Mountain Spirits in Nagano, Japan ~ July 2013

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Nagano, high in the Japanese Alps, is a place where Nozomi and I are discovering a different Japan – a modern version of the mysterious mountain land I gathered as a young girl looking up at woodcuts and silk paintings in my Mother’s collection. Today, instead of meeting the chilly kimono-clad courtesans of the iki woodcuts, we travel among young creative families, but we still – just as in the iki woodcuts – witness ancient mountains and rivers, a sprinkling of antique human dwellings, traditional craftsmanship and foods, kami nature spirits watching over all, and appropriate awe.

The landscape here is extraordinary, and inseparable from the peaceful life we experience. No mistake that ancient & current Japanese Shinto myth & practice find dynamic spirits, kami, in every facet of the natural world, and call for respect of nature as one of their main tenants. In tightly packed Japan, mountainous Nagano is home mostly to kami, fewer human folk. Billowing mountains lean into crisp skies, puffy with ivory clouds and unhurried clear blue. The air is clean and bright. Tiny roads dribble around curving mountainsides, farm fields and terraced rice paddies wind through the valleys, bright patches pinned down amid the strong evergreen crests & peaks.  Black and white checkered farmhouses occasionally scatter at all elevations and orientations (city grid? Never.).  The ojisan & obasan (venerable elder men and women) who populate Japan outside of the cities work in the fields and gardens around here, wearing white shirts & trousers, stooped backs, smiling weathered faces, persistence, and a hand raised with bowing head in small kind greeting.

Nozomi and I arrived at Kajiya, a farmhouse owned by two Brown’s Field friends of hers, several weeks ago and we have been lucky guests in an inspiring communal-living household since. Yuka chan, Yugi kun, and their son Tao sama found this enormous 130-year old farmhouse on the internet one year ago, and set about renovating it with a group of helpful friends. Within a year they have created a space that is gorgeously simple and creative, with most of the original structure intact and a few new gorgeous floorboards and steps cut with curving lines, earthbuilt walls bending into old spaces, swirling ceramic tiles in a traditional onsen bathroom, and a Japanese natural garden. Now they have opened a weekend café, farmstay, gallery and antique shop, weekly yoga classes, and regular workshops! Sounds busy, but life here is sloooowly gorgeous. It all starts from the elegant space that Yuki & Yugi have created in their unique-but-traditional farmhouse.

I’m fascinated with the many old farmhouses being renovated in traditional style here – living in the most beautiful example of this I’ve seen rivets my aesthetic & artistic fascination with architecture, and my intellectual interest in social history and religion. [Obviously I didn’t hold back on photographic detail of the Kajiya house! Designers, engineers, builders, creative makers, and admirers of traditional craftsmanship – that’s just about all of you! – I’m certain will share my loose-jawed awe at this place & space…] Here’s the tour:

The traditional architecture used consistently throughout rural Japan is what I would call “earthbuilding” style because it involves all materials pulled straight from the forest, with no machinery or metals (no nails!) or factory-made parts. The majority of building we’ve seen in Nagano still seem to be in this style, mostly antique, some newly renovated.

Like many farmhouses in Japan, the first floor of Kajiya was where the family lived, and the high, long peaked roof provided a cavernous second story where silk worms were kept to spin their cocoons, later spun by into silk thread and made into kimono by the skilled human hands in the very same house. Japan has historically been a country of hemp and silk – hemp was the people’s crop and was used widely & heavily for fiber, cooking, cleaning the soil, etc. Silk was the treasure fiber. Both are literally part of the structure of these old farmhouses.

All natural materials are used in every aspect of building here: Massive roughhewn wood beams that look like the massive trees they are, spanning overhead the length and width of the structure with twists and curves in their natural shape; earthbuilt walls made of mud from the mountain mixed with rice straw, seaweed, and hemp fiber; exterior walls the same, finished with a white lime coating and dark wood beams (which makes the Japanese Alps look like the Swiss Alps with white and black checked farmouses…); glossy baked ceramic rooftiles, wavy and turning up on the ends, embossed with characters distinctive to the town – in this case “mizu” (water).

Old fashioned heating systems involved open fire pits inside the house, a clay pit in the middle of the floor over which a huge cast-iron kettle dangles on a long chain from the ceiling, and obviously little ventilation. The walls and ceiling in these old houses are charred black to charcoal, giving the interiors especially of the upstairs silk worm rooms an eerie cavernous chill, calmed by the bright mountain view from large upstairs windows under tile eaves.

At Kajia, Yuka & Yugi have turned a bit of the second floor into a guest room for their farmstay, and the rest of the huge space into a yoga studio, where a new floor of softly sanded glowing blonde wood, and a rainbow hammock look through huge windows to the mountains. We sleep in the yoga room… very well.

Downstairs, the huge tatami room (ohiroma) is a relaxed place with many tables and cushions, where we spend days & enjoy meals, beer & sake, legs folded under us. On the weekend we run a café in the ohiroma, serving a small yummy healthy menu. The bathroom wing has been completely renovated with warm creative earthbuilt lime walls, gorgeous tiling, an old fashioned wooden onsen tub, and a beautiful new handcarved wood toilet seat!

Outside, the sheds are a story in themselves: Japanese kura are unique sheds designed for storing the fermented foods (miso, soy sauce, sake, ume boschi, nato, etc.) that are central to the cuisine & health here. Many houses have several kura, all with walls a foot or more in thickness, super-insulated to control temperature and moisture, all earth-built. The kura dotting the countryside are classical emblems of Japanese building, food, farming, and lifestyle. One of Kajia’s kura has been hollowed out to make an archway entrance to the house, a cool place where we enjoy lunch on a hot day, where I sit and draw, write, or Skype to you :)

Nozomi and I have been lucky to step into a community of creative, freeminded people in their mid-30s here, who have left city life to come to the countryside and are working with passion & diligence on enlivening traditional farmhouses and Japanese living arts. We are builders, gardeners, cooks, & craftspeople making useful things according to the refined rituals & traditional methods in this country where aesthetics & utility are a couple. Yuki & Yugi, in addition to all their house/café/farmstay projects, make amazing lamps from gourds which they grow, hollow, and carve with intricate designs. They have a small gallery and antique shop also in their space, selling these lamps and old silk-spinning equipment they and neighbors have found in their attics and kura. 


On free days, we’ve visited many, many other friends in the area who are doing similar things – tastefully renovating old farmhouses using traditional building methods and blending classical aesthetic with new creativity, opening cafes, galleries, farmstays, holding workshops, developing community among themselves and reaching out to the locals. By all accounts, it’s hard to win over the older folk – ojisan & obasan – in the countryside… but this younger generation gives and deserves respect for their celebration of traditional methods, quiet manner, and new positive energy.

On other short trips from our Kajia home, Nozomi and I returned to Tokyo briefly – food festival with a famous Tokyo chef, veggie stand friends building their enterprise, overwhelming only-in-Japan shopping experiences including a wild onslaught of stickers, a treasure hunt around the city for the voting booth where Nozomi could place her vote (she explained, one of the first times she has ever felt invested in an election), food department stores and bento boxes in Yoyogi park, and spontaneously bumping into a political rally for the young and inspiring politicians Nozomi had just voted for…who were preaching from the heart about an anti-nuclear Japan and constantly about my Mom’s favorite subject, Article 9 of the Japanese Consititution, the peace provision.  It all happens in Tokyo!  (Except what happens on the beautiful farm back in the mountains… we were glad to come home :)).

Back here at Kajia, I am again inspired about cooperative living and small-scale community. Building on what I experienced in Tasmania and Melbourne, I see an extended community of adults sharing, helping, living simply and very well with many helping hands, plenty of time and space to enjoy the world and living in it, and very little money. Friends come and go here – a couple traveling Japan by bike stop for several months to help and develop skills with building and natural farming, becoming quick friends; old friends and new aquaintences pass through for the weekend or several weeks (like me & Nozomi!); folk come for lunch at the café or a night at the farmstay and return for workshops, yoga class, dinners, bonfires; friends move from Tokyo to become part of the Kajia family, helping in the café and building together, etc. We all pitch in about $20/week for food and beer, we help with the cooking and cleaning and whatever needs to be done in the house and for the cafe, and we have plenty of time for ourselves and eachother. I was delighted to be able to contribute some drawings of Kajia to their efforts, along with my weeding, sweeping, and bathroom cleaning prowess. (They used one of my drawings for their new homepage! Check it out http://kajiya.boo.jp/ !) Over the last 2.5 years, I have been learning from living with examples of cooperative, sustainable, fun, and self-directed lifestyles – and I’m excited to participate in and build some cooperative time & space with old & new friends back in Boston. I’m especially inspired to be part of and develop this kind of flexible, sustainable co-op style living/learning/fun community for short periods of time in roving locations – maybe 1-3 weeks a few times a year, organized around some projects (building, gardening, etc.) and workshops in how to do interesting stuff we’re curious about led by knowledgable group members, learning together… Sounds nice. Yes, as my brother Dan says with a lovingly raised eyebrow, “Laura, you’re really becoming a big hippie.”