by Shilla Lee

In this blog post, I wish to share a story about a person that I met during my fieldwork.

My first day in Tamba Sasayama was in the middle of a hot and humid summer. Although it was a momentous day that set off my official fieldwork after months of preparation, I was sober from any emotional moments. The intense sunlight hit on everything from gray pedestrian roads to plastic benches at a bus stop, and as I stood under the steamy sun waiting for the host of my first two weeks stay at a central town area, my dreamy thoughts about life in rural Japan were melting on the ground.

A kei-tora (light truck) stopped just before the bus stop. An old lady with long-braided hair wearing an interesting combination of patterned shirt with patterned pants jumped out of the car. “Sheera-san”, she called me. I replied, saying her name with a question mark. 

It was a short ride about 15 minutes to her house, but she was already giving me so much information about the region such as places to eat out and visit. I told her how everything seems yukkuri (restful) as I stared at the tranquil views of vast fields and mountains outside the window. However, she was too honest a person to agree with everything I said, although I was a guest. She said that such a first impression does not last long if one tries living in this beautiful landscape. She was originally from a big city in the Kansai area before relocating to a small neighborhood close to the Sasayama Castle area three years ago, and it seemed that she had already gone through a phase of ‘de-idealization’ of rural life.

Her place was an old house built in the Showa period which, according to her, was almost 100 years old. However, there was no sign of rustiness. Flowers and trees at the entrance were in perfect shapes and the house seemed like a replica at museums. I sat in a tatami room on the first floor. She offered me a cold drink with tsuke-hana (pickled flower leaves), saying that it will cool me down. The first few days at her place were by no means easy. The house got dark around six or seven in the afternoon and fuzzy lightbulbs could not keep up with my late-night activities. In the morning, I was awake before the sunlight fully entered my room due to the sound of sweeping in the front yard.  

Apart from a new routine that changed my body rhythm, her old house felt comfortable enough to help me focus on my research. I was her first guest and she sometimes offered me things that I would not expect from a host of a guesthouse. I was fed full Japanese breakfasts, a cup of tea, and snacks, which were all free of charge. She treated me like her niece and took me to local sites or get me old books that she thought might be helpful for my research.

On a Monday, she suggested giving me a ride to Tachikui, a pottery village in the South-west of Tamba Sasayama. By then, we had formed a good relationship over rounds of beer talk at night, and our conversation was much livelier and more open. While driving, I asked her what it is like to live in Tamba Sasayama as an outsider. She said that inaka (countryside) life has not been treating her so well. She had a part-time job at a local grocery store that sells homegrown agricultural products. Although her work was quite demanding and the pay unimpressive, she was content with her current economic activities. However, having a social life was a challenge for her. The fact that she is an unmarried single woman in her 60s living alone in a big house of her own had somewhat prevented her from building a neighborly relationship with her next doors. She said that people think there should be a reason behind her relocation to the countryside, something uncanny and unconventional. She could not understand why people are so prejudiced about an old female migrant living alone and refered to them as heisai (closed). She said that it has been long enough since she moved into the neighborhood, but she still has no one around that would celebrate her birthday. I knew that she was exaggerating to a certain extent since she did have a group of friends in town. However, her feeling of loneliness seemed to derive not from the physical absence of friends but the general social atmosphere in the area that excluded anyone with a background like hers.

When my two weeks stay was coming to an end, she asked whether I would want to stay longer. I was tempted but I knew that I had to move to a new place where public transportation services were more convenient, and I eventually left her house after finding an apartment close to the train station. She drove me to my new home, and I promised her to visit her from time to time.

A few months later, on one quiet day at the end of December, she invited me to a year-end gathering at her house. I put on one of my best clothes and walked to her place thinking that I might be drinking more than usual. At the kitchen table were different kinds of appetizers to go with beer and they seemed enough for a group of people, but I soon realized that I was the only one invited. I asked whether she is seeing her family or friends. She shook her head. But we had enough stories to consume all the food she prepared. She had much to share about her life experiences and thoughts, and I was there to listen.

I was invited to her place several times afterward for drinks or to help her with her customers who did not speak Japanese. However, as I was getting busy with increased contacts with other informants, I could not visit her so often, or even if I did, I could not sit long enough to have a long conversation. What I regret the most is not being able to say my last goodbye to her in person, as I was overwhelmed with administrative tasks to wrap up at the end of my fieldwork. She did not reply to my last message, and I only found out later that she had shut down her guesthouse business.

However, this lady is not representative of the so-called urban-rural migrants that I met in Tamba Sasayama. Most of the newcomers were welcomed by the locals and were engaged in community events: retirees from adjacent cities that opened shops or restaurants in town; U-turn migrants that worked for local industries; and young and enthusiastic newcomers that started new businesses in the region. They were considered as positive stimuli to the local economy and were offered various public and private support systems. They were treated with care since they carried out the kind of economic and social activities that the locals expect from them. The old lady, on the other hand, did not receive the kind of hospitality when she first arrived in her neighborhood but instead was challenged with misconceptions based on her age, gender, and marital status. Although she was also venturing her creative energies in the region like any other urban-rural migrants in developing a beautiful retro-styled guesthouse, she was outside the local public spotlight. My days at her house lasted a little longer than two weeks, but her stories remained deep inside me throughout my fieldwork.

Shilla Lee is a PhD candidate at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. Her research focuses on the notion of rurality and creativity in regional revitalization practices and the cooperative activities of traditional craftsmen in Japan.