I finally decided to venture out on the old bicycle because I needed some lemon juice for dinner. The grocery store is only a couple of miles down the road but the roads are narrow and I’m not quite adjusted to riding on the left side – I can’t keep track of which way people are coming from. So at a leisurely pace (grandma speed) I set out on my little adventure. There is a faint whiff of pesticide lingering in the air, the fields all around are a beautiful bright green and there is a wide expanse of sky enclosed by a horizon of distant hills. A few white egrets gracefully fly above the fields, no doubt searching for unsuspecting frogs. I ride past our fields and the neighbor’s greenhouses where the strawberries have just been planted for the winter crop.
The big gray mill looms off to the left. It looks about as ugly as what it represents right now. We are losing about $4000 a year on our “farm” because the prices have fallen so low. Taka says it would be cheaper to leave the land fallow and buy rice. The soybean fields are big and bushy as they reach their peak before the late autumn harvest. In a couple of weeks we should be able to cut some green branches off for “edamame”. The kids’ elementary school looks the same as always. All the public schools are constructed from basically the same blueprint, so there is never a question as to what building you are looking at. Ours stands alone surrounded by fields of rice. A row of uniformed children with their red caps and matching book bags marches out the gate. Each “block” has a walking group and the kids are required to walk in lines to and from school. The older children scold the younger ones who dawdle or step out of line. A couple minutes beyond the school are the lotus fields. Lotus root or “renkon” stuffed with hot yellow mustard and deep fried in batter (karashi renkon) is a specialty of our area. The fields add variety to the texture and color of the countryside, with their big umbrella-like leaves looking very tropical and lush. I often wish I could be a frog or fairy just for the chance to sit under one of those wonderful leaves. The leaves look so cool and inviting but they are growing in a field of waist-deep soupy mud.
From here the road narrows from a one- and-a-half-lane to barely a one-lane road that doesn’t have a straight line anywhere in it. I have to go carefully because the houses along this lane are surrounded by tall walls, so it is impossible to see what is coming out of the driveways. I speed up as I go by the slaughterhouse- this is one of the horsemeat factories that was recently written up by PETA. I avoid shopping early in the morning so that I don’t have to hear the sounds that come from this place. I used to teach at the school around the corner and early in the morning I would hear the horses, very upset horses, on their way to their doom. The horsemeat shop is next to the grocery store and this is another highly prized and high priced specialty of our area. People eat horsemeat raw with fresh ginger and soy sauce (basashi). The intestines are used in curry and other stew-like dishes. These animals are not raised for meat. Most were working animals or race horses who have outlived their usefulness. I won't comment here - I'm just saying I get the chills when I cycle by.
This area is also where the “burakamin” live, a minority group considered social outcasts in pre-democratic Japan. They handled tanning and undertaking traditionally and even though segregation has long since been outlawed, there is still a stigma attached to these families and they continue to have low-status jobs or jobs relating to butchering and leather making. In our town, this is a noticeably poorer section of town.
Around the last corner there is the Empress pachinko parlor (Japanese pinball). Pachinko has been around since the turn of the century but was a great diversion for people after the War – kind of a noisy mind-numbing activity that helps you escape the moment. It has grown into a huge business and there are fancy pachinko parlors everywhere and they are always crowded even in our small town. I just try to be very careful in the parking lots around sore losers who angrily leave the lots because they just lost their monthly pension.
I grab my few items and learn that the stores do not give out plastic bags! Of course I brought my own but this is a good thing. They charge you extra if you need a plastic sack. It is real incentive to bring your own! They also leave packing boxes out so you can use those and recycle them yourself at no extra charge. There really is an effort to cut back on plastic bags. Japan had a bad reputation a few years ago for senseless over bagging and so this is a welcome change.
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