“Hands in Prayer” – Japanese style

Thatched-roofed houses at Ainokura

Despite being such a culturally rich country, it is an understatement to say that Japan is not a place well-understood by people from the world outside. There are people who would love to savor every bit of fascinating Japan they can, but are only hampered by a single problem - language. Having said that, sometimes it’s the Japanese that prefer to keep their treasures a secret (until modernization forces them to find a way to preserve these treasures through an internationally recognized movement).

Therefore it is not surprising to find that the two sites of the Ainokura village at Gokayama* (in Toyama prefecture) and Shirakawa-go (in Gifu prefecture) in the Chubu region, with traditional houses of more than 300 years old boasting architecture and thatched roofs that can be found no other place in Japan, were only designated the Unesco World Cultural Heritage Sites in 1995. At the same time, it is also amazing that the locals have managed to keep the villages, the houses and the way of life the same now as several generations ago, oblivious to the rapid changes that Japan as a nation is going through.

Aerial view of Ainokura village, a Unesco World Cultural Heritage Site

Ainokura village is the most remote destination on my entire trip itinerary, but also the one I looked forward to most. It is nestled deep in steep mountains and faces the most snowfall in Japan during winter. It used to be extremely difficult to reach this place due to the harsh winters, but now it is possible to access by car or bus. Geographically, it is located nearer to central Ishikawa prefecture but due to the surrounding alpine mountains and valleys, there was no easy way to get there except to make a detour trip up to northern Ishikawa by train from Kanazawa and then a bus down to the village. Because the Ainokura village is so remotely located in the mountains, the houses themselves had to be able to withstand the heavy snowfall and the penetrating cold in winter (I guess because there was no electricity 300 years ago…??) yet also be able to allow the air within to be cool in the summer. This brings us to the amazing feature of houses in Ainokura village.

Check out the "Hands-in-Prayer" style roof of the house

There are only 23 houses in the remote Ainokura village (although there are more in nearby Shirakawa-go), most of which were built between the end of the Edo period (about 300 years ago) and the end of the Meiji period. The oldest house is dated back to the 17th century. These houses are built in “Gassho-Zukuri” (or “hands-in-prayer”) style, so called because of the shape of the roof, which are at 60 degrees in an inverted V-shape to prevent snow from building up on them. The thatched roofs are made with straw from crops and can withstand 3 m of snow. Constructing these thick straw roofs is an art in itself, and an extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming affair. Layers of the straws must be tied and bound onto the roof, and the process repeated 5 times by skilled craftsmen all within a day or two to prevent decay of the straws. In general, these houses require 20 x 4 tons truck loads of straws to rethatch but once constructed, the roofs are so durable that re-thatching is done only once in every 15 - 20 years! (Also, despite the size of these houses, there are no nails used at all in their construction.)

And it's just straw and ropes and beams...no nails

So it was great timing I thought, to find that the 300 yr-old minshuku (i.e. traditional Japanese house) I would be staying at in Ainokura village was undergoing its first day of re-thatching after 15 years. Nakaya Minshuku (http://www1.tst.ne.jp/snakaya/index.html) was featured in Japan Hour in December 2008** and the owner, Nakatani-san and his wife, were delighted to have me visit them from Singapore :)

The owners of Nakaya Minshuku, Nakatani-san and his wife :)

Rethatching of the roof at Nakaya, the 300 yrs old minshuku I was staying in

Ainokura village is small, but stepping into it was like walking straight into a storybook “Once upon a time…” place in the mountains, Japanese style. Again, like the snow monkeys I visited, Ainokura would be extremely beautiful to visit in winter time from December – February. The picturesque scenery would be any photographer’s dream, and well-worth travelling the road for. The lack of accessibility to the village in earlier times meant that the village was largely self-sufficient, and had developed its own unique traditions in folk music and dance. The locals would have happily kept this remote and unique village a secret, even from other Japanese, if not for the fact that several of the Gassho-zukuri houses were being torn down due to dam construction and housing modernization. Only then did the locals realize that they had to start a movement to protect the heritage of the village. And only then were Ainokura village, together with Shirakawa-go, really revealed to the outside world and finally added to the list of Unesco World Cultural Heritage Sites in 1995.

In the cold of about 5 degrees at night, sitting by the irori (i.e. sunken fireplace) and having a home-cooked kaiseki dinner at Nakaya was definitely the perfect way to stay warm!

Having my dinner in front of the Irori (sunken fireplace) in my room

Chatting with the wife of Nakatani-san about the village and the heritage of this 300 years old house brought as much wonder to me as I brought to her with my tale of travels alone in search of authentic Japan. As I took a hot ofuro bath and settled in the comfortable futon laid out for me, I could only place my “hands-in-prayer” and hope that people would learn about this place and visit it before it loses itself in time that always erodes.

* Gokayama means five valleys in Japanese, and Ainokura is surrounded by these five valleys of Akao-dani, Kami-Nashi-dani, Shimo-Nashi-dani, Otani, and Toga-dani along the Sho-gawa River.

** Refer to the last section of the Japan Hour episode found at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/japanhour/highlights_dec27.htm