One of the clubs I've joined at the University of Aizu is called Nakagoya. Two weekends ago we took a trip to a small town to help the people who lived there.
We first harvested vegetables from a field. One of the vegetables was Daikon (大根, literally "big root"). We then cleaned the vegetables and prepared them for travel.
After the vegetable harvest we went to some unused farmland to plant cherry trees which will blossom in a few years.
Finally, we went into a building of the town to have lunch and talk with the town's residents. One resident said that the building we went into was 150 years old.
The inside of the building was very different from the modern houses that I have seen. The room we went into took up half of the building, and near the center there was a large fire pit ( Irori ) used for cooking and heating the room.
We had Miso soup made using some of the vegetables we harvested.
The town has about 10 homes, and all of the inhabitants are elderly. Many of them came to the meeting we had with them. One issue that the town is trying to face is that all of the inhabitants are aging, their children have moved out, and there are no new people moving into the town. As a result, the future of their town is uncertain. This problem is not unique. Japan has an aging population and a low birth rate, so there are probably many small towns with uncertain futures.
