This Is Japan
Explore everyday life in Japan
The rice harvest in Japan begins around the end of August and the beginning of September every year. Across the country, thousands of hectares of rice are harvested. This leaves behind, literally, tons of wara.
Wara is the Japanese term for the stalk of grass that rice grows on. When rice is harvested, wara grass is cut and picked up by a harvesting machine. The very tips of the grass are then run through the inside of the harvesting machine and the grains of rice are removed. Although there are various uses for wara, oftentimes it is simply discarded onto the ground and left on top of the mud of the rice field to decompose back into the soil.
In Niigata and Kagawa Prefectures, some of the discarded wara is collected and used to make wara art festivals. The wara art festival that takes place in Niigata is held at Kamizeki Lagoon Park and runs from the beginning of September until the beginning of November.
Rather than being what is typically thought of as a Japanese festival, the park is turned into a sculpture park that houses giant, sometimes up to four meters tall, sculptures made of wara. Families often pack a picnic, bring charcoal, meat, fish, and plenty of beer, and spend the afternoon barbecuing, playing on the playground and the pedal-car track that is next to the barbecue area, and stroll down the walking path which leads through these sculptures.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting daily updates about life in Japan, please consider following me. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.