A Landscape with Drying Racks
Why hand-dried rice survives in the age of machine drying.
"Hasagake," hanging cut rice on wooden poles to dry in the sun, is now a byword for extra work. Still, in October in Higashikawa, curtains of rice stand here and there. "Just what we eat ourselves. Because it tastes of the sun," says one person hanging them.
In the evening, when the western sun hits the rows of drying racks, a golden wall forms in the paddies. The smell of dry straw is a little sweet. Some remember this smell as "the smell of harvest," others as "the smell of relief that it's over," and both grew up as farmers' children.
Just what we eat ourselves. Because it tastes of the sun.
Two weeks later, the racks are cleared and the paddies suddenly feel wide. That golden wall may have been the shortest-lived architecture of the year.
