KJ BLOGOLOGY

Beyond Flower Power
(From KJ #68)

Ken Elwood and his favorite working shirt...

First published in 1968, the Whole Earth Catalog put The Revolution right there in your hands. Not just “access to tools and ideas” but a large-format, soft-cover, fully-integrated synthesis of everything that Stewart Brand and his Co-Evolution Quarterly* crew considered essential to an informed, committed and meaningful life on our finite planet. Meta-information on the theory and practice of wholistics, in one brilliantly cohesive publication. Plus proof that whatever your personal quest entailed, you were not alone.

Forty years on, people are still seeking “voluntary simplicity” and still need tools, concepts and community. The best meta-information source these days is your own constantly-updated do-it-yourself Whole Earth Catalog — a.k.a. the Internet. In addition, the Web has a transcendently empowering advantage over the ink-and-paper paradigm — by allowing like-minded people to directly share experiences and ideas, and brainstorm common concerns.

KJ’s Rambler-at-Large Bob Brady recently visited our old friend Sogyu’s annually-expanding off-the-grid alternative-lifestyle Yama-uto festival (photos) over the hills from Kyoto in Kutsuki, and wrote it up in his Pure Land Mountain blog [archive here, scroll down to Sept 18]. (Sogyu was interviewed in KJ’s Kyoto Speaks double issue back in 1991).

Ken Elwood, whose blog Rewilding in Japan is listed among Bob’s links on PLM, responded with a thoughtful comment on his vision for the future of Japan’s depopulated countryside: “Our Return to the Satoyama: To live without money, oil, superfluous industry, and politicians.” An excerpt:

Without energy-intensive machinery, farming needs the hands and eyes of internally-motivated skilled workers, and with that kind of attention, we can get much better yields with a variety of plants and animals in symbiosis. With a lower population density, people can be closer to nature; hunting and foraging from habitats that are carefully maintained to maximize human food and general abundance. Country folk can use and enjoy the handiwork of farmers going back hundreds of years into Japanese history... Put simply, food and water will come by way of traditional satoyama style communities.

Rewilding in Japan features over a hundred fascinating postings on diverse topics including “Japanese Hippies in the Country” [Sogyu's "Ecovillage"], “Homeschooling in Japan” [a link to an FAQ by an advocate in Himeji], “Tune in, Drop Out, Grow Rice” [actually a link to a video, many comments] and “Beachfront Mountain Properties” (on the impact of global warming in Japan):

Imagine Lake Biwa as an ocean inlet and your remote mountainside abode as beachfront property. Imagine where over 30 million seacoast folks living within 10 meters of the average sea level will be migrating to over the next 20-30 years. Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya average only a couple of meters above sea level right now. The subways are below sea level already...

Valuable introductions and links are also provided to various other rurally-oriented blogs and websites. But it gets even more interesting when Elwood posts his items to Gaijinpot.com’s Japan Forum. On his long-running thread on Countryside Living in Japan (which began with a request for pointers on buying rural property), he discusses aspects of reinhabiting Japan’s inaka with an eclectic mix of knowledgeable regulars and other visitors. All contribute additional links to further sites / relevant material — pointing, incidentally, to some of Bob Brady’s pieces, like “The Country Side of Life,” as featured in KJ’s Inaka special bookzine issue (also posted on KJ’s website), and interviews from Andy Couturier’s upcoming book A Different Kind Of Luxury, (see also an extract in KJ #51, “Living the Abundance of Less”). Also mentioned, the Chiiori Project (also featured in KJ #51, “Seeking Shadows in Iya Valley.”) [For an overview, there's a very vast & useful index here]

Also posted and discussed are myriad jottings on every aspect of homesteading and natural farming in a specifically Japanese setting — a lot of practical advice, occasional rants, and much food for thought, including exchanges on quotes from other media sources such as The Daily Yomiuri:

The Environment Ministry defines “satoyama,” a traditionally cultivated environment that lies between a village and mountainous area, as secondary forests around human settlements. “Satochi” is defined as areas that include farmland, irrigation systems and grassland. According to the ministry, there are 8 million hectares of satoyama and 7 million hectares of satochi in Japan, which together occupy 40 percent of the country’s 378,000 square kilometers.

Such areas have traditionally been maintained by local farmers, who tended woods and the areas around their fields for their own benefit. In the past, they would chop down trees for firewood and charcoal, and harvest bamboo shoots in the spring. Mature bamboo was used to make charcoal and handcrafted items, while fallen leaves were used as organic fertilizer for farmland

According to the government, as of April, 738 of the country’s 1,804 municipalities were experiencing depopulation. These municipalities cover 54 percent of the country in terms of area, but were home to just 8.4 percent of Japan’s 127.8 million people.

In addition, about 60 percent of Japan’s 3.1 million farmers are aged 65 or older.

(link here)

Among other connections: WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) Japan:

WWOOF Japan members can get below the veneer of tourism and away from their daily grind, have genuine and meaningful experiences with people, society and culture, in all kinds of walks of life, in hundreds of locations all over Japan. Eat and think organically! More than 260 hosts nationwide represent a rich diversity of experience and adventure, examples being organic farming, health and healing centers, pottery and arts, building and restoring traditional homesteads, organic restaurants, martial arts, dealing with animals, Japanese tea house, pension in ski fields area, eco village, brewing and production of foods, fishing, bee keeping, nature guide centre, centers for the environment, sea kayaking, and more. Some hosts are near cities such as Tokyo and some even in the centre of cities.

Another valuable posting: “That old NHK documentary narrated by David Attenborough, called Satoyama, is now available for viewing (in 6 parts) on YouTube” [with useful Japanese subtitles...]

If the sub-theme of this issue inspires you to look into countryside Japan, the above resources are definitely worth checking out. The possibilities, both online and off, are literally endless.

*A lot of classic articles from Whole Earth Review (successor to Co-Ev Quarterly) are posted here.
Example: Tools are the Revolution, by Kevin Kelly, Winter 2000 issue...

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