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14 Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009

Mysterious crop circles ofincredible complexitythat appear overnight,or a baseball park as inthe 1989 lmField of dreamswhoknows what you might come across

in your local rural idyll these days?But travel some 600 kilometers

north of Tokyo, then take a driveoff the beaten track. There, in a

village in verdant Aomori Prefect ure,who would ever expect to ndexquisite Edo Period artworkssprouting amid a swaying green

sea of enormous rice paddies?Its neither a dream, nor a

supernatural mystery, nor ction.Instead, by precisely planting

four varieties of rice with differentlycolored leaves in elds their ancestors

have farmed for centuries, the peopleof Inakadate Village in 2007 grewremarkable reproductionsof famous woodblock prints

by Katsushika Hokusai(1760-1849). And this isno cheap gimmicktheimages from the artists

Fugaku Sanjurokkei(36

views of Mount Fuji) onthe 15,000-square-meterpaddies are nothing if not

spectacular in both theirscale and detaileven as

every day brings themnearer to annihilation inthe September harvest.

From ground level,

the artistic paddies spreadout before the Inakadate

Village ofce building

b

are, like crop circles that occur

in England, invisible. However,by scaling a 22-meter-high mockcastle tower that overlooks theelds, visitors are rewarded witha view that takes their breath

away. The spectacle also boosts thelocal economy, with hundreds ofthousands of visitors now drawn tothe village of 8,700 people each year.

People who see this for the rsttime often ask me if we made this bypainting colors on green rice plants,says Akio Nakayama, who leads the

rice-paddy art project, while viewingthe multicolored rice elds fromthe village ofce. Mr. Nakayama,an ofcial in the ofces industriessection, has been working on theart project for more than 10 years.

This years [2007s] Hokusaidesign was very challenging, he

When is a paddy not a paddy? When its a canvas, of course. In Ja

Aomori Prefecture, rice is far more than mere food.

says. We werent sure i

really pull it offbut weInakadate Village s

create rice-paddy art inlocal revitalization proje

will take cre dit for the i

seems to have just growvillage committe e meet

In the rst 9 years, ofce workers and local

grew a simple design of Iwaki in Aomori Prefect

year, accompanied by thInakadate, a village of

culture. Then, by plantvarieties wit h different on about 2,500 square mrice paddies, they quite

brought their designs toBut, as time went by

locals horizons widenedpictures they tried to tr

into elds of ever more com

Not surprisinthe years, momore people to pay attentiextraordinary

Then, in agreements blandowners a

creation of en15,000-squar

rice paddies, painstakinglyplanting on pand created h

reproductionPeriod ukiyoSharaku and

Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009

This amous E-Per prt, rglly cretebetwee 1823 1829 by Ktk hk, pectclrly reprce (below opposite) rce t ikte Vllge 2007.

INAKADATEVILLAG

EOFFICE(6)

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16 Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009 Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009

That year, around 130,000 visitorssought out this beautiful backwaterto marvel at the arable artwork.

In 2006, another revolution

occurred in this creative corner of thenorthernmost prefecture of Honshu,the largest of Japans islands, whenthe organizers for the rst timeused computers to precisely plot

the planting of the four differentlycolored rice varieties. The result wasan astonishing set of reproductionsof paintings from the famousFujin

Raijin Zu Byobu (Wind God andThunder God screens) by the earlyEdo Period artist Tawaraya Sotatsu.

Around 200,000 visitors came toInakadate to view the images.

I feel happy to see manypeople come to see our ricepaddies because, here in Inakadate

Village, rice and peoples livesare very closely connected, Mr.

Nakayama says, noting that theidea came out of the villagesancient history of rice cultivation.

In 1981, when we did

construction work for a new road,we dug up some rice paddies thatarchaeologists dated as being about2,000 years old. That impressed

us local people a lot, because werealized how long people have beengrowing rice in this place. So then wethought that we had to do somethinginvolving rice to revitalize this area.

From that germ of an idea

sprang the paddy-art project,which has come to involve notonly local farmers but also manyof their friends and neighbors.

Now, the project starts in Aprileach year, when the pictures to beplanted in Inakadate Villages ricepaddies are decided upon at localmeetings. After that, six staff at the

village ofce make a n elaborate planof how to plant different colors of riceto create the image. They calculate

and plot the precise areas whereeach different color of rice needs

to be planted in the paddies, andproduce a printout of the design thatat rst just looks like a mass of dots.

Each year, the six village ofce

workers spend several weeks of theirown private time, working until lateat night, to complete the planting

plan. Their calculations are not justsimple painting-by-numbers layouts,

but include sophisticated use ofperspective so that the paddy pictures

appear perfectly proportioned whenviewed from the observation point.

Using computers has greatlyshortened the time it takes tocalculate the position of onedot on the rice paddies, Mr.

Nakayama says. At the sametime, it has made it possible tocalculate many more dots to draw

16 Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009

the picture more precisely.The 2007 Hokusai design

included 6,100 dots, compared with1,500 dots in 2005. If we have more

dots for a picture, we can reproducethe original more precisely on therice paddies, says Mr. Nakayama.

Dots on a printout are all verywellbut the most sensitive anddifcult task is digging reed sticks

into the bare spring paddies atexactly the right points so that those

who plant the rice know where to

Rice TodayJanuary-March 2009

position each of the four varieties.This year, ve groups of six village-ofce staff dug 6,100 reed sticksinto the ground, then strung plastic

tape between them to create theareassome large, some as small asone square meterin which to plantthe rice varieties. Altogether, the tasktook three full, backbreaking days.

Then, on 27 May 2007, 700

people helped plant the rice. Dividedinto teams, they used four kindsof rice: two traditional varietiesnamed ki ine (yellow rice) andmurasaki ine (purple rice) thatgrow into yellow- and brown-leafedplants, respectively, and also moremodern beni miyako (red miyako)and tsugaru roman, an Aomori

variety with a fre sh green color.Then, nature took control of

the artwork as the seedlings grew,

transforming them in varying huesinto Hokusais famous wave.

Mr. Nakayama says that lateJuly is the best time to enjoy theart. Referring to 2007s image, heexplains why, and in doing so offers

a sense of the works intricacy.In August, he says, the lengths

of each kind of rice are different due

to their different growth rates. Wecannot clearly see the drops falling offthe waves, as the yellow rice for thedrops is shorter than tsugaru roman.

So [by August], the drops have begunto sink into the green background.

The number of visitorsocking to Inakadate to view thepaddy-artists amazing, livingcreations keeps on rising.

Oh, its so busy, says Mr.Nakayama. Visitors have to waitin line for about an hour to go upthe observatory, and staff are busy

talking to them. But I feel that ourefforts are being rewarded when I seeso many people enjoying the art.

At the end of September,Inakadate braces itself for another

inux of people. Then, as the coolbreezes of autumn bathe the land,visitors arrive to take par t in the

annual harvest. In 2006, around900 people from across the country

harvested about 2 tons oftsugaruroman rice, which was given to those

who took part and to those whohelped with the spring planting.

The 2008 effort, Inakadates16th since the custom began in1993, featured images of Daikoku

(god of wealth) and Ebiof shers and merchantaccompanying image ofJapan Airlineswhich s

the event in 2008alsodose of controversy. Parthe season, the logo wasfollowing complaints byof the elds that it contrcommunity nature of th

Following the harveyears transient beauty Mr. Nakayama and otheofcials turn their mind

years artistic crop. Thealso host seminars at thof other farming commaround Japan on the prdetails of creating rice-p

Mr. Nakayama expspectacle will continue t

One things for sur

We have more ambitioour rice-paddy art every

Yoko Hani is a staff wr

the Japan Times. Editedreprinted with permiss

from the Japan Times.

in 2005, ikte replcte ukiyo-e wrk( tyle Jpee wblck prtg ptg prce betwee te 17t te20t cetre) by srk utr.

inaKadaTEs 2008 ert etre geDaikoku (g welt; left) Ebisu(g fer erct).

in 2006, te ikte vllger reprRaijin Zu Byobu (W G Trglly crete by te erly E-PTwry stt.