Japanese woman builds 350 straw models to replace disappearing residents
A JAPANESE village has seen its population boom in the last decade thanks to the handiwork of one of its residents.
Nagoro in southern Japan has an official population of just 35, but anyone passing through could be forgiven for thinking it was 10 times that amount after Tsukimi Ayano filled the area up with scarecrows.
Miss Ayano, 65, 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 but found that she could not stop there.
Today, the tiny village of Nagoro in southern Japan isteeming with Ayano’s hand-sewn creations, frozen in time for a tableau that captures the motions of everyday life.
Scarecrows pose in houses, fields, trees, streets, and at a crowded bus stop - where they wait for a bus that never comes.
Miss Ayano said: “In this village, there are only 35 people. But there are 150 scarecrows, so it’s multiple times more.”
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 greying 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.
The village school was shut in 2012 after its two pupils graduated but the building is now occupied by Miss 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 Miss Ayano over the years was built on a wooden base, with newspapers and cloth used to fill them out.
Sometimes, the new ones she makes are made to order, usually in the likeness of young people who have left Nagoro 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”.