The Strength of Rural Areas, Part 2

Warm-hearted people in a chilly town

Making "ohagi" with homemade rice

The warm "ohagi" we just made was really tasty. (Shotaro Takata, 16)

The door to the kitchen opened and a warm, sweet smell wafted in the air. "First wash your hands," Yuri Sakane, 60, told us. And so began the making of "ohagi."

We first took a wooden pestle and ground hot cooked rice, a mixture of glutinous and non-glutinous rice. This took about 20 minutes and it was pretty tough work. "We call this half-ground rice 'half-kill,'" Yuri said. The rice had been ground almost to a pulp.

Then we picked up gobs of the half-ground rice with wet hands and molded each one into a flattened oval shape. We covered these with bean jam or soybean flour.

Yuri's mother-in-law, Tsuyuka, 84, along with her three granddaughters, often made "ohagi" because Yuri is busy with her work as a nurse. They even sometimes eat "ohagi" for dinner.

Our "ohagi" varied in size. Yuri nodded and said, "Your 'ohagi' looks delicious." The taste of "ohagi" includes the natural sweetness of both the soybean flour and the rice itself. (Yuumi Kimura, 14)

Cheerful meals for a family of eight across four generations

At Kunio Kuramoto's home, eight people across four generations enjoy meal times together. (Sachiko Kitayama, 14)

Mr. Kuramoto's family needs 1.8 liters of rice a day. Kunio Kuramoto lives with his wife, his second daughter and her husband, three grandchildren, and his mother. His family consists of eight people spread over four generations. We had the opportunity to sit down for dinner with the entire family.

Mr. Kuramoto takes pride in his home-grown rice. When I took in a mouthful, I tasted the sweetness of the rice on my tongue. Mr. Kuramoto explained proudly, "The quality of the soil here is very good and there's plenty of sunshine. I also fertilize the field with compost from our cows."

He added, "The whole family takes part in planting and harvesting the rice." Mr. Kuramoto also enjoys taking photos, including photos of his grandchildren--Sachi, 11, Takumi, 9, and Toki, 7--helping with the farm work. I got the feeling that the delicious taste of the rice was due to the fact that all of them join in to produce it and then eat it together.

I asked the three children, "Do you want to live here after you grow up?", and all of them answered, "Yes, I want to stay here." Mr. Kuramoto's mother, Matsuno, 92, smiled happily and patted her great-grandson Toki on the head. "My family is my treasure," she said. "Thanks to the enjoyable time I spend with them, I'm able to live a long life." (Shiori Kusuo, 18)

Communicating with cows at feeding time

Feeding a calf with a bottle, you can feel it eagerly drinking the milk.

It's 7:30 in the morning. The temperature is 0 degrees Celsius. We're on our way to feed the cows. Due to last night's snowfall, the way from the house to the cattle barn has been frosted white.

For 42 years, Noriaki Sakane has been tending to his cows in the morning and at night, both in the cold and in the heat. He breeds cows, and raises the calves. When a calf is eight months old, he sells it to another farmer. Those farmers then rear them as "Hiroshima beef cows."

He now has 19 cows. When we entered the cattle barn, the cows approached the feeding troughs which faced the passageway. When a bail of hay was tossed into a trough, the cow set about eating. When a cow finished the hay in its own trough, it would thrust its head into another cow's trough for more.

We fed a two-month-old calf with a feeding bottle. The calf clung hard to the bottle and quickly drank two liters of milk then continued sucking on the empty bottle. Mr. Sakane told the calf "All gone" by patting it on the head.

"I feel happy when the cows welcome me home with their mooing," Mr. Sakane said. His work is hard, but we clearly felt his deep affection for his cows. (Shotaro Takata, 16)

Making pizza in a stone oven surrounded by snow

A minute and a half after putting the pizza in the oven, it's browned and ready to eat. (Photo taken by Shiori Kusuo, 18)

In a valley surrounded by mountains, the snow fell steadily and the temperature had dropped below freezing. Smoke rose from the chimney of a small hut. Emitting that smoke was a stone oven built three years ago by Noriaki Sakane over a period of three months.

Mr. Sakane built the hut, too. It can fit only 10 people. Warming ourselves by the oven's charcoal fire, we made pizza. We kneaded out the pizza dough then spread sliced onions, shiitake mushrooms, and cheese.

After putting a pizza into the oven, it only takes a minute and a half for it to begin browning. We made pizzas one after the other. Although we used the same sort of ingredients we would use at home, we felt the taste was different. "Every pizza also holds the thoughts of the person who makes it," said Mr. Sakane's wife Yuri, 60. When we finally noticed, we realized that the 10 of us had made more than 30 pizzas.

Our stomachs full, we left the hut. On the wintry rice fields, we enjoyed a snowball fight and riding on sleds. We made a big snowman and used charcoal for the eyes and the nose. "Everyone can feel free to enjoy themselves in nature," Mr. Sakane said. They find pleasure in the slow life that nature offers. (Saaya Teranishi, 14)

Observing farming suitable for the Sakugi climate

Masanori Harada (right) explains about Christmas roses.

Christmas roses of pink and pea green, about five centimeters across, are in bloom. Masanori Harada, 73, has been cultivating the flowers since the spring of 1999.

Christmas roses prefer cold weather. "Sakugi is a suitable place for these flowers, since it's cold here in the winter," Mr. Harada said. He plants 4,000-5,000 roses in fields around his house and in greenhouses, and sells them at markets in the city of Hiroshima or at such sites as a road station, or a local resting area along the road, in the neighboring town of Funo in Miyoshi City.

Toru Saiki cultivates shiitake mushrooms using oak trees.

When we entered one greenhouse, we saw a line of Japanese oak trees, each about one meter high. Growing on the trees were a lot of shiitake mushrooms. Shiitake fungus is inserted into holes in the trees and then cultivated.

Toru Saiki, 59, grows the shiitake mushrooms. He uses some 20,000 Japanese oak trees that have been cut down in the mountains around Funo. In the old days, oak trees were used as charcoal. "I want to create employment opportunities by using local timber," he said.

Ninety percent of the shiitake mushrooms consumed in Japan are cultivated through the process of planting the fungus in sawdust laced with nutrients. Mr. Saiki's method is different and the mushrooms that grow from his trees have a pleasant aroma and keep for a longer time.