Prologue-Where a Rootless Man Found His Ground

In 1994, after graduating from Otani University in Kyoto with a degree in philosophy, I moved directly to Miyama, a rural town in Kyoto Prefecture, and began my apprenticeship as a traditional Japanese thatcher.

At that time, there were three master craftsmen in Miyama who had been born in the late 1920s and early 1930s. My senior apprentice, Makoto Nakano, was three years ahead of me. Across all of Japan, there were only three thatchers in their twenties. The craft was on the verge of disappearing.

People say I am from Kobe. In truth, I lived there for only five years. My father worked for a major insurance company and was frequently transferred throughout Japan. Our family moved every few years. I attended three different elementary schools and three different junior high schools.

I had no hometown. No childhood friends.

We were a typical postwar nuclear family, shaped by Japan’s rapid economic growth. I often felt like a rootless plant, carrying a quiet emptiness somewhere inside me.

As graduation approached, I still had no clear ambition. I could not imagine myself wearing a suit and becoming a company employee like my father. I did not even participate in job hunting. I was fully occupied with finishing my role as captain of the university basketball team.

But one memory remained vivid.

When I was in the third and fourth grades, I lived for a short time in rural Nagano. I never forgot the feeling of that open countryside—the air, the fields, the quiet.

Three months before graduation, in December, after my club activities ended, I picked up a job magazine at a bookstore. There I saw a small listing:

“Apprentice Thatchers Wanted.”

The recruitment was posted by a construction company in Miyama.

I had never heard of the town. I could not even read the Japanese character for “thatch.” I knew nothing about the craft.

But I thought:
I can move to the countryside.
I can learn a practical skill.

That was enough.

I decided immediately.

When I visited Miyama for the interview, I met Mr. Nakano at the worksite. He said something that changed my life.

“You will be the first apprentice coming from a big city. If you quit easily, people will assume that young people from cities cannot endure this work. So at least promise yourself that you will not quit for five years.”

His words struck me deeply.

I made that promise.

In January of the following year, I moved into the company dormitory in Miyama. I did not yet have a driver’s license, so I went to a driving school camp in Yamagata Prefecture in February to obtain one. I began working in March.

I returned to Kyoto for my university graduation ceremony—coming back from Miyama.

For the first time in my life, the rootless plant had touched the soil.

Photo: Haruo Nishio, second from the left, just after graduating from university in 1994 — before beginning his journey as a thatcher.