Enmusubi Life
A sketch of my part of rural Japan
The spirits and gods have gone home from their seaside break, the waves of tourists are ebbing after the tsunami that was New Year. The other visitors, the migratory waterfowl, are firmly ensconced in the rivers quacking up a storm and skittishly evading pedestrians and cyclists on the banks. This is the TL;DR summary of how things are around the grand shrine of Izumo Taisha, a few miles from where I live in rural Western Japan.
Izumo Taisha is one of the most sacred shrines in the Shinto religion (local boosters claim it is the most sacred, most put it second or third) and the place where, according to the myths, all the kami (spirits and/or gods) of Japan gather during the lunar tenth month (mid/late November on the western solar calendar) to decide the destiny of the Japanese people for the next year. According to those same myths they have quite a party while they do so and are disposed to think well of worshipers who turn up to ask for good fortune in life, particularly regarding romance and marriage. Hence the tide of tourists in mid-November.
Living in Izumo is a study in contrasts. Starting with the land which ranges from flat roughly sea-level fields of drained former marshland south of Izumo Taisha to a 1700ft high mountain range just behind it to the north.
In some ways Izumo is classic rural Japan. Our house in its cul-de-sac is surrounded by fields that grow rice, wheat and soba and typically crops of two out of the three are harvested each year. Other fields grow vegetables like onions and cabbages. Not far away are green houses which are used to grow grapes, strawberries, asparagus and other more delicate fruits and vegetables. The Taisha fishing port, about a mile from the shrine, is just like dozens of others along the sea of Japan, either almost totally empty or filled with working fishing boats when they have returned to unload their catch. Yet because of Izumo Taisha we have 5 flights a day to Tokyo from the local airport. There's also a fully booked sleeper train every night, numerous daytime trains and traffic jams on the motorway bringing us visitors at peak times of the year. Go a little further west and inland and all the cars have local number plates, here many are from Osaka, Kyushu and places further afield.
Izumo is also a mythical place for more than just the belief that the kami visit once a year. The old Izumo province is ground zero for about half the founding myths of Japan such as Susanoo's battle against Orochi, the eight headed dragon, which is located a few miles up the Hiikawa river in Okuizumo. One of the joys of living here is that you can visit the locations of many of these myths, which are often located in rural shrines ignored by the crowds of tourists and a total contrast to the heaving multitudes that are in Kyoto these days. What I find fascinating is how some of the myths seem to be based on actual historical events.
For example part of the founding myth of Izumo Taisha in the Nihon Shoki is that the kami of Izumo - Okuninushi - peacefully ceded control of his realm to Amaterasu, the kami from whom the Emperors claim descent. Having given control of this land over to Amaterasu, Okuninushi retreated from this world and was given control of all things unseen. This includes en-musubi, creating the connections (en) people make with others throughout their lives, from family and loved ones to friendships and casual acquaintances. Grateful for his act, Amaterasu told him that her son Amenohohi and his descendants would serve Okuninushi forever and that she would have a shrine that reached all the way to the heavens built for him.
Historians have said that this probably means that at some point (perhaps around 400-500AD) when the Yamato empire was expanding from its Nara area origin it encountered another kingdom based in Izumo and negotiated that kingdom joining the empire peacefully as opposed to being conquered. This explains the annual “Kami visit Izumo” thing - it wasn’t the kami originally, it was the early Yamato Imperial court visiting as part of the treaty when Izumo joined Yamato. Also it turns out that “a shrine that reached all the way to the heavens” was not entirely a metaphor. In 2000 excavations at Izumo Taisha revealed the remains of massive wooden pillars which supported earlier shrines and which might indeed have been up in the clouds (Misen is often surrounded by low clouds down to a couple of hundred feet/ 50 m)
But despite the history/mythlogy and the generally rural environment, Izumo has all mod cons. There are shopping malls, supermarkets, shops, bars, restaurants and so on to provide all the goods and services we residents require and there are plenty of employment opportunities in factories too - not just normal sorts of construction and light industrial metal bashing but modern industry too with electronics firms and other component manufacturers in various industrial estates. These firms and areas have generally benefited from the post COVID reshoring of supply chains that were previously heavily based in the PRC.
As a result there's a mini housing boom, a significant presence of foreign guest workers, and trickle down prosperity from all the industry and construction to complement the spending by the tourists. However that isn't to say there are no traditional crafts: Izumo is home to four sake makers, a few soy sauce makers, traditional clothing makers and a solid base of craftsmen who can restore temples, shines and older houses.
All this may come as a surprise to many urban Japanese who think the area is a depopulated void containing rundown, if not abandoned, towns and villages with just a few remaining old pensioners left. It is true that modern younger Japanese no longer want to live in remote houses reachable only via a narrow road but it seems they are quire happy to live in small towns and cities, and in these places, by observation, they seem to reproduce rather more than the average Japanese household. Our little cul-de-sac has half a dozen 3-child families and I regularly spot others of that size or more when out and about running errands.
What will probably surprise the average foreigner is the car culture of rural Japan. Most households have one vehicle per adult (the average may be higher than one if you include farm trucks and tractors), shops and businesses all have car parks and there are stacks of tires outside many houses because twice a year most car owners spend a few hours changing from summer tyres to winter tyres and vice versa. The latter is due to another thing that may surprise foreigners; even sea-level Izumo gets significant snow most years despite it being on roughly the same latitide as Yokohama, Santa Barbara in California and Tangier in Morocco. So far this winter we have had minimal snow but there’s plenty up in the inland mountains so the local ski resorts are happy. That lack of snow at sea level has been an absolute boon for the victims (and rescuers) of the NY Noto peninsular earthquake some 300 miles east of here, by the way. Though there has been some rain, weather conditions have been about as benign as they could be, which has undoubtedly contributed to the relatively low death toll (78 as of writing, though there are quite a few unaccounted for).
The cold means it's time for warming soups and stews (nabe) accompanied by warm sake from one of the local sake breweries. Kampai!
[I submitted a version of this to the UK Spectator magazine at the end of November. They never responded so I’ve updated it slightly before putting here. I think I fixed the main issues with dates but if any date mentioned seems weird that would be why]
It sounds paradisaical except for the cold.
Fascinating read! I'm definitely going to visit :)