My father and mother are from Yamakoshi.
This is a village nestled in the mountains of Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture, known for its terraced rice fields, Nishikigoi carp and bullfighting.
It’s still a special place for me; I go there to visit the graves, to take in the scenery, or simply to breathe in the fresh air.
Whenever I want to clear my head, I find myself heading for Yamakoshi before I know it.
When I’m walking around Yamakoshi, there’s something that strikes me as rather strange.
‘Why has this place survived?’ I wondered.
A community won’t change just because one person has taken the initiative.
Simply giving it meaning is not enough; it will not last.
It is only when people continue to live there that a community is passed on to the next generation.
Whenever I think about that, I am reminded of the hand-dug tunnel in Yamakoshi.
Yamakoshi is situated deep within a region of heavy snowfall, and come winter, the village was cut off by the snow. To get out, one had to cross a mountain. That journey became a matter of life and death in winter.
The problem arose when someone fell ill or a woman went into labour. Even in the event of a sudden illness, people would sometimes die before they could cross the mountain to reach a doctor. If there were a tunnel, they could travel directly to the doctor. It was this realisation that spurred the villagers into action.
All they had were a pickaxe and a spade.
There were no machines. There was no heavy machinery either. Yet, relying solely on human hands and determination, they began to chisaw their way through the bedrock. It was not a task that could be completed by one person alone. Nor could it be finished within a single generation. Yet they persisted. Spanning generations and taking 16 years to complete, the tunnel was finally excavated. It is the longest hand-dug tunnel in Japan.
I have a question I’d like to ask here.
Why are people able to carry on with work that they will never see completed?
There were those who continued to swing their pickaxes, even though they knew the work would not be finished in their lifetime. There were others who took up the torch and carried on swinging them in their stead. Therein lay the ‘meaning’ I spoke of in the previous chapter. The ultimate meaning—saving lives—continued to bind people together across generations.I believe it was because that sense of purpose never faltered that we were able to persevere through those sixteen years.
In recent years, overseas travellers have been visiting this tunnel. The phrase they often mention is ‘human spirit’. Without the aid of machinery or heavy equipment, the tunnel was carved through the mountain using nothing but human hands and determination. They say that when they stand before this fact, regardless of their nationality or language, they feel something truly profound.
An unseen force is etched into the stone wall. That’s what I think it means.
In October 2004, the Chuetsu Earthquake struck Yamakoshi directly.
Magnitude 6.8. A landslide blocked the road, and all 2,200 or so residents were evacuated by helicopter. The koi pond collapsed and the terraced rice fields were destroyed. Everything that had been nurtured over many years was lost overnight.
Initially, it was thought that returning to the village would be difficult. Some even suggested that resettling in an ageing community was not a realistic prospect.
But two years later, the people of Yamakoshi returned.
‘There’s no place for me but here’ and ‘I didn’t want to be the one to bring an end to the land my ancestors had protected’ were the words spoken by those who returned to the village. It was not a matter of economic rationality. A force that cannot be measured in numbers was what drove these people.
The descendants of those who spent 16 years tunnelling through the mountain are returning to the mountains even after the earthquake. I believe that the true nature of this unseen force lies in that sense of continuity.
There are many different names for invisible forces.
It is sometimes referred to as ‘trust’. It is a relationship in which neighbours can help one another when the other is in trouble.
It is sometimes referred to as ‘memory’. I harvested rice in this field with my father. That memory is an invisible thread that binds the land and its people together.
It is sometimes referred to as a love of one’s homeland. It is not a matter of logic, but rather a sensation of being drawn back here by one’s very body.
None of these things are visible. They cannot be quantified. Yet, in many cases, it is this invisible force that drives the community forward.
In the previous chapter, I discussed how ‘what appears as a resource to those who can see its meaning appears merely as a burden to those who cannot’. To those who cannot see its meaning, the terraced fields of Yamakoshi are simply farmland on steep slopes. But to the people of Yamakoshi, they are a place imbued with memories passed down from their ancestors. It is precisely because they can see that meaning that they are able to make choices that may seem irrational to others.
An invisible force is that which connects the person who perceives the meaning with the place where that meaning is inscribed.
The hand-dug tunnel is no longer in use.
A new tunnel, dug by machine, has been built next to it, and people now use that route instead. However, the hand-dug tunnel still remains. A section starting from the entrance has been preserved so that visitors can explore it.
I don’t think it’s just the stones that remain. Sixteen years have passed, and the determination of people across generations is etched into that rock face. People even come from overseas to see it.
Invisible forces are passed down through the generations, changing form as they do so.
When a community begins to decline, it may not be its population or its industries that are lost first. I suspect that what is lost first is an invisible force. Trust fades, memories are lost, and a shared sense of purpose disappears. When that happens, people gradually drift away from the place.
To put it another way, there is potential in communities where unseen forces are at work. No matter how severe the depopulation may be, as long as there are people who see meaning in that place, the spring has not yet run dry.
Atsuko Kwasawara
FARM8 Co. Ltd.,
