Hijiori Fun Night

I'm very happy to say that finally the guests are coming back to my hometown, Hijiori Onsen. April and May was terrible with very few guests and we all feared for the future of Hijiori, but this month, it seems that there are more "Okyaku san" than last two month. 

Hijiori is putting a lot of effort to entertain our guests! From June to August, we have some kind of events every weekend. These are a few examples.

The first pictures are from "Mukashi Gatari" "Folk Tale telling" about 2 weeks ago. This building is an old post office. It was built in Taisho period, in the early 1900s. It's such a charming little building. Inside the post office, we had a story telling night. Mr. Kumagai, local folklorist told us a few short stories about Hijiori, and some funny stories from old times. All the guests seemed to love it!

And these pictures are from last Saturday when we had "Okami's Dance"! "Okami" is the female Ryokan owner, and in Japanese Ryokan, Okami are the "faces" of Ryokan. We call them "Okami-san" with respect. 

In Hijiori, we have 22 Okamisan in each Ryokan. They have "Okami's group" and they practice dancing every month. Last Saturday, they danced in front of the old post office. I was really happy to see so many guests! There must have been more than 100 audience. All smiling and happy (with the Sake we served for free??)

After Okami's dance, they invited the audience to join and dance together. It was such a fun night!

This Saturday, July 2nd, we'll have a special concert by a pro-keyboard player. Next weekend, another Folk tale night... 

Here is the Hijiori event calender (Sorry all in Japanese)

http://hijiori.jp/cal/cal.html

Planting SOYA in Naruko Onsen (Miyagi Pref)

On June 18th, I went to Naruko Onsen to join the "TOJI + SOYA" event. Naruko Onsen is in Miyagi Prefecture (East of Yamagata) and is one of the few places in Miyagi that still has "Toji" culture.  This day, about 70 people joined DAIZU(Soya) TOJI tour from Tokyo!























We, Team Mogami were asked to serve special lunch for the participants!! 


5 Mogami farmers joined the event. They sold their products such as Warabi, Shiitake and Black Rice.



I promoted Hijiori Onsen by wearing this special Happi uniform. I was happy to know that so many of Tokyo participants actually had heard of Hijiori :-)



It was so hot!! While everyone was planting Soya, we were all busy preparing lunch!


チャンチャカチャーン！This is the Pround Mogami Lunch! On the Magnolia leave is 2 Onigiri, made of white and black rice/ Warabi pickes / fried Fuki and carrots / Mizu pickles" These are all wild vegetables from Mogami mountains. / baked Shiitake/ and The soup contains potatos, mountain vegetables and "controversial" whale meat.  (nobody here thinks it's controversial though since whale meat has been part of the diet here since anybody could remember)








Yeah! The event was a big success! Everybody liked our lunch! みんなで　はい　チーズ！

TOJI article on Yamagata News Paper!

Yeah! The article I wrote about "TOJI" was published on the evening newspaper of  Yamagata Shimbun 「山形新聞」 on June 15th.


I wrote about how small "TOJI" towns like Hijiori can offer very attractive experiences  for foreign travelers. I wrote about  the visit of Greg (Asutralia) and Luca (France) in January. 


(Luca, Greg! You guys are famous now !)


You don't know what TOJI is? Check out our website!


http://www.mogami-genki.net/touji-lab/en/index.html

Life of Hijiorian Kids

My family have a small garden where we grow vegetables. This year, we planted some tomatoes, perillas（シソ）cucumbers, and watermelon. It's my nephews' job to water the vegetables. 


Water is running all around Hijiori town like veins. These little streams have two very important purposes. One is to put out the fire, and another is to melt the humongous amount of snow we have in severe winter. 
 
So fetching water might seem like an easy task. BUT, the thing is, many families dump extra "hot spring"water in these streams. 


Vegetables wouldn't like hot spring as much as we do. so my nephews go to the further stream to fetch "real" water.




Yesterday, they were having too much fun, watering everywhere with bear feet!

 6 year old Shun, holding lucky 4 leaf clover that we found!














After coming home, Shun decided to wash his school shoes!


This time, using hot spring :-) coming out of the tube.

At night, they begged their mom to use the Karaoke machine. 


On August 20th, we'll have an annual "Karaoke contest" (のどじまん) in Hijiori. Every year we have many participants from in and out of Hijiori. 


Last year my 9 year old nephew, Taka, sang "Ponho" theme song with his friend and won a prize (About 3,000yen!) so he is super motivated this year. Of course he decided to sing alone so that he doesn't have to split the prize (!) He already decided his song and practicing everyday!!


Gambare Taka!

Rice Planting (Taue) Dance

Yesterday was annual "Rice Planting Dance"day たうえおどり in Aikai area, Okura village. Aikai and Shimizu are the center of Okura village where the village office and clinics etc are situated. 


When I was little my grandparents had a house here so I have seen these dances. I remember these scary looking loud dancers dancing at the entrance of my grand parents' house. I was always hiding behind my grand mother :-)



This is a dance to pray for the good rice harvest of the year. The dance has been succeeded from one generation to another for more than 400years!  These young dancers and the band (flute, taiko) visit 150 houses in Aikai and Shimizu. They dance in every single house to bring them good fortune. and of course, at every house, food and drinks are served.




The dance starts early in the morning, and it finishes late at night. I visited my friend's house at around 2:00PM, and many young men were already tipsy :-) We can't blame them!


Even though this dance could be potentially super attractive tourist attraction, very few people know about it. It is a very local festival. I like that.. But at the same time I want everyone to know that my village has such fantastic tradition...

Movie: Taue Dance
http://www.yamagata-furusatojuku.jp/cgi-bin/site_text/9/10902212105051058_b.asx

world's smallest festival !?

 Fudo-Myoo is a god of fire that is worshiped all over Japan. 


People call it "Ofudo-san" with affection. 

In my hometown, Hijiori Onsen, there are countless little temples and shrines, and the maintenance of this Ofudo-san is the responsibility of my family and the family who we call "Shimbun-ya san" because they deliver newspapers. 

May 28th was annual festival of Ofudo-san. 

Shimbunya-san and my mother made yummy local cuisine and put them nicely in the lacker ware and brought them to Ofudo-san. 


All day, Shimbunya-san and I sat in this little temple that allows only a few people to be seated at a time.


Local people arrived with offerings (money, sake, and food). We served them "Omiki" which is purifying sake and chatted a little. (great excuse to drink during the day!)

Behind the temple, there is another Ofudo-san which turned out to be out of reach. 


There is a small water fall up the little stream. In front of that is a huge rock. On top of the rock quietly sits another "Ofudo-san". 

We wanted to get there but snow and huge pieces of woods prevented us from going any further. 

So we decided to pray a little afar, we lit the candle, we offered sake and a bit of seasoned rice on a leaf.  


Shimbun-ya 's Oba-chan told me that this festival used to be quite big. People used to drink sake and dance all day in front of the temple.


Now many local young people don't even know about this festival. People are getting less and less religious... I feel like it's my obligation to preserve this precious little temple, and this world's smallest festival :-) 

Okura Village Volunteer Guide part 2

Early in the morning, a public announcement from the village speaker woke me up.  "A mother bear and two baby bears found in Asahidai"


Asahida is a highland of Hijiori where were were planning to visit for a Volunteer Gude training... For a second I thought maybe today's training would be canceled but it didn't take long for me to realize that people around here don't plan things around bears. 


This is a veiw sopt of Hijiori. Hijiori is a caldera created by the volcanic explosion about 10,000years ago. The caldera had been filled with water so the whole place was like a huge lake...


This is Hijiori's famous "power spot" Jizogura. The legend says that about 1,200years ago, an pilgrim got lost in the mountains in Hijiori, and met a guy (some say a young monk) who was an embodiment of Buddhist bodhisattva. The monk said that when he was suffering from broken elbow (Hiji-Ori) he soaked himself in the hot spring he found, and was cured immediately  The monk asked the pilgrim to stay in this place and spread the word about this miraculous hot spring.  


It is said that the embodiment of Bodhisattva was living in Jizogura. Later, the convince pilgrim decided to dwell in the same spot. That is the start of Hijiori(Elbow Broken)Onsen.


Jizogura is located on the steep cliff and it's a bit hard to get there,but it is absolutely worth it!!! The view from Jizogura is magnificent, Many people come here to pray for safe baby birth, and for a good match making.



After lunch, we kept walking and walking. now we are on our way to the ruin of Okura coal mine.


I absolutely fell in love with this spot. Old coal mine factory is still there, The walls crumbling down. The greenish blue color of the bricks must be due to chemicals. 


The mine was closed in 1959 but there were times when about 3,000 people lived here. There were houses, shops, schools, bars. There was a life here. Hijiori Onsen was also quite busy at the time, many mine workers and their families visited Hijiori. 

This is Asahidai, Bears' favorite play ground. We used megaphones to make siren noise to keep away bears. Luckily,we didn't encounter bears, but instead, we encountered Mr. Chonan,who reported the village office about the bears in that morning. He said he was picking mountain vegetables, and when he got out of the forest, he found 3 bears playing under a wooden chair!


He said proudly. "I was the first person to spot the bears 4  years in a row."


This time of the year, all the Oji-chans and Oba-chans look so happy and energetic because after a long long winter, finally they get to go into the mountains and pick wild vegetables. Later they sell them and get good money. 


Of course everybody is scared of bears, but nothing can stop them from going into the spring mountains... a real gold mine !