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.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS