For the past four decades we have been living in northern Chiba Prefecture, in the Hokuso area around Imba and Tega Marsh and just south of the Tone River. Our home is in Chiba New Town, a typical sprawling suburban residential and industrial complex developed in the 1980s. The area is very conveniently served by the Hokuso Line. From Chiba New Town Station it is a 40-minute ride to central Tokyo, or a 20-minute ride to Narita Airport. When we first moved here in the mid-1980s the complex was desolate, but now the stations are surrounded by shopping centers, gyms and all the urban amenities required for modern life.
Chiba NT was laid out right in the middle of a sparsely populated rural agriculture area. Surprisingly, the development to date has for the most part been confined to the original target areas along the railroad line, and even after four decades much of the surrounding countryside remains in fairly good shape. We live on the 20th floor of a tower condominium. A north turn at the entrance takes us to the station is less than 10 minutes, while a left turn takes us to a land of rice paddies and countryside woodlands in about 20.
Looking north from our 20th floor verandah. Condominiums around Chiba NT Station are so popular they sell out before the buildings are even completed!
Looking north to Chiba New Town and our condominium from the countryside to the south. Just one step out of the residential area takes you into the beautiful satoyama countryside!
The Hokuso area countryside landscape is a typical example of what the Japanese now refer to as satoyama. The basic land use pattern is hatake vegetable fields on the uplands, tambo rice paddies in the valleys, and oak coppices, bamboo groves and timber plantations on the slopes. The scale is small, but the patchwork mixture of different types of fields, forests and waterside habitats creates a beautiful landscape and harbors a solid biodiversity of wild plants and animals.
Hatake vegetable fields on the Hokuso uplands. The fields are small, all family owned and farmed, with different crops creating a checkerboard mosaic pattern.
Rice paddies fill a narrow valley. The steep slopes between the valleys and uplands are usually planted in various types of managed woodland.
For twenty years I served as professor of anthropology and environmental resource management at a small Japanese university in nearby Chiba City. Retired now. I spend my days at my absolute favorite pastime, walking and bicycling around the local satoyama. The compact but diverse landscape offers a never-ending supply of delights to tickle the fancy of a naturalist, folklorist, and spiritual ecologist.
I usually keep my field notes in journal style, with observations, sketches, maps, and photos hand drawn or pasted into an A-5 size looseleaf binder. My style is simply naturalist. I just sketch or photograph what I see, focusing on characteristics that allow for identification or enhance interpretation. I pretty much treat plants, animals, lifestyles, and spiritual elements such as small shrines and roadside stone statues in the same fashion, as interlockings parts of a single integrated landscape.
In the past, I have periodically compiled these field notes into numerous newspaper and magazine essays, as well as books in both Japanese and English. My ‘Kebin no Satoyama Shizen Kansatsuki’ (Kodansha 1995) was one of the first Japanese books to use the word Satoyama in the title. I have also appeared on numerous television and radio programs focusing on local nature; and like to think my work has made at least some small contribution to conservation of traditional lifestyles and landscapes.
Some of my books
Now, as a final project for my twilight years, I hope to make some of my fieldwork observations and interpretations available online in digital form. The contents will include introductions to common and easily observed trees, wildflowers, insects, and birds, with an emphasis on how wildlife has adapted to rural lifestyles and land use patterns. There will also be plenty of notes on folklore and folk beliefs, especially as they are expressed as part of Japan’s rich sacred landscape.
The blog consists of essays in both English and Japanese, but the contents of the posts are quite different.
Hope youse guyz enjoy it!