Setsukeian: Garden in the Dirt

Two things were counted against us on the morning of April 13th when we were preparing to leave for our first WWOOF experience in the mountains of Kyoto: first, April 12th happens to be a very special gaijin's birthday, and we had spent the evening wiling away the hours with friends, discussing the lesser works of Virgil over brandy and cigars; second, there was an earthquake at 5 a.m. that morning, as unmistakable a sign from the travel gods as ever you will see.  Of course, we hadn't left karaoke the discussion salon until 3:30, so by 5 we were unconscious and not even aware of the earthquake, but it seemed as good an excuse as any to sleep in.  Thus, rather than a breakneck 3-day ride through the city and the mountains to get to our host, we elected to stay in the Big O for a few more days, enjoying the company of good friends and more karaoke, before taking a series of trains and buses to our first organic farm, Setsukeian.

Three days later than we planned to leave, we still managed to miss our train.  This was our first train voyage in awhile, and it was odd to have no recourse when running late except to try to will the trains to move faster with the power of one's mind.  We did pass a few hours staring out the train windows and thinking about how fantastic a bike ride it would have been, though.  We also spent a good deal of time thinking about what life on the farm would be like.  Though both of us are children of the Midwest and avid lovers of corn, wheat, and other boring shit, neither of us had worked on a farm before.  Indeed, we had a perfect track record of killing every plant we had attempted to raise, although we had nurtured several hearty species of fungus on our bath mat.  Also, I'm afraid of bugs, dirt, and hard work in general.  It's a condition.  Indeed, it was something of a modern mystery why we had registered for WWOOF (which, again, stands for WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms, one of the most arbitrary acronyms on Earth).  No matter how we took to this work, we would surely learn something, whether it be how to eke out a living from mud, sticks, and other organic things, or just that we really don't like farm work.

When our bus pulled up to the stop, we were greeted by an extremely healthy-looking bald man, who greeted us with, "おかえり！" (roughly, "welcome back").  He drove us and our bags (which in this case included only the essentials: clothes, a can of macadamia nuts, and our viola and ukulele) up the hill to the farm where we would be staying for the next two weeks.

Later, Kei-san would tell me that this small road that ran past their house had been there for hundreds of years, and could be seen even on ancient maps.  Merchants would carry baskets of fish on their backs from the Sea of Japan through the mountains to Kyoto, then trek back with armfuls of silk.  Made us feel lamer than ever for taking the bus.

Setsukeian is a couple of small houses decked out in wickerware, artwork, and assorted farm implements.  Our host, Kei-san, sat us down at the small outdoor table while his wife, Setsu-san, brought us tea and welcomed us warmly.  While Kei-san shuffled through some preliminary paperwork, we looked at the names of WWOOFers past scrawled on various projects: Matthias had made the wooden pavillion, David the stone oven.

Hidden throughout the house were these images of monks, all made by their middle son, Saboten (which means "cactus," and which I was a little disappointed to find is a pen name).

Kei-san, relieved to discover that we spoke enough Japanese to get by, ran us through our daily schedules (more on this tomorrow) and the rules of the house, which I shall reprint in their entirety:

1. Please be on time for all assigned duties.
2. Men: please pee sitting down.

We would discover, of course, that there were far, far more rules than these.  In general, we were expected to "work" for six hours a day, as is standard for WWOOF, plus we were expected to help with dishes and food prep.  Cooking and washing the dishes, to my amazement, is not "work."  Still, we signed our permits and dropped off our things in our room in the guest house, then were put to work at once.  Jenn was tasked with sorting rice, one grain at a time, into three piles (seeds, broken pieces, and other), while I was sent to the rice field to gather a wild green called "seri."  Kei-san drove me down to the three fields that make up Setsukeian and explained to me, "Everyone else just kills seri with pesticides, they think it's a weed.  But that's me.  Whatever everyone else does, I don't do, and whatever nobody does, I do."

Kei-san handed me two plastic shopping bags and a pair of scissors, brought me to a spot that was dappled with green, then demonstrated how to harvest seri.  When he was convinced that I understood and was unlikely to slice off my own fingers, he left me to my own.  "So first I should do this field, and then the other two, right?" I asked.  He rolled his eyes and nodded, then drove off.  For three hours I squatted in the dirt, never once leaving the same small section of the first field.  Somehow the herbs which seemed so small and scattered multiplied as I began plucking them one by one, gradually filling the shopping bags as I grew tired and mud-covered.

At last it was quitting time; the town PA system began playing "Moon River," and I hiked back up the road to the farm.  My back was aching, my fingers cold and sore.  Clearly, I deserved a medal for such labor, or at least the rest of the day off.  For the first time, I think I might have understood the mind that created country music.  Of course, when I arrived back at the farm, it was time to change into my non-work clothes and help Setsu-san cook dinner.  Just as I had rolled up my sleeves and was ready to show my culinary prowess, Kei-san called me away to teach me the proper way to set the table.

Kei-san surveys his domain.

Setsu-san.  One day I would like to be as badass as a 60-year-old Japanese woman.

There is no flow chart big enough to contain the Setsukeian art of table-setting.  Each floor cushion, you see, must have its zipper oriented in a very particular direction.  When serving, Kei-san must be served first, followed by me (as a man, natch), then Jenn, then Setsu-san last.  There is no room for fucking around on this point.  First, of course, food has to be offered for Buddha, small portions of whatever the family is eating, excepting meat or fish, as Buddha is vegetarian; after we've begun eating, then it's OK to eat Buddha's food (he's the forgiving sort, evidently).  Each dish must be arranged in such a way to make a pleasing geometric pattern at each table setting.

Against my better judgment, I started to rankle at all of this instruction.  I toiled in the field, I helped with dinner.  We barely do dishes more than twice a week at our own home.  What's wrong with just sitting down and eating your damn food?  A few bites of Setsu-san's cooking, though, and all was right with the world again.  We had finished dinner and the dishes by 8, and were asleep in our room by 8:30, conked out even before we could confer about how the day had gone or how we would get through another two weeks.  Which would win out, our gaijin openness to new experiences or our Amurican pig-headed individualism, our Puritan work ethic or our natural hippie laziness?