Rice in Japan

choi

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My comment: If you are not fascinated with Japan, as I am, probably you will
not be interested in this article.

Rice in Japan |   You are what you eat: Can a country as modern as Japan
cling onto a culture as ancient as rice?  Economist, Dec. 17, 2009.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108648

(a) Quote:

At the village of Tochikubo: "A few decades ago there were 120 pupils. Now
there are only 11, of such a variety of ages that they need seven teachers.

"In Tochikubo, each of 60 households owns about one hectare. To avoid
overproduction, the government pays them to leave about a third fallow,
which means they produce, on average, 40 60kg (132lb) sacks per hectare (2.5
acres). A sack sells for about 20,000 yen ($230). That amounts to a yearly
income of only about 800,000 yen, which barely covers the cost of machinery.

"But the [Japanese] myths skirted over an awkward historical fact. Rice did
not come to Japan from heaven. It came from China and reached Japan via what
is now the Korean peninsula in about 400BC, accompanied by lusty Korean
farmers who probably went on to populate Japan, outbreeding the indigenous
Jomon hunter-gatherers. Even today, the Japanese are reluctant to
acknowledge they may have Korean roots.

"Today each Japanese consumes, on average, about 60kg of rice a year,
roughly half the amount of the early 1960s. Self-sufficiency in rice quickly
turned to surplus, and from the 1970s onwards the government has paid
people not to produce.

(b) Note:
(i) Niigata Prefecture 新潟県
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niigata_Prefecture
(ii) O-miokoshi 御神輿
(iii) Japanese Alps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Alps
(a series of mountain ranges that bisect the main island of Honshū)
(iv) toboggan (n; etymology: of Algonquian origin; serving as a sled)
http://www.neilrigby.info/
uploaded_images/traditional-toboggan-722013.jpg

(v) Tochikubo (新潟県南魚沼市)栃窪
(vi) genkai shuraku 限界集落
(vii) Fueki (family name) 笛木
(viii) minami uonoma
(ix) Amaterasu 天照大神
(x) Jinmu 神武天皇
(xi) Emiko Ohnuma-Tierney, where the family name Ohnuma is 大沼.
(xii) shintoism 神道
(xiii) murahachibu 村八分 (meaning "ostracism" in English)
(xiv) Tenmu 天武天皇
(xv) Kojiki 古事記
(xvi) Nihonshoki 日本書紀
(xvii) Kuwabara 桑原

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