* This essay column is written by a longtime foreign resident of Japan.

I like the story of Captain Jackie Lethbridge, who in the early 1900s kept a more or less tame half-grown lion at his home outside Nairobi to keep away unwanted visitors. The tough old war veteran arrived in British East Africa, as it then was, in 1902 but left in 1911, complaining that the country was becoming too civilized.

Sometimes I feel that Doshi, the village in Yamanashi Prefecture I call home, is getting like that.

I've nothing against all of the main road being paved, rather than being potholed gravel in some places. It's handy having street lights along most of its length, and I'd concede that our two convenience stores live up to their billing.

Rather, it's the unnecessary development that annoys me. The roads opening up quiet corners of the countryside, yet not really serving an obvious purpose. The second homes proliferating beside Doshi River or in hidden spots beside its tributaries; like a cancer you suddenly discover that has gone too far and will prove fatal to the host.

It might be going a bit too far to attribute all this to greed, but certainly the love of money is at its root. Politicians and contractors work together to push forward projects while locals seek long-term rents from holiday homes on their land or charge campers to use their leveled property. And firms from outside the village act as middlemen for the village residents seeking country cottages on their land, for the tradesmen who want to erect the buildings and the city dwellers willing to buy into the dream of a countryside retreat.

Trouble is, at this rate there won't be much countryside to come to as all this development is slowly but surely strangling the goose that once laid the golden eggs. There are clutters of besso stuck right beside the main road and only a few meters away from their neighbors. If that's their idea of getting away from it all, I'd hate to see how they live in the city.

Perhaps if urbanites had a patch of backyard to call their own they wouldn't need to come to a crowded campsite to light a barbecue beside their tent, looking for all the world like affluent refugees. And if they had a patch of garden in Sagamihara, Shinagawa, Tama or Yokohama, they wouldn't need one in Doshi. Instead of promising a chicken in every pot, potential prime ministers might do better by burnishing their "green" credentials and campaigning for legislation to provide a lawn for every voter!

But the idea of an untouched, unspoiled Japanese countryside is no doubt a myth. I'm inclined to agree with the claim, albeit somewhat exaggerated, that every stone in Japan has a fingerprint on it. I've pushed my way up steep pathless slopes around Doshi only to come across stone-built charcoal kilns or short dry stone retaining walls.

Nature promotes constant change as landslides clear slopes, winter freezes split and heave around stones, rivers roam and typhoons fell forests. It's just that man has accelerated the destructive process to meet his needs in the hollow name of progress.

What sparked off this diatribe damning development was taking my Labrador, Alice, for a walk along the new (and needless) forest road on the other side of the river and finding land being leveled in the trees for a besso. A parking lot-cum-campsite had previously been cleared across the recently constructed wide bridge spanning the river, within easy earshot of my home.

Just over the main road from my house is a small office that opened last year, complete with fluttering advertising banners and eight flashing rotating lights, selling second homes. I wonder if that guy, who hails from distant Hachioji, is involved in the latest development?

As the ancient Roman writer Pliny might have noted, "Ex Doshi semper aliquid novi (there is always something new from Doshi)!"

If you have any comments please e-mail me at jtweekly@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times Weekly: Oct. 11, 2003
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