Japan Mountain Village Encounter

A visiting friend and I explore a small village in the Japan Southern Alps and are welcomed into the home of an elderly tea farmer and his wife. The couple's son and daughter-in-law are visiting from the city and the family is busy making Japanese rice cakes called mochi. Mochi making is a very special activity in Japan and this family is making three color mochi in celebration of the Japanese holiday Girl's Day (hinamatsuri) which is a special day reserved for young girls. Girl's Day is normally celebrated on March 3rd in Japan though the people in this particular village celebrate the holiday in April due to the fact that the month of March is still rather cold and unfestive in the high mountains.Few young Japanese know how to make mochi the old fashioned way and it's a real treat for us to get to watch the family steam a special type of rice called mochikome over a wood-fired stove before pounding the rice by hand in a large wooden basin. I've tried this myself with my wife's family and I can report that the hammer is very heavy and the process much harder than it looks, as one poorly aimed swipe will strike the side of the basin and send tiny splinters of wood into the mochi and thus ruin the batch. Also, to do the job properly requires a coordinated effort between the man swinging the hammer and the woman turning the rice. Many older men in Japan take considerable pride in their ability to handle the hammer well and mochi making events within large families (like my wife's) can result in some pleasant competition between the men taking turns at the hammer. The couple in the video were very kind and even gave us a little tour of their home. The wife proudly showed us the family's collection of antique scrolls including one which depicts several significant figures in the Japanese imperial line. We can roughly date this particular scroll by the fact that the small child shown at the bottom of the scroll is the Showa emperor Hirohito who was born in 1901 and ruled Japan until the end of World War Two. The husband has lived in this village his entire life while his wife grew up in another village across the mountain and moved to this home when the couple was married in 1955. The house where the couple lives is more than 100 years old.At the start of the video we walk through rows of cultivated green tea plants. As it is almost the tea season the plants are nearly ready for harvest, and at one point you can see a shade tarp over some of the plants which is a common practice in this area and is done just before harvest in order to sweeten the tea. In the video we get a quick glimpse of a small garden with Japanese wasabi plant growing in a tiny flowing stream. Wasabi is the spicy green horseradish used to season sushi, and wasabi root requires very clean, cold water to grow, and many farmers in this area make use of the mountain's abundant rainfall to grow wasabi for their own use or to sell at small roadside stands along the highway. Many of the farmers also raise a special type of edible freshwater fish in special pools fed by the streams. Another point of interest with this old home is the fact that it includes a special indoor work area called a doma just inside the front door. The doma was where the rice pounding was being done in the video and traditionally this special area of the home was reserved for outdoor work which might need to be performed indoors in bad weather. In this case the rice pounding is being done inside in order to reduce the chance of dust mixing into the rice paste. The doma was also the area where the kitchen and bath might be located. The actual living area is raised up and away from the floor and one's shoes must be removed before entering this area of the home. Most modern Japanese homes will have only a small area within the front door called a genkan which serves the same function. It was rather dark inside the home and I was unable to properly film some wonderful sights such as the open ceiling which revealed an intricate lattice of huge hand-hewn beams with interlocking joints held together without a single nail.Before we said our thanks and departed the family filled our hands with large and delicious Japanese oranges and wished us well in our further ventures which included a visit to a lovely Shinto (native religion of Japan) shrine immediately behind the family home and a leisurely stroll through the rest of the village admiring the wonderful antique architecture.

Channel: Travel & Events
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: softypapa

Length: 09:42
Rating: 4.70
Views: 35509

Tags: japan  mochi  mochitsuki  rice  ricecake  shizuoka  softypapa  tokaido  

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