Tsukimi Ayano made her first scarecrow 13 years ago to frighten off birds pecking at seeds in her garden.
The life-sized straw doll resembled her father, so she made more, and then could not stop.
Today, the tiny village of Nagoro in southern Japan is teeming with Ayano’s hand-sewn creations, frozen in time for a tableau that captures the motions of everyday life.
Photo: Reuters
Scarecrows pose in houses, fields, trees, streets and at a crowded bus stop — where they wait for a bus that never comes.
“In this village, there are only 35 people, but there are 150 scarecrows, so it’s multiple times more,” Ayano said.
Nagoro, like many villages in Japan’s countryside, has been hit hard by inhabitants flocking to cities for work and leaving mostly pensioners behind. Its graying community is a microcosm of Japan, whose population has been falling for a decade and is projected to drop from 127 million to 87 million by 2060.
At 65, Ayano is among the youngest residents of Nagoro. The village school was shut in 2012 after its two pupils graduated, but the building is now occupied by Ayano’s scarecrows — students at their desks and in corridors, a teacher by the blackboard, while a suit-wearing school principal looks on.
Each of the 350 scarecrows crafted by Ayano over the years was built on a wooden base, with newspapers and cloth used to fill them out. They are often dressed in hand-me-downs and the ones propped up outdoors lined with plastic to keep them dry.
Still, the weather plays spoilsport and Ayano has often had to replace scarecrows exposed to the open air.
Sometimes, the new ones she makes are made to order, usually in the likeness of young people who have left Nagoro for work or residents who have died.
“They’re created as requests for those who’ve lost their grandfather or grandmother,” said Osamu Suzuki, a 68-year-old resident. “So it’s indeed something to bring back memories.”
Tourists have started to come, too, drawn by the two lifeless delegates guarding the road leading to the village, next to a board identifying Nagoro as “Scarecrow Village.”
Ayano is happy to show her work to visitors, as long as she is not disturbed while watching her favorite TV soap opera. On her daily rounds, she walks around the village bidding her motionless creations a good morning and tends to their needs.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS