Part 3: Digging for Sweet Potatoes!

On October 3rd, Asahi ALTs participated in the last event of the Asahi rice planting experience, where we got to dig up sweet potatoes and participate in mochi-tsuki, or pounding sticky rice cake.

Digging up the potatoes was pretty fun since we got dig with our hands!  Everyone had a small area where they dug up sweet potatoes. I didn't have many potatoes in my area, but the child who I was next found so many potatoes in his area!!! It was pretty unfair hahaha :P

Japanese sweet potatoes that I dug up

After potato digging we got to see children pounding the sticky rice cake with their big wooden hammer! It was so cute!

We also got a bag of rice!  I'm pretty sure that it was the rice that we had harvested before too! I thought that it was really cool knowing that we had helped harvest the rice that we were given.

Harvested rice

Part 2: Rope Making and Rice Harvesting in Asahi, Chiba!

On Saturday September 5^th, my friends and I went back to Ohara Yugaku Museum in Asahi to take part in the next experience: rope making and rice harvesting!

When we got there, we noticed that some volunteers had farming clothes prepared for participants who wanted to wear them (for free!) so we decided to wear them for the day.

After the welcome ceremony, we began the first event of the day: making rope from straw!

 

ALTs making rope from straw

The old ladies who were teaching everyone made it look so easy, but it turned out to be really difficult!  I had to restart my rope a couple times.  But in the end I (sort of) got the hang of it!

 

The rope that I made

We all wanted to keep our ropes, but unfortunately we used them for the rice harvesting activity in the afternoon.  The person in charge briefly taught us how to stand and cut the rice, and afterwards we made our way to the rice field that we had weeded two months before.

 

A child cutting the rice in the rice field

Cutting the rice was really fun!  We used the ropes that we had made that morning to bundle the rice.  It was really cool sharing the same experience with traditional Japanese rice farmers.  We cut the rice for about 45 minutes, and while there were a lot of other participants, there was still a lot of rice plants left uncut by the time we finished.  Now, there are machines that can easily cut the rice plants so it isn’t as strenuous for farmers to harvest the rice annually.  It was still an awesome experience to cut the rice by hand, so if anyone gets the opportunity to partake in this kind of event, please give it a try!

Part 1: Rice Field Event in Asahi, Chiba!

Japanese summers are notorious for being hot and humid.  But on the rare occasion that the wind blows, being near a rice field is truly breathtaking.  Seeing the rice plants billow in the wind is very relaxing, and the wind feels so refreshing!

Japanese rice field, Asahi, Chiba

On July 11th, a group of ALTs and I participated in part of a rice harvesting event.  This particular event is made up of four parts: 1) rice planting, 2) weeding and bug catching, 3) rice cutting, and 4) the harvesting of the rice.  My friends and I participated in the weeding and bug catching experience.

"But weeding is so boring!"  That's what my friends and I thought at first, but it actually turned out to be really fun!

See! Everyone is smiling! Photo credit: Koki Hirano

Cutting the grass! Photo credit: Koki Hirano

The event took place at the rice field near the Ohara Yugaku Museum in Asahi, Chiba.  We went down to the rice field around 10:30 AM, and with out little hand scythes we cut the weeds around the rice field.  If the weeds made their way into the rice fields then they could actually damage the rice. 

Lotus plants near the rice fields

After eating lunch, we started the second part of the experience: bug catching.  I don't really like bugs, but one of the members of our group loves bugs, so she had the time of her life trying to catch bugs and frogs with her net. Many children who were participating also had a lot of fun going into the rice field and catching frogs and other small creatures. 

Children having fun with bugs 

Can't wait for the rice cutting event in September!