Several months ago, this incongruous structure sprung up in a matter of a week. At first, I honestly thought it was an eyesore, contrasting dramatically with the rustic, traditional houses around it. It just didn’t seem to have any organic connection with the rice and bean fields, and vegetable gardens in our village.
But I’ve learned to accept it on its own terms. By some post-modern, pre-fab, industrial aesthetic, it is actually rather appealing.
Samurai Jeans has had a presence in the area for some time now. Almost three years ago, I wrote about its taking over fields in the area to raise cotton. This was what I thought their “world headquarters” was at the time.
Meaning, I surmised this operation was just some local entrepreneur making a fledgling effort to raise organic cotton, which I assumed he/she would sell to clothing manufacturers in Japan.
I had it all wrong. A few weeks ago, my wife Masumi and I attended the grand opening of Sasayama Cotton Base, the name of the “presence” here in our Noma Village.
There I met a gentleman named Dave Stewart — yes, I know, and the first thing he said to me was “I didn’t play in the Eurythmics” — who had come here from Osaka for the event. He was very familiar with Samurai Cotton Jeans and gave me the whole story, including what this big blue metal structure was all about.
It turns out that Samurai Jeans is a major corporation based in Osaka, and their jeans are sold all over Japan and worldwide online. They use organic cotton and traditional dying and weaving techniques. Most of the organic cotton is imported from the U.S. but some is grown right here in Japan. That’s where Sasayama Cotton Base comes in. Samurai Jeans can claim that they use locally grown organic cotton, and if you’re interested in visiting the cotton fields and familiarizing yourself with the process of preparing the denim, this is the place to do it!
Sasayama Cotton Base is a agritourism facility. You can stay in the blue building’s accommodations — sleeps 1 to 3 — then enjoy the calming quiet of rural life, while you learn first hand and hands-on about the cotton denim manufacturing process. There’s a cotton making building: “Divide the harvested cotton into seeds and fibers.” And a dyeing building: “Decide on a design and experience vegetable dyeing. Here, we will dye it using Tamba Sasayama black beans and Tamba chestnut dye.” Of course, there’s a shop for buying the products made from the work here.
Sasayama Cotton Base is certainly an interesting concept. It’s not intended to make money. In fact, from what I’ve observed, it probably loses money. I ride by the base every day on my bike and have never seen a visitor. The three or four fellows who work there are always glad to see me — probably glad to see anyone — wave enthusiastically and shoot me big smiles. Of course, whether the base itself make money is not the important thing. The important thing is the organic cotton grown here.
The number of people working on this project varies considerably. The core staff is maybe three. But sometimes I see several folks — men and women — working the field. As with all farming, most of this comes at the beginning and the end of the growth cycle.
What can I say? The excitement never lets up here!
[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https:/jdrachel.com ]
