Japan's oldest irrigation canal lives with nature-loving people over centuries

June 30, 2017

Japan's oldest irrigation canal lives with nature-loving people over centuries

Japan's "tsuyu" rainy season from June to early July represents the start of rice planting in various parts of the country, the practice which reminds Japanese that they have lived on eating rice.
Japan's oldest irrigation canal, called Sakuta-no-Unade, has continued to water over 150 hectares of rice fields in Nakagawa town, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan.
The canal, which starts at a water gate built on the middle reaches of Nakagawa River,  has a total length of 5.5 kilometers.
The watercourse project is depicted in one of the oldest Japanese historical books, Nihon Shoki, compiled in the early 8th century. Precisely when the canal was dug remains unseen, but researchers surmise the oldest part of the canal system dates back to the second to third centuries, because a big ancient tomb excavated near the canal is believed to have been built for who ruled the area around the period.
The Sakuta canal is famous because of an episode linked to Empress Jingu, the legendary figure who appears in the book.
When people had difficulty cutting out through a big rock standing on the canal route, she prayed to the god that the rock would be removed, then a thunderbolt fell onto the rock and tore it apart.
The canal represents an important tourist asset for Nakagawa town, located south of Fukuoka City, the prefectural capital.
The town has the dual jobs of preserving the environment and landscape around the canal but at the same time, keeping the irrigation system in an active, workable condition.
If the canal bank is protected with modern stone walls only for the purpose of increasing convenience, will the landscape be well preserved?, a researcher doubts.
Water parks built along the canal enable people to get
them feel close to the aquatic environment. Nature-loving people are hoping to see an innovative design which will make it possible to preserve the historic and cultural value of the watercourse while maintaining and enhancing its irrigation functions.

Citizens pushing for rebirth project for Inokashira Ponds as Tokyo's oasis

May 30, 2017

Citizens pushing for rebirth project for Inokashira Ponds as Tokyo's oasis



The scenic Inokashira Ponds park has been loved by Tokyo citizens as a refreshing oasis in the big metropolis. The park, owned by the Tokyo metropolitan government, extends on an area of 380,000 square meters in Musashino and Mitaka in the western suburbs of Tokyo. In the center of the area are three ponds with a total area of 43,000 square meters, and in one of the bonds, people can enjoy riding small pleasure boats.
The Inokashira park turns 100 this year, overcoming hard years linked to environmental pollution.
Until around the 1960s, an estimated 10,000 tons of pure spring water had been gushing out a day in the area. But the springs then almost dried up, because a lot of wells were dug around the park to draw underground water.
Park operators had to use underground water to keep water for the ponds. But this failed to maintain the ecology in the ponds in a proper condition and as a result, various introduced species began to dispel indigenous species.
Toward the 100th anniversary, the park operators and a group of citizens got together to launch a rebirth campaign for the park. The operation features the "kaibori" dredging work from winter to early spring.
The first kaibori work was carried out in 2013, followed by the second one in 2015.
The third kaibori operation is scheduled to be held later this year. aimed at improving the quality of water in the ponds and getting rid of introduced aquatic species.
The operation has so far contributed to removing many harmful foreign species in the ponds, helping to get the ecology back to the original condition.
The dredging has also helped to restore the original life cycle from small aquatic creatures and waterweeds to indigenous fish and birds, such as a crucian carp and a dab-chick.
The kaibori volunteer team includes 40 citizens registered as regular members.
The operation starts with catching aquatic creatures in the dredged ponds and dividing them into indigenous ones and foreign ones. After that, the pond bottom is exposed to the sun for several days to clean up the environment. Then, water is funneled back to the ponds, and only indigenous species are returned to the ponds.
Unstable weather continued in spring this year in Tokyo and neighboring regions. But people are having difficulty adjusting themselves to unusually hot weather in recent days. This makes them feel the importance of the refreshing aquatic environment even more strongly in their daily life.

Azalea featuring flower events enliven people in Kurume, southwestern Japan

April 30, 2017

Azalea featuring flower events enliven people in Kurume, southwestern Japan


Kurume City, southwestern Japan, becomes something like a town-wide flower park dominated by light and red purple azaleas around this time of the year.
Azalea, or tsutsuji in Japanese, is known as the city's flower, and events featuring the flower are held at various places from April to May.
The biggest tsuttsuji-featuring event takes place at a scenic riverside park.
The origin of azeleas in Japan, a wild one, is said to have come from Kagoshima in the southern part of Kyushu, southnwestern Japan. The original Japanese azalea, called Kirishima, spread to many parts of Japan early in the 17th century in the Ero era, when a gardening boom occurred among wealthier people.
Charmed with its beautiful colors, horticulturists tried to grow various seedlings. Decades of endeavors to develop more beautiful species followed, and in the first half of the 19th century, a samurai in the Arima clan in Kurume came up with a unique moss-based nursing method.
This contributed to growing new species with vivid colors and small, thickly blooming flowers.
Species developed with his method became to be called "Kurume Tsutsuji" in the Meiji era. The Kurume Tsutsuji brand then caught on well with flower lovers across Japan.
A main part of the event at the riverside park, opened in 1989 in commemoration of the centennial of the town's inauguration as a city. is an annual flower and plant market, where visitors can find their favorite ones. On every weekend, a gardening clinic is open at a booth at the event site. One day, a middle-age couple were asking a senior gardener at the booth how to grow a certain flower.
Satisfied with the gardener's advice, the wife said, "Thank you, sir. Your information was very much useful. We have to write it down."
The name of Kurume Tsutsuji has come to be widely known among people in the city, an old castle town with a population of about 300,000. But most of them little know that the brand is linked to the nursing method developed by the Kurume samurai, Sakamoto Genzo. A program to introduce Sakamoto's feat was provided in an event at a different site.
Kurume is home to Bridgestone Corp., the world's largest automotive tire manufacturer, which has continued philanthropic activities for local people over years.
Azalea flowers, which can be found here and there in the city, have become an important part of Kurume citizens' daily life.  If the Ero era samurai's work is well remembered among them, azeleas should be even more charming and attractive to them.

Dolphin watching cruise entertains ecotourism fans in Amakusa, southwestern Japan

March 30, 2017

Dolphin watching cruise entertains ecotourism fans in Amakusa, southwestern Japan

Relatively small bottlenose dolphins can be seen almost throughout the year in waters off Futae Port in Amakusa, Kyushu, southwestern Japan, but the spot is bustling with many ecotourism fans in the high season from spring to summer.
Futae faces a waterway lying between the northern coasts of the Amakusa Islands and the Shimabara Peninsula. A habitat of 200 to 300 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, the area is known as one of the best four dolphin watching points in Japan.
Eight different operators run dolphin watching boats, usually five times a day, but more frequently in the holiday seasons. Charges for the cruise are 2,500 yen for adults and 1,500 yen for children.
"The encounter rate is as high as 99 percent all the seasons." This is a catch phrase for the Futae dolphin watching cruise. Should passengers meet no dolphins, they can get on for a retry free of charge.

Watching points can be reached in five to 10 minutes after leaving the port.
Passengers who joined the cruise late in March saw herds of 10 or so gray bottlenose dolphins jump up from the sea from time to time while shining triangular dorsal fins. They breached quickly above the sea, at so close a place that water sprays on passengers, and quickly disappeared into the sea.

The waterway off Futae in Itsuwa Town, Kumamoto Prefecture, is a rich fishing ground, but this means it is also a good feeding area for many dolphins. Local fishermen use no fishing nets. This is why no cases occur in which dolphins get caught in fishing nets in the waters.
Wild dolphins and people coexist peacefully in the Amakusa area, a cruise operator says.
After breaching above the sea, dolphins sometimes swam ahead of the boats as if they lead the way.
In Japan, small dolphins had been caught in drive-fishing in various areas until early in the 20th century. Drive-fishing is still used as a traditional method at certain places, but the practice has been internationally criticized as a cruel act.
Toward the end of the one-hour cruise off Futae, most passengers looked satisfied with the exciting experience.
Asked by a passenger on the return to the port, the skipper said, "Today's cruise was so,so. Sometimes, we can see even more dolphins."
"We can also see cute baby dolphins with mothers from around April on," he said. "We hope more people will come and enjoy the heart-warming time with wild dolphins."

Open-air doll display seen to lure more tourists to old castle town in southwestern Japan

February 26, 2017

Open-air doll display seen to lure more tourists to old castle town in southwestern Japan

The small open-air theater for "hina" dolls became a playground for kids on the fine weekend in late February.
The theater was actually a flight of stone steps toward up to Kuromon Gate, the publicly designated cultural asset, to the Akizuki Castle ruins in Asakura City, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan.
The event was timed to coincide with the traditional Hima Matsuri festival for the Girls Day of March 3.
The hina doll display in Akizuki started in 2016 as an off-season event to attract more tourists to the old castle town.
Big collections of hina dolls are displayed as attractions at many tourist spots across the country around this time of the year.
This kind of event has become less rarer than before, but open-air exhibitions of hina dolls cannot be seen everywhere.
"We have this year a total of 250 hina dolls, contributed by 60 families in Asakura City, " an organizer said at the display site.

The dolls stand on a red carpet put on the stone steps, and on both sides of the carpet are big paper cranes, to be lit as illuminations at night.
"We place the dolls on the carpet and take them back every day, but we do not bring them out when rainfall is expected."

The hina doll display was organized as a part of the "Hina Meguri" tour in Akizuki, in which tourists can collect stamps at 18 places, mainly restaurants and shops, while strolling around the castle ruins.
When they collect seven stamps on the form, they can have souvenirs by lottery.
Asakura is a largely rural, calm town, but it boasts of being geographically close to major cities, such as Fukuoka, the most populous city in Kyushu, southwestern Japan.
"We have a lot of tourists here in Akizuki in the cherry blossom viewing season around April and in the autumn colored leaves season, but we want to have more tourists to Akizuki in other seasons, too, in order to help boost the town as a whole," the organizer said.

Small Shinto shrine draws worshipers on increase of aging-related eye diseases in Japan

January 25, 2017

Small Shinto shrine draws worshipers on increase of aging-related eye diseases in Japan

Westerners who visited Japan toward the end of the self-isolation era under the Tokugawa shogunate regime in the middle of the 19th century found that lots of Japanese have eye trouble. A Dutch navy surgeon, J.C.L. Pompe van Meerdervoort, attributed the phenomenon to erroneous methods of treatment used on many patients. Pompe educated many Japanese medical students during his five years of stay in Japan in the 1850s.
Advanced modern skills of ophthalmology introduced from Western countries with the start of the Meiji era made it possible for Japanese eye doctors to cure difficult eye diseases.
The level of Japanese oculists continued to be enhanced further since then. But Japanese eye doctors have come to see an increase in aging-related eye diseases, such as cataract and glaucoma, following the aging of society in recent decades.
The small Shinto shrine, located in Tanushimaru Town in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, is named after Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the mythical god of the moon who is believed to provide divine favors to those who have eye trouble.
Rites for the deity are held three times a year, on the 23rd day of January, May and September. "Tsukuyomi Shrine is so small that few worshipers are seen on ordinary days, and if you go in a car, you should be careful because there is no space for parking. This is a recommendation I got from a friend of mine, a resident of Tanushimaru, when I asked him how the shrine is," said a worshiper, who is in his 60s. He visited the shrine for the first time, because he had a cataract operation on the right eye last year, he said.
On the day of rite in January, the shrine compound was filled with dozens of worshipers, mostly elderly, in a festive mood. Ten or so stalls carrying fast foods and sweets were set up on approaches to the hall of worship.
The worshipers were seen receiving lucky charms and sacred sake after making money offerings to the deity.
Tsukuyomi, the moon god, is said to save those who have eye diseases, because he was born from the right eye of God Izanagi, said a leader of a local residents' group who was on hand to greet worshipers.
Izanagi is one of the most important deities in the Japanese myth along with his wife deity, Izanami. It is said that various deities were born from Izanagi's body when he purified himself in the river after returning from a dreadful trip to the land of the dead.

As the waves of the clouds grow in the heavenly sea, the moon ship is seen rowing to hide itself in the glittering starry forest. 
(A personal translation)

This is a waka poem made by Kakinomoto Hitomaro, the poet who made a great contribution to the Japanese waka poetry in the seventh century.
The timing of the rite day at Tsukuyomi Shrine is related to the Edo-period practice in which people gathered regularly at night to pray to the moon of the 23rd day, which rises around midnight.
The life span of Japanese is getting longer and longer, and the average life span of Japanese women has grown to 87 years old. But the life of the eyes should be about 70 years at best, an expert says.
Tsukuyomi Shrine in Tanushimaru, a largely rural community, is one of about 10 Shinto shrines named after the moon god. The mythical deity appears to be telling Japanese that they should be more careful about the health of the eyes in today's stressful daily life.

Japan's 5th largest city lures young families with neat, compact living environment

December 22, 2016 

Japan's 5th largest city lures young families with neat, compact living environment

The park is located amid the fashionable Tenjin district, one of the most bustling areas in Fukuoka City, Kyushu, southwestern Japan, but it used to be a haunt of homeless people with unsafe dark spots here and there. Local business owners and people got together to improve the environment around the park with the help of researchers and designers, and their years of efforts contributed to fully redeveloping it as a comfortable urban park in 2012.
Kego Park becomes a small illuminated amusement world in the winter time. Visitors enjoy skating and watching various events and shows.
Kids and their mothers and fathers can also enjoy riding on a colorfully decorated electric train.
Operating the train ride is a team of five young male and female attendants wearing the Santa Claus costume. "We don't have many customers on weekdays, but we are busy all the time every weekend," said one attendant. Charges for the 5-minute ride are 300 yen for kids 5 years old or older and 200 yen for younger kids, with no charge for toddlers.
"We have to run the train almost uninterruptedly during our service on weekend. Our young passengers sometimes don't like to get off after finishing the ride, and they ask their parents to let them ride more," he said smilingly.
The Kego Park project is a success model of refurbishment in Tenjin in the heart of Fukuoka, as the city's population has grown continuously in recent years. City officials proudly announced in February this year that Fukuoka became Japan's fifth biggest city in 2015, with its population growing 5 percent in the past decade to 1,538,000.
Fukuoka, the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, follows Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya and Sapporo in that order.
The influx of new citizens from around the city is attributed to various reasons, but people familiar with the situation equally cite Fukuoka's compactness as a city.
Despite its big size, the city has various urban systems and facilities available within an easy reach. Among them are an airport, a subway network, a ball park with a dome, a succor stadium, a bay side amusement area and a scenic seashore. Business areas which accommodate public offices and other buildings and shopping areas are geographically close to each other.
Because many brand businesses have offices and shops in Fukuoka, items and goods newly released in Tokyo quickly become available in the city.
The neat, compact living environment makes Fukuoka even more attractive to young men and women, including those with children.
Fukuoka's population growth is quite unusual at a time when Japan's society is aging due to a declining birthrate. Its expansion is not an entirely welcome phenomenon, some experts say. Actually, not a few citizens are said to be unenthusiastic about its population growth.
The city's prosperity comes along with years of population decreases in many other parts of Kyushu. Observers also say many big commercial projects in the city center are led by outside capital businesses, noting these projects will not necessarily contribute to boosting the local economy.
Kego Park is called Tenjin Hikari (light) Square in the winter time, from late November to early January. The facilities and services to be provided during the period are managed by the "We Love Tenjin Council," a group of businesses operating in the Tenjin district.
The illuminated train runs from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekend. "Our job is tough but exciting, We can see many kids and parents, and it's fun," said the train attendant.