Au revoir

Folders, paper, the buzz of the electric hole puncher
The omnipresent black machines demanding constant devotion
tap tap tap....tap tap tap tap

You can't see ahead, you're not meant to
in a maze built with make-shift walls
Drink the coffee, and be happy

you'll get to go home soon,
or the gym if you feel like it
or the mall to get that sleek dress on sale
you've got choices,
you've got freedom
this is the life

The Drone of Polite conversations at Friday morning teas
The food, the weather, the upcoming weekend
Keep it Friendly, don't stop Smiling,
people are not meant to see what lies underneath,
or has the outer shell thickened and grown into the inner core?
who cares?

Greenery flourishes out of black containers
a lethargic goldfish stares through the dome-shaped tank
resting on the reception counter

Drink the coffee, and be happy



Far Beyond this maze,


a young girl is crying as she watches her red balloon
rise up, along the sandstone building
then away into the white mist
until it became an unrecognisable speck





Farther beyond,
a spring is flowing over a sandy canal,
stroking the jagged edges of dormant stones
and sifting through the ancient sediments underneath
carrying them down gentle slopes,
past a bamboo forest,

a young ivy vine is climbing up along the smooth trunk a tall bamboo tree,
caressed by a warm white light












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Life of Japanese farmers

2/12
Farmers in rural Oita seem to live a comfortable and more relaxed life than white collar company workers in the cities.

As each farm is family run, the farmers can be flexible about when to work and rest; ‘遊びたい時に遊ぶ、仕事をしたい時働く。自分で自由を作る, as Grandma patiently explained. Each day, the grandmother cares for the sweetpea flowers in the greenhouse nearby their century old family house. Work starts at 8 in the morning, and at 10 I would be called to have お茶, whereby we sit down to have mandarins, bananas, chocolate bread, yoghurt, and anything else that Grandma had brought with her from the house. The host father would also join us if he was also working in the flower house, and we would chat and laugh for a good half an hour or so, and they would always insist that I have more food. Work then resumes and at 12, I walk with Grandma back to the house and help her prepare lunch for ourselves and the hostfather. After lunch and some rest, we return to work at 1:30, before having お茶 again at 3pm. And we start to close up the flower house at 4:45pm; no pressure, deadlines or overtime! The work is simple and relaxed; I cut any diverting stems from the climbing plants and then Grandma shifts the plants across the netting to make more room for them to grow, whilst listening to music and weather forecasts on the radio.

Grandma tells me that besides work, she meets up with other elderly farmers to have tea and play a ball game that is similar to golf. She also travels each year to various places in Northern Japan with her friends for three days at a time. The host father likes to fish, and drove off to the coast with his friend today (Thursday) after lunch.

The farming community here seem relatively well off, similar to that in Australia. Each family lives in an inherited traditional Japanese house, many are double storey and very spacious! And they can afford anything that city dwellers use, but as the host father explains, they are not yet to get a private boat or airplane！Each of the three young children of the family take up something extra-curricular, piano, long-distance running, judo, and are not expected to continue the family farm if they don`t wish to.

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2/16

Relationships in rural Oita

In this mountainous region, farmers live closely together in pockets of three to four family houses per approx. 20000 m2 of land. The family I am staying with has two other farming families as next door neighbours. As each family property is usually inherited by a male descendant of each generation, I guess the families in each pocket go way back, with their fathers and grandfathers being neighbours as well. So its not surprising that the neighbouring families have strong bonds. On the first day I was here, one neighbour came by and left bunches of green vegetables that they had harvested on our doorsteps. On the next day, another neighbour gave the hostfather a big roll of plastic useful for building the walls of the flower houses. I was also told that the huge bag of mandarins in the living room was also a present. On Valentine`s day、the host father received a box of chocolates from each neighbouring family. The host father says that he is well known for being multi-skilled; he fixes broken farming machinery of his immediate neighbours and for other friends and relatives in the area. So it seems that reciprocating the giving of presents and favours is a part of everyday life over here.

Indeed, the hosts father devotes a considerable amount of his time everyday into present giving.. Almost every morning at around 8am, after he and Grandma has packed the harvested sweetpea flowers into boxes, he delivers them to the local airport on his truck, and then spends about an hour visiting farmer friends in the area. On these visits, the father would give to his friends goodies that Grandma had wrapped up, and the chat with him/her for a while before driving by another friend`s place. And a part of my job is to accompany him on these mornings.

Occasionally, he also visits people in the afternoon. Yesterday afternoon, I went with him to the local supermarket, where he chatted to the shop assistant and then to a mid-aged woman selling flowers outside. When we returned home, he went to the storage room to fill a bag up with sweet potatoes, and drove back to the store to give to the woman, who then happily bowed and waved goodbye to us. On the way home for the second time, he flaunted `I have alot of friends, don`t I? Isn`t that good?`, to which I replied that it was good, but it also makes him very busy.

A few days ago, we ran into a friend of his on our way to a farming goods store, and after I introduced myself, the friend handed to me four packets of mushrooms. Back in the truck, he commented happily that we already have a pile of mushrooms at home, and after he parked his car outside the workplace of another friend, I was told to bring the mushrooms to give to this friend, who subsequently happily accepted them before offering us drinks.

These acts are reciprocated. The most common description of an object is　‘molatta‘, which means `received as a present`. I hear that the two family cats were `molatta`, along with Grandma`s kimono, the salted fish for dinner, different kinds of mandarins, farming machineries and even greenhouses.

So it seems that giving and receiving is an important part of people`s lives here. When the sweetpea flowers do not blossom and my host family does not earn sufficient income, they would consume homegrown vegetables, and receive plenty of fruits and vegetables from others that they need not worry about their meager income during unproductive periods. And according to the host father, this is why Japanese farmers are on a higher level than city dwellers and company workers; they can live happily even if there is no income.

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2/20

Family structure in Oono Machi, Rural Oita, Japan

When I first heard that the Itou family includes not only the parents and the children, but also the grandmother, I assumed that the elderly Grandma is fragile due to old age and is looked after by her son and his family. But I soon found out that this assumption is far from reality.

Grandma, a petite 77year old, plays a key role in the farming business AND does all the domestic chores. This is her typical day:

Wakes up at 5:30am each morning (a hour before everyone else) to make Miso soup for breakfast
7:30 am, laundry.
8am - 5pm, manual labour on the flowers, and any other work that the father directs, and makes lunch for herself and the father
5:30pm onwards - cooks dinner, tidies laundry...
And finally, at around 8pm, she has time to relax.

This has been her lifestyle since she got married at 22. She tells me that farmers never retire, and that she enjoys being busy all the time; none of this sounds unusual, but I am utterly impressed by the stamina of this elderly woman. Yesterday, about 150 kg of compost had to be moved to the work field, where the father plans to plant vegetables. Equipped with a shovel each, we had fill up the back of a truck with compost, which the father then drove to and dumped onto the field. As the truck was small, this process had to be repeated about 15 times, which took the whole working day.

After an hour of shovelling and tossing the compost onto the truck, my back and arms were sore, and I soon switched to energy conservation mode; no talｋ + slow motion that became slower and slower....whilst Grandma shovelled through the entire heap at thrice my speed. When work finished at 5pm, I went off for a stroll, whilst Grandma returned to the flower house to cut flowers to be delivered the next day. At 7pm, Grandma returned and made curry to feed the mouths of the four starving youngsters (myself included) and the parents. Before I dragged my sore body to my futon, I asked Grandma if she was tired.

`Just a little` she replied.

By doing all the domestic chores and farm work, Grandma frees the mother to take up a full time job as a nurse. So in this family, three working adults contribute to the welfare of the family (Grandpa passed away some time ago). Grandma explained to me that elderly parents usually lived with their eldest son, the benefits of which I can now truly appreciate. Where there are only daughters, then one of them will take over the farm when she gets married.

But the farmers` family model is changing with the changed roles of women. In Grandma`s generation, farmers` daughters usually married a farmer soon after finishing high school, bore children and worked on the property inherited by her husband. Nowadays, women like the host mother can choose to work outside instead of accumulating farming knowledge at home, which means that when she is Grandma`s age, she may not want to play, or be unsuitable for, the key support role for her child`s family like Grandma does.

Grandma said that she does not know what the host mother will be doing when she is a grandma herself.

Also, farmers` children receive high level education, and would have many career choices. If no child of the family wants to manage the farming business, the house and farming land will be sold to one of the many farmer wannabes trying to break into the field (excuse the pun). According to Grandma, many city dwellers who are tired of their inflexible white-collar jobs wish to give farming a go.

A New Destination

Welcome to my new home! Freed from the constantly evolving techno-inconveniences of popular networking websites, I now (hopefully) have the space to undergo the rock process.