10.15.22
I knew Japan loved rice, but after living in Japan for over 9 months (also what…almost a year has passed!?!?!) I’ve found that Japan lives, breathes, and WOULD DIE FOR rice. If one were to attach an image to the definition for “rice” in the Webster Dictionary, it’d probably be one of Japan’s rice fields. I kid you not.
Back in the day, students would even have to take off from school for rice harvesting days…apparently family and friends would gather on a designated March day to plant each rice bud in straight rows, then regroup on an October day to cut and dry each developed rice stalk. Talk about hard work….Yuki’s fields are about the size of 3 tennis courts and this is considered small!
So today I come here with my very own rice saga, as I have had the privilege of participating in the rice making culture here in Yakage! Both Yuki-san and Yamoto-san let me tag along in the planting, maintaining, watching, and harvesting of their rice fields. The hard labor is now all done with machines (rice harvesting trucks look like the Ulm bugs from Nausicaa especially since their tentacles resemble the golden sun-reflected rice fields in autumn) but there was still some non-machine work needed to be done:
- Pre-planting season asked for readjusting the water walls that were ruined by some good-natured but pesky moles (water walls = plastic barriers around the field to prevent water leakage…rice fields are essentially super watery mud lakes)
- Planting season asked for digging hands and feet into the mud so we could fix any rows that were crooked or mis-planted by the machine.
- Growing season meant fields on fields on fields of the most verdant green on my routes to school…with lots of dragonflies soaring through the heavy summer air.
- Harvest season meant handling a Japanese sickle (kusarigama) to cut stalks of the now golden rice plants. They say Rumpelstiltskin’s hay could be turned to gold, but these rice fields when reflected in the sun–they ARE gold.
- And! Every season came with various critter friends of all shapes and sizes. I caught a frog when planting, almost biked into a car when being enamored by the swooping swallows during growing season, found a crayfish and praying mantis while harvesting, and of course, got to play with two of the wildest but sweetest kiddos in the Oda district (aka Yuki’s 3 and 6 year old.)
Through all this, I learned that a year of rice cultivation asks for LOTS of backbending…which leads me to wonder if rice culture plays a part in my sightings of super hunched baba/jiji chans walking the streets of Yakage with hands behind their backs.
Which leads me to declare–So! Much! Work! Is! Put! Into making a bowl of white rice!
But the hard work shines when a steaming bowl of freshly-harvested rice (Japan calls it shinmai which means new grain) is sitting in front of you. Never have I ever experienced rice as flavorful and sweet and plump and rich and just ALL AROUND PERFECT as the rice given to me from Yuki and Yamoto-san. And it makes it that much tastier knowing I had a part in growing each grain of rice making up my rice bowl. Rice, rice baby. Rice, rice.
I could go on and on about the wonders of rice, however, I’ll end here so you can continue with your day. But in case there’s more interest in Japan’s rice culture and rice agricultural processes, I’ll leave a few links below that lays the information out easily!
below are a few videos that capture the living cycles of the rice fields...from late spring's flourishing green to mid-autumns golden blankets, the rice fields are nothing short of nature's masterpieces.
And I must say, in terms of both the visual and the culinary rewards.
