This article is from WeChat official account:Urban Design Young Women 301Lab, the four seasons of the year in the original title “Yudu Qinggeng Village”-how are they after escaping the city? “Author: Yui ah hope, questions from Figure: Courtesy of
When we hear about pastoral life, we all think of Tao Yuanming’s joy of “Choosing chrysanthemums under the eastern fence and seeing Nanshan leisurely”.
Today’s movie “Little Forest”, China’s Li Ziqi, and the reality show “The Longing for Life”, etc. all show the beauty of pastoral life to the masses. What they open is the expectations and desires of people in the city for the pastoral life that are displayed under the pressure of life. So what about pastoral life in the real world that is very close to us?
A still from the movie “Little Forest”.
In this issue, the editor of 301Lab will go deep into a beautiful village in Hanyu City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, to show everyone the circular rural suburban life of the former Japanese architect Goto Masahiro’s family.
1. Yudu Qinggeng Village and Goto’s family
In 2020, Japan declared a state of emergency due to the epidemic. At that time, a buzzword appeared on many social media networks——”Escape from Tokyo” (Tokyo escape).
A hot keyword on Twitter in April 2020: Tokyo escape. Image source|Pinterest
“The popular word “escape from the city” caused by the new crown epidemic. I deeply felt this mood during the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.” In Mr. Yahao’s conversation, he said so.
(The Great Hanshin Earthquake was an earthquake disaster with a scale of 7.3 on the Richter scale that occurred in Kansai, Japan on January 17, 1995. At that time, Kobe was Japan An important city in Kansai, densely populated, the earthquake occurred in the early morning, causing quite a lot of casualties. According to official statistics, 6,434 people were killed, 43,792 were injured, and 320,000 lost their houses.)
The Hanshin Expressway (Higashi Nata District, Kobe City) collapsed and collapsed. Image source|Nippon.com
“During the Great Hanshin Earthquake, I was assigned by the construction and real estate development company I was working in to conduct on-site investigations in Kobe and Osaka. After the disaster, the miserable scenes in the entire city were unforgettable for my life. I was 30 years old that year. , This experience also made a big change in my life trajectory.”
Mr. Goto felt the fragility of the city after the over-development of the city with more than 6,000 victims.
“The motivation for choosing rural life was that I began to question whether I would continue to “invest” in this fragile and extremely expensive urban system. I feel that the city is undergoing too much development, which allows us to leave something for future generations. There are too few. My wife and I have three children. I hope to do something for my children, so we hope to live a more sustainable life.”
The sustainable development strategy also mentioned that the city needs more sustainable and possible planning. Image source|Social issues やSDGs に specialization した information メディア
Since then, the Goto family has been thinking about plans to leave the city and move into the suburbs. Finally, in 1998, they moved together to land on the outskirts of this city in Hanyu, Saitama Prefecture.
Google satellite imagery of the area occupied by the village (left). The positional relationship between Hanyu City and Tokyo Metropolitan Area (rightFigure). Picture source|农と市近乡の田园晚らし
“I am very touched that my wife and my family are very supportive of this relocation plan. We all think it is very good for our children at that time.”
When asked about his acquaintance with his wife, Mr. Goto recalled the past as if his face blushed. Both Goto and his wife graduated from Kyoto University. Mr. Goto majored in architecture and his wife majored in agriculture. Kyoto University is also where they met.
“After seeing my wife for the first time, I wondered how could there be such a lovely person in the world?”
The slightly handsome Mr. Goto and his sheep before 1998. Picture source|农と市近乡の田园晚らし
After graduation, they worked hard together in Tokyo. Mrs. Goto has been working on weather forecasting at the company in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, which is the work of digitizing artificial satellite images. Mr. Goto was very proud when he mentioned his wife’s work. Later, through their own efforts and the help of their friends, the couple finally settled down in this place called Yudu Haruko Village in Hanyu City, Saitama Prefecture.
II. Yureading the story of Qinggeng Village
This is an old house of 80 square meters in size hidden in a miscellaneous forest. The Goto couple live here with their three children. The building was built in the 1870s during the Meiji period in Japan, and the elegant name “Audomi Haruko Village” has been preserved from that period.
Yudu Qinggeng Village status map. Picture source|Axi Yui
Yudu Qinggen in Japanese means “work in the fields on a sunny day and study at home on a rainy day”, which means to stay away from the troubles of the world and live and work in the countryside.
せいこう-うどく【清 Geng Yu読】
田园で世间のわずらわしさを离れて、心穏やかに晚らすこと。 晴れた日には田畑を庚し、雨の日には家に引きこもって読书する意から。
This old private house is a friend of the Goto couple. The old house of Mr. Yoshida Fumbu, a former professor of chemical engineering at Kyoto University. Mr. Yoshida Fumbu felt that the land and the old house were deserted. It was a pity. I heard that After the Goto couple was looking for a place to move back then, they invited them to use their own house to move.
Fumbu Yoshida was taken in 1998. The picture on the left shows the Yamaha piano played at that time. Picture source on the left | Axi Yui
When living in this old folk house, the Goto family also faced many difficulties, such as house damage, waste land reclamation, and money. In more than 20 years of experience, they have overcome these problems one by one, and established an NPO legal person under the name of Yudu Qinggeng Village, advocating “agricultural life” in the suburbs and conveying coexistence with nature, low-carbon society and sustainability Sex, to achieve a continuous possible cycleOriented society, as well as regional revitalization of Hanyu City and increase the local food self-sufficiency rate.
3. Yudu Qinggeng Village Houses and Fields
In the process of learning, I cut rice with a few Japanese students. I bend over to stand up and stand up. I felt that my back was sore after a while. Then I saw that Mr. Goto had already put a whole row of rice. It’s all cut.
“When I didn’t have enough experience at the beginning, I felt painful all over when I was busy with farm work. But fortunately, I was an architect before, so my hands and feet quickly became more agile. This is nothing compared to the busy farming period. .”
The picture below is a picture of the busy farming activities of Goto in Yujiaqinggeng Village throughout the year:
The busy schedule of farming throughout the year (left picture). Schedule for a summer day (picture on the right). Picture source|农と市近乡の田园晚らし
The picture on the left is a 12-month schedule drawn by Mr. Goto. The busiest time of the year is from May to August: Basil, perilla planting and rice field management are carried out in May; 6 Irrigated the lotus pond and harvested garlic, onions and plums. July is the harvest time for wheat, quinoa, basil and perilla.
The picture on the right is the busiest summer day timetable: work in the fields starts from 4 am to 6 am, the processing time of the bakery is at 9 am and 12 noon, and the product is released from 1 pm to 3 pm Delivery time (contact food processing company), 4 to 6 pm, continue to work in the fields while the weather is not dark, and then continue to be crops Processing time. Although it was a busy day, Mr. Goto and the family who came to help from time to time enjoyed it.
Four. RainQinggeng Village Qian and Liang Gongfang
The Lianggongfang studio is located in a corner of this land. It was opened in 2009. It is dedicated to making various seasonal breads using abundant wheat, natural yeast and pesticide-free agricultural products. It is open irregularly every month. This grain workshop was originally a room for processing and selling the agricultural crops of the Goto family, but by chance, it became a local gourmet workshop that combines pre-ordering of seasonal agricultural products and baking bread.
In the food workshop, every time he started selling bread, Mr. Goto always took his goats (mascots) with him. Picture source|农と市近乡の田园晚らし
People can see the notice of bread reservations on Facebook’s official website. In addition to bread, the studio also sells homemade organic agricultural products processing and processing products. (sold Carrot juice, honey, basil sauce, brown rice cakes are all grown and processed by the factory).
The picture on the left is a brown rice cake made from home-grown brown rice, and the picture on the right is a limited number of baked bread every week. Picture source|农と城市近乡の田园晚らし
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