Takigahara is a quaint farming village nestled
between mountains. There are plenty of ways toexperience its rich nature, culture and thelifestyles of our inhabitants. We have made deep
connections with people not only in our region
and the rest of Japan, but also with many people
all over the world, so that we can learn fromeach other about how to continue to live
peacefully and prosperously within our
respective communities. Doing this is one of ourgreatest joys, and so we have decided to makethis booklet.

Learning from the village, playing in the mountains
Come visit Takigahara and our villagers!

October 22nd, 2020
Satoyama Shizen Gakkō, Komatsu, Takigahara
Head of SchoolHeiichi Kawabata
EditorTokihiro Sasahara
Translation
Orion FaceyAssistants
Shigeru Shōzu Yutaka Yamashita Nobuko Yamashita
Takashi Kitade Yōichi Naiki Akiko Katō Taihei Fukuoka
Satoko Taniyama Shinya Nomura Naoko Inoue
Yurika Hanashima
Takigahara Chief
Shūji Higashi

Takigahara Quarry

Introduction: Activities at Takigahara Satoyama Eco School
It’s a little tricky to translate satoyama into a foreign
language. The literal translation is mountain village,
although there are many activities and notions that theJapanese word evokes which are not encapsulated bythis.

Satoyama: The original landscape of Japansurrounded by abundant natural beauty, wherehistory and beliefs have been handed down

Mt. Kurakake and its rural landscape

Satoyama – hands-on
interaction

In Satoyama, learn and play, come into contact
with nature and history, and strive to preserve thenatural environment.

Satoyama – survey ofliving things
Satoyama – animal
symbiosis

Interact with dragonflies and insects, and learn
about symbiosis with nature.
Seek symbiosis between residents and wildanimals, such as wild boars and deer.

Satoyama – ecoagriculture

Practice organic, chemical-free farming and otherenvironmentally friendly forms of agriculture.
Learn how to use biomass in agriculture.

Satoyama – cuisinedevelopment
Satoyama Shokudo
CanteenDevelop products that incorporate abundantingredients and food culture traditions.
Provide food that utilizes locally produced
ingredients, and make spot sales of farm products.

Other activities

Satoyama glocal promotion, Satoyama tourism
support, Satoyama business creation, herb
1cultivation, etc.

Arched Stone Bridge – Why don’t stone bridges fall down?

１–１

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, Falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

In Takigahara there are five stone bridges. Because they
are extremely durable, they are still usable even after
more than one-hundred years since they were built.
They have improved the quality of people’s lives, andthey blend in so pleasantly with the nature, making forvery picturesque scenery.

ロンドン橋落ちる 落ちる 落ちる
ロンドン橋落ちる さあどうしましょう

When you place something heavy on the stones, itgenerates pressure on the bridge. Because the stones
push against each other, they create friction which
prevents the stones from falling.
   



They won’t
fall

Nice andtight

They will fall!

Plop!

  

Enjoying a visit to a stone bridgewith visitors from overseas
2２－１

The People who Love Mt. Kurakake
We talked to Mr. and Mrs. Yamashita:
Playing around Mt. Kurakake since I was I child, and starting a youth groupwith the activity “my town, your town, getting back in touch with our home”,
was what started it all, I reckon. There are three things that I’ve continued
throughout my life: my gratitude to the mountains, my desire to contribute tosociety, and the forward-facing philosophy of “doing what feels right.”
Sixty years ago I used to make a living by making charcoal and cultivating
mushrooms, but the years have started to take a toll on me now. I’ve come totreat Mt. Kurakake as a treasure of the land, and now I strive to protect it assuch.

Mountain school, at the peak of Mt. Kurakake

Moving forward, I hope to promote Green Tourism, environmental protection,
along with all of the members of the community.

Our friends from abroad coming toclimb the mountains.

Mt. Kurakake trivia. Can you answer these questions? (Questions by Yukata Yamashita)
What is the peak elevation of Mt. Kurakake?
634m
478m
328m
3193m
Across the country there are twenty-one mountains with the name Mt. Kurakake. The tallest one is in Yamanashi
Prefecture at 2037m, and the smallest one is in Akita Prefecture at 89m. Is this true or false?
TrueFalse
Which of these dragonflies, which can be observed in Mt. Kurakake’s Dragonfly Paradise, is the world’s smallest
species?
Golden-ringed dragonfly (oniyanma)
Damselfly (itotonbo)
Scarlet dwarf (hacchōtonbo)
Wide-bellied skimmer (harabirotonbo)
Taking care of Mt. Kurakake – volunteer activities4２－２ The People from Ancient Generations Climbed the Mountains as a Place of Worship and Spiritual Training

Mountain climber and doctor Michiko Imai, first woman
to successfully climb the three great north face walls.
(NHK radio seminar)

In Japan, September 11th is known as “Mountain Day.” Japan isthe first country to recognise a day for mountains. We hopethat other countries also celebrate Mountain Day, so that wecan pass down our appreciation of our bountiful naturallandscapes to next generations!
Above, walking between the rice fields, with abeautiful view of Mt. Kurakake. Below, a rather
sad scene disrupted by the shinkansen railway…

There are some differences between mountain climbing in Japanand in Europe. In Japan, mountains are seen as an object ofworship, and people revere them. There is a practice of givingthanks to the blessings of the forests they bear.
In Europe, mountain climbing is regarded as a sport, and places like
Eiger and Everest are sites of perilous conquest.

A trip to the Canadian Rockies in 2004
Due to climate change, the great glaciers havemelted, and are much smaller than before.

No matter where you go, a mountain is a museum. They are filled withpaintings and sculptures that nature endlessly creates all throughout
the year. However, the environment of mountains are worsening. If wetruly love mountains, we should pay attention to the disturbances
affecting the natural world.

Beautiful white mountains, a site of worship.

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３–１ The Origin of Japanese Food, and Enjoying Homely Food at Satoyama Shokudō
It’s been nine years since we started Satoyama Shokudō. We found a dilapidated
nursery school, gathered up some local housewives, and started making curry using
locally grown vegatables. That’s how we started.
The foundation of our meals is three kinds of vegetables in one broth. It depends on
the season. In the mountains we have warabi, senmai, and in the fields we havekabura, cabbage, and myōga. In autumn we have chestnuts, gingko seeds, andmushrooms. There are so many delights from nature with which we are blessed!
One time we made kaki sushi with a group of foreigner youths. We used the local
seasonal vegetables, and everyone said the food was good. We are also selling local
produce and vegetables from the mountains.

Persimmon leaves, which contain Vitamin C, tannin,and rutin, are effective in stabilizing blood pressure.
The leaves have been used to wrap rice and side
dishes for carrying on trips or to do farm work. They
are a traditional food packed with ancestral wisdom.

In accordance with each season, we are holding events for enjoyable foodlearning experiences. Some example are rice field trimming, mushroom
observations, mountain vegetable walks, food swaps, and mochitsuki parties.

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３–２ Planting in Spring, Harvesting in Autumn – Flower Viewing and Autumn Festivals
The national flower of Japan is the cherry blossom. What are the national flowers of yourcountries?

Elementary school students working in the fields.

Cherry blossoms in spring descend from themountains, and within them reside the gods of therice fields. When the cherry blossoms bloom, weharvest the crops planted in the previous year, andsow the seeds for the coming season. TheJapanese name is sakura, with sa meaning the rice
field gods, and kura meaning the place in which
the gods reside. Beneath the cherry blossom trees
we greet the gods, wishing for bountiful produce.
We drink and eat in abundance with our friends.
This is the true meaning of cherry blossom
viewing.
An ukiyo-e painting of a flower-viewing banquet
by Hiroshige Utagawa, completed in 1834

＃ さくら さくら やよいの空は 見わたすかぎり・・・・（楽譜別紙）
sakura sakura yayoi-no sora-ha miwatasukagiri...
＃ どんどんひゃらら どんひゃらら 朝から聞こえる笛太鼓・・・
dondonhyarara donbyarara asa-kara kikoeru fuetaiko
Foreign people living in Komatsu are also giving a hand.
7４–１ Our Dragonfly Paradise and the Animals in it
A story about the Dragonfly Paradise

25 years ago (1996), it all started withthe larvae of scarlet dwarf dragonflies,
which were on the brink of extinction.
What with looking after the fresh water,
reeds, grass and so on, and defending
the land from the wild boars that seek
to wreck it, everyone is hard at work,
Scarlet dwarf dragonfly Takigahara
Resource Archive

all to protect the Dragonfly Paradise.

Stone Bridge and Golden-ringed Dragonfly
Nishimura Eito’s masterpiece. He was in the Fourth Grade of Yokohama
Municipal Ushikubo Elementary School at the time of painting
Because Eito was unavailable due to studying hard for a test, we asked his grandfather Hiroshi:Ever since Eito was in nursery school, he spent time in Takigahara, come summer or come winter. He seemed toenjoy doing things like watch the insects or paint pictures. The dragonflies must have left a lasting impression on
all the nature-loving schoolboys.
He said that this painting also taught children to love dragonflies, and so he gifted it to Takigahara.
8４－２ The World of Dragonflies: Biodiversity and Co-existence
Q1: Is the scarlet dwarf dragonfly the smallest in the world?
Adult size:
17-21 mm
（Akira Īda photographyarchive）
Q2： What is the largest dragonfly？
（from Wikipedia）
Meganeurawas a primitive dragonfly
which lived in forests 3 billion years
ago. It is the largest insect ever at
70 cm.
Q3: In ancient times, Japan was called Akitsushima, or theIsland of Dragonflies.
（From an ancient compilation of songs from thirteenhundred years ago called The Ten Thousand Leaves）

Nakamura Keiko Life Magazine Researcher
NHK Seminar from The Society we can Learn from Living Things
It is only humans who have the luxury of believing thatnature is something to be manipulated, and now weare getting our just desserts. With machinery (take acar, for example) there is a blueprint, and you canassemble it all together, repair the bad parts. Soonenough you will have a splendidly perfect object.
Conversely, with rice, you have to wait from spring
until autumn in order to harvest it.

Life has been on this planet for three-hundred and eighty
million years. They are big and they are small, they are fast
and they are slow. Humans are a part of nature. There aremany ways of living we can do. It’s more interesting if
we’re doing different things. Let’s enjoy the cultures of theworld and its diversity. We can live as friends, together.

9４–３

Biotopes, the Dragonfly Paradise, and the Story of the Grandchild and the Uncle

Grandchild: What’s a ‘biotope’?
Grandfather: I wasn’t really sure either, so I checked. It means a place in which organisms live.
Grandchild: I see. When was the Dragonfly Paradise made?
Grandfather: The people of Takigahara made it about twenty-five years ago. At that time, lots of people weremoving to the city, and the people who made the Dragonfly Paradise became fewer as time went on. We madeall of the rice fields that were no longer being used into homes for the scarlet dwarf dragonfly – Japan’ssmallest. Everyone helped out with cutting the grass and making ponds.
Grandchild: Wearing wellies and thrusting hoes… It must have been tough work. Did it go well?
Grandfather: Yeah. Loads of dragonfly eggs were laid. When I was a kid, there were loads of eels, water beetles
and fireflies too. But as people started to use pesticides, they disappeared…
Grandchild: Lots of grown-ups are talking about us children, aren’t they?
Grandfather: That’s right. For you kids, people are making observation parties for dragonflies, fireflies and thelike, three times a year. Volunteers are cutting the grass and tending to the land. We also need to stop theboars from wrecking the banks of the ponds. The dragonfly larvae can’t grow properly if we don’t do that, yousee. The boars and deer are such a bother. I wish we could live peacefully together…

Working the fields (above), and an
observation party (below)

Grandchild: It’s important that we all work together in harmony, isn’t it?
Grandfather: That’s right. The prefectural offices, the schools, the universities, companies; everyone in thecommunity is working together. The 22nd of May has been designated by the UN as the day of befriending all
living things.

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４–４ Love to all the Little Souls
A message from Maori Tanaka of the Ishikawa
Prefectural University Biotope Research Seminar

A message from the US

In 1872, Yellowstone was established as thecountry’s first public park. In 1903, president
Theodore Roosevelt became the first to visit
the park, and an inscription of his words
wishing for peace and prosperity was madeon a gate to the entrance of a town calledGardiner:

A rural village like Takigahara is a habitat for lots ofliving creatures. Areas like mountains, forests,
agricultural land, grasslands and ponds have lots ofsymbiotic ecosystems existing within them. A lot ofrural villages in Japan have been on the decline as aresult of becoming depopulated. Amidst all of this,the people of Takigahara have been working withvarious people to preserve the environment.
Although we have little power, we are trying our best
to improve Takigahara.

A handmade dragonfly by Hiroshi Nishimura

For the benefit andenjoyment of the people

A map of organisms created in collaboration withIshikawa Prefectural University

In national parks in the US, there are signs forthe preservation of animals and their naturalenvironment. They also have the signs inbadge form, which we thought were a nicememento of the American people’s sentimenttowards nature.
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５–１

The Joys of Our Hometown, and “What is Your Idea of Slow Life?”

Making a folksong – memories from Shigeru Shōzu

Enriching our lives by doing the hobbies we love

Sixty-five years ago, there was a song loved by the local people, but as the time has gone by, it
has been forgotten. It was thought deplorable by the residents that the song, which depicted
the mood of the time, should be left to perish by the sands of time, so they held a song
workshop, and made a recording of the song on CD. The CD was edited and produced by alocal teacher.
The original document has the date 1945, December 17th inscribed on it. It was only fourmonths after the end of the second world war. In order to fill their stomachs, people would
turn the vines of sweet potatoes into stew, and dry out butterbur sprouts picked from arid
riverbeds. It was a tumultuous time. The teacher, whose heart was overwhelmed with sorrow,rekindled their spirit and strived hard to make the song, as a means to revitalise the village.
The folksongs of Takigahara that have continued to be sung are a treasure of extreme
importance to us. The CD cover, which depicts the beautiful landscape of our village, wasproduced by Shōko Katō.

Haiku Meeting - a message from Nobuko Takegawa
At the Shizen Gakkō, the haiku everyone recited and the paintingsand photographs of living creatures were displayed for exhibition.
Within the four seasons of the mountain villages is the originallandscape of Japan. It is enjoyable to walk around Takigahara,
discovering all the inspirations for the haiku that people have created.
Art archives - A message from Shōko Katō
My idea of “slow life” is to live amidst the nature of Takigahara,
engaging with all the art one loves. Actually, I am showing thewonders of this land to children from Tokyo who come to stay in myhouse. It is my joy to see them realise these wonders, and I am
forever grateful!

Schoolchildren singing the folksong

The beloved landscape of our home

12５–２

From Our Home Town Takigahara, to the WorldAt the entrance of Takigahara, an origin inscription for the Mt. Kurakake
arched stone bridge has been installed. Our motto is: “We wish to protect
the planet by taking care of our water, our environment and our scenery.”We are delighted to be visited by the following organisations, who came to ourevents whereby we share our regional treasures such as the natural landscapes orural villages and traditional stone culture.
Hotaru Observation Group
Sansai Walk Experience
Rice-planting Experience
Mt. Kurakake Observation Group
Wagashi Experience
Constellation Observation Group
Stone Carving Experience
Stone Culture Walk
A message from Naiki-san – An Introduction to Slow Life

Opening Ceremony 2012 July 14th

In the Spring of 2016, Takigahara Farm was born. It is a farming community
furnished with a cafe and lodgings. In the cafe, vegetables grown organicallywithin the grounds are used in the food, and lots of people come on the weekends.
In August 2020, the hostel was refurbished, and we continue to grow our farming
community with the hopes of representing Japanese culture.

Inscription (English translation)
Right side: The water that comes from Mt. Kurakake and Mt. Sandōjiflows under the arched stone bridges and into the Japan Sea, connecting
itself to the whole planet. In Takigahara, we respect the environment andour sceneries. This inscription has been erected in order to proclaim ourco-habitation and symbiosis with nature to the whole world.

What are your region’s treasures?
Please tell us what reminds you of your hometown. Friends and mountains,
みなさんのrivers and oceans, songs and festivals, dragonflies and frogs...

Young people, the elderly, families, and foreigners all come together
and enjoy the atmosphere of Takigahara Farm.

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Getting In-touch with SatoyamaMemo

To get in touch with Takigahara’s people and communities, wepublish a bimonthly newsletter called Satoyama Tsūshin. Here, weshare the topics and activities of the area, and distribute them toall the residences within Takigahara.

【Contact】
Satoyama Tsūshin, Vol. 1

KOMATSU SATOYAMA GROUP☎：0761-24-8078✉：k-oukoku@city.komatsu.lg.jp
HP：https://satoyama-komatsu.com/
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