After cherry blossoms comes the rice planting season.
It's the same old ritual in this part of the world.
It may no longer be considered as sacred and spiritual as it used to be, but the rice still has got a special place in our heart.
An important source of being Japanese, so to speak, or one of the essences of our culture.
With the decline of the rice industry, some of our people's goodness seem to have gone as well.
The ritual of rice planting (and harvesting), carried out by the locals in community spirit in the past, has gone through a fundamental shift: from human to machine.
And that shift seems to have caused a loss of that community spirit or sense of working together, living together.
People have become more individualistic, or to be more precise, more self-centered, one of the social malaise afflicting our society now.
Maybe we should revive the ancient ritual of people planting rice with their bare hands, not with the machines. That way, we may come to appreciate the joy of being together once again.
