Japan, part 3:
Hizen Hamashuku
Our guesthouse is closeby, too. To be fair, everything is several steps away from each other. At the accommodation, our tall Dutch participants have to bend before entering through a door, slow down at the thresholds of rooms and spaces. We are told to go to a small house next to it where we find our sleeping places surrounded by multitude of cheerful drawings of flowers, cartoon figures and ornaments. I quickly occupy a bed next to a coffee table, that is almost immediately taken over by my art supplies.
We are entering a traditional Japanese house, and I feel like a movie character as I touch the noren and take careful steps on tatami floors. Every part of the house is tactile and breathing, it is alive, and of course remember to take your shoes off as you enter.
As I am standing, enchanted, in the engawa of a Japanese house, observing the river spreading its murmur on the rocks, I feel that I never want to leave. I seize the sunlight, connect to the tiniest sensation I receive through my body, accompanying it by deep breaths.
Later, we are given a tour at a sake brewery – to understand the process before our renovation project. Sake is made by fermenting rice, with careful steps to bring out its flavor. The rice is polished to remove outer layers — higher-quality sake requires more polishing. While there are regulations, breweries often go beyond them for a smoother taste. The region’s natural qualities also shape the final flavor, making Hizen Hamashuku special for its sake.
After understanding the delicate process of sake brewing, we step into our project building. Our site for the project is an old, currently abandoned, building formerly used as a sake brewery. It begins with a large space: previously the main production area, it leads you to different directions. Smaller rooms on the sides keep the memories of production: you see the machinery, the tools, collection of boxes and large cans that used to keep sake inside. We carefully climb upstairs a creaking wooden staircase, hands steadying each other. At the top, the interplay of timber and its sophisticated structure, bamboo, and rope unfolds before us. Coming back downstairs, as you walk through another door, you reach an open space, a connection with a different part of the building, that is now used as an event hall. As everyone leaves, Lenny and I remain: in the dim light of the event hall, we discover a piano that Lenny starts playing, and I listen to this emerging from the dark melody.
If you asked me to go back to my Japanese memories and select some of them where I felt the calmest, onsen would be the first place that comes to mind. At the moment I enter the building, I know especially little about what onsen is – well they say it is hot springs, but I have not even been to a sauna before this. As soon as I walk into the room full of water, I take a step, two, three, until I immerse myself. The water is reaching my shoulders, I alternate temperatures, going from one pool to another. I step outside in crisp February air, swiftly moving my body into the hot waters where I spend, as it feels, just a moment – and ages at the same time.
During the time we are spending in onsen I feel how desperately I needed this very moment, this full immersion in the warmth, and how strong – and how instant – this relaxation is. I become an observer – observer of any and all tiny sensations, the contrast of air and water, following the example of people as they get on the border of each pool, cool down, and go back into the water. Yellow lights from the interior are making the timber outside shine, cold water buckets murmur continuously, reaching the floor by splashes, powerful drops, that awaken your body entirely.
The next day meets us with the sun, under which we talk to locals – with the inevitable help of our Japanese students translating. After a day spent working on a project, discussing, coming up with ideas, we get on the bus and go back to Saga...
We come back to Hizen Hamashuku for the final presentations. As we unpack our bags at the same accommodation, we know that we got different rooms and will be sleeping on the tatami floors this time, making it even more special. The presentations, despite being attended by the local press, feel very homely, as we sit on the floor in front of the screen. I wrap my knitted burgundy scarf firmly, in several layers, as a blanket that pleasantly shelters me in this space.
This last night we have dinner with the local community, homemade, cooked for us. We communicate with each other through gestures, laughter, photo albums and some shared words we can find, at times asking our Japanese students for help. The charm of life and humanity is in these interactions, small talks, and the deep feeling: wherever you go on this planet Earth, you are going to find the same tender human nature and profound kindness, as it lies at the heart of what humanity is naturally capable of. This day, as I step out of warm water for the last time, I quietly realize: I cannot take it with me – not the onsen, nor the quiet streets, nor the Noren swaying in the wind. This whole experience, like every moment of our lives, is meant to be ephemeral, dissipate, run away with the waters under the rocks I observe at the beginning of my journey. Still, it is its main strength and its main allure that, despite its temporality, it remains with me, while, at the same time, never coming back again.
