During our field research situated on the Kenmarubi lava flow, I gained a small insight connecting directly to our program’s “continuity/change” dyad. This area was heavily deforested before and during World War II for timber, so there was a need to reseed the area and develop a new forest. Because this area is extremely rocky with an almost non-existent soil layer, the seeds for the Red Pine species (which is a resilient coniferous pioneer species that can grow in such rocky terrain) were actually air dropped into the area via helicopter. Traditional planting techniques were nonviable because of the rocky ground, but Japan’s new aerial technology enabled the dropping of a huge number of seeds with relative ease. What does remain constant from the times of old is that red pines are still not used for furniture, construction, or any other finished wood products. The red pine, or akamatsu tree, is an irregularly growing tree, with too many twists and tangles to be utilized for much other than firewood.
Despite the advance of technology, or perhaps because of it, new uses for the red pine have not have not been discovered. In actuality, the decrease in demand for firewood because of electric heating sources has led to such forests being relatively left alone by loggers in more modern times.
During a formal presentation from the Fujisan Club, a non-profit organization devoted to environmental management in the Mt. Fuji area, I gained another interesting insight into how outmoded forms of resource utilization can be replaced with more modern ones to try to increase the practicality of underused materials. In Japan, bamboo has historically been used as construction timber and as a food source. Although bamboo is still used in these ways in the modern era, the reduction in bamboo construction and the introduction of countless other substitutes into the Japanese diet has left the nation with a great excess of bamboo. The Fujisan Club members have put their creativity to use in an attempt to discover new uses for bamboo wood which could appeal to modern Japanese. In a brief but effective demonstration, we were shown how bamboo wood can be used to create a sound amplifier, which contains a slot which perfectly fits an iPod, iPhone, or other music-playing mobile device. The bamboo augments the sounds played on the device, turning the tiny phone speakers into a sound system which can fill a whole room. Japan is renowned worldwide for being adept at creating complex technologies such as electronics, but this innovation displays how small, practical, and simple inventions can be an important step towards solving an environmental problem such as species overpopulation. Situations like this one, in which traditionally utilized resources are cleverly appropriated into new, modern uses, are ripe for analysis using our continuity/change dyad. The continuous aspect is that the same traditional resource, in this case bamboo, is still available and being used, but the decrease in the level and necessity of usage, and the new products being created, all represent ways in which the bamboo economy has drastically shifted.
Another example of a simple innovation creating a big difference in daily life came on August 2nd, when we visited a local sake brewery in Fujinomiya, a city of approximately 130,000 people just south of Mt. Fuji. One of the first items we were shown at the brewery was an old account book from about 100 years ago. We were surprised to see our guide rip up the paper of this old book, but all was made clear when he told us that the old paper is actually used to great effect to seal the lids atop the giant sake brewing tanks. Here again we see an object with little actual value (except perhaps to someone studying the history of accounting in Japan) being appropriated in a brand new context to provide significant and cheap utility.
Also at the sake house, we learned of another way that timber has historically been used in the Japanese economy. Traditional sake houses actually grow yeast on the very wood which constitutes the frame and floors of the house. The yeast spreads and is fully exposed to the fermenting rice from which the sake is made. This makes these breweries particularly sensitive to some types of change. If the house must be moved to a different location, then it is crucial to move the very same wooden pieces which made the original house, or else the yeast would have to be grown all over again. Secondly, the sake brewers themselves must be careful about their diets. If one would eat too much of certain kinds of fermented foods, for example natto (fermented soybeans), then the exposure of these cultures to the brewery’s interior may actually contaminate the sake and compromise the integrity of the sake being brewed. These are factors which do not seem obvious from an outside perspective, which only makes the implications of such a complex process as brewing all the more interesting from a student’s point of view. Although some sake houses in Japan are run using these traditional methods, more and more sake breweries are starting to resemble modern factories, where the walls are no longer made of wood, and the yeast is injected directly into the rice-based liquid.
Overall, I have noticed many changing methods and products which represent the rapidly modernizing world of which Japan is an important part. As food, production methods, and energy sources change, so too does the demand for certain resources. As resources become outdated, new ways to add utility and consume surpluses are sought out. However, there is great variation in the ability to repurpose old resources in the modern world. Whereas bamboo is still eaten, and can be used for new products like phone speaker-amplifiers, red pine is becoming increasingly useless as the need for firewood is in sharp decline. Bamboo speakers are a new utilization that is geared towards a growing part of our daily lives — mobile phones and music devices (which are increasingly becoming the same thing). The sake brewery’s clever use of old record books is a usage which is strongly attached to the traditional way of doing things, which is increasingly in competition with factories using modern techniques to mass-produce sake. There is no singular pattern to these shifts on the continuity/change scale. Leaning towards the side of change, they all exemplify how modernization of our daily economies has the effect of shifting resource demand.