is great. They have neighbours making honey and rearing chickens and hope to work together as these businesses all develop.
Another visit took us up north to some previously abandoned paddy-terraces that a group of villagers decided to regenerate during lock-down, which are now producing some rice and vegetables for a local restaurant that is run by a woman who moved out from Tokyo, and her neighbour’s elderly mother who has become a bit of a social media star. They promote their Sado cooking online and she is quite a character in the kitchen. The dining area looks out over the sea shore, but we weren’t able to eat there as they close during the winter months. We did eat lovely Sado oysters at another place near the central lake, where the oysters are farmed in brackish water: very tasty! So, tell your friends that if they visit Japan, they might take a trip to Sado Island – a fast train from Tokyo and then a pleasant ferry crossing make it easily accessible, and they are crying out for empathetic visitors. We think it should be a very good case for our project, with lots of challenges and opportunities to investigate.
I was back on the mainland last week and went with Mikitaro to Tokyo to give a seminar at the Ministry of Agriculture’s ‘policy research institute’ PRIMAFF, courtesy of Masa Asai whom I worked with at the OECD on a couple of papers and who has now returned to Japan. The seminar attracted around 20 people and it seemed very well-received, with useful discussion for over an hour afterwards. Masa had asked me to talk about UK and EU rural policy priorities and concerns, rural definitions and indicators, my impressions of Japanese policies and some suggestions for future research and policy/practice development, all in around 45 minutes. It was a good trip, but not an environment that I enjoy: Tokyo is just too big and urban for my health and well-being: I slept in a hotel room on the 16th floor and I couldn’t open any windows, and below me the endless stream of traffic flowed on into the night. Some people would have found it exciting, I certainly did not. Masa was a perfect host, though, and the Institute’s Director seemed genuinely interested in our work and the Satoconn project, which bodes well for future connections once we have some results to share.
Back to Kyoto for my final week in this visit, and presenting our progress this year to the RIHN Annual General Meeting which lasts three days and encourages peer-review among all its researchers. I am prepared, and thus my thoughts are turning towards home and seeing Barley our elderly dog, who has apparently survived my absence pretty well. Just have to hope the excitement when I get home won’t trigger heart failure, for any of us!
