white man in the japanese salt farm

his eyes were the color of this background

this past weekend we drove through the okunoto coast — along the shimmering waters of the sea of japan, through the noto peninsula — back home. we stopped along a salt farm and watched workers in flowing yellow robes do the traditional local method of salt-making: that is, raking sanded salt back and forth, like a zen exercise. it looked very tedious and tiring.

one of the workers was giving us an explanation in Japanese. some ten minutes in, he realized suddenly that I didn’t speak Japanese, and without a word, he ran back to get one of his worker colleagues. as the worker walked closer and closer, we slowly realized: he did not look Japanese. under the straw hat and desert yellow robes, he was a white man, blonde, with brilliant blue eyes.

in an instant, I lost all interest in the salt making. I could not contain myself. what are you doing here — I asked him. he told me that he works here four hours a day. why? to enjoy the sand and the sea and the sun, he said. he bought a house nearby and does organic farming. do you know how much an old house in rural japan costs? less than a car. 12,000 euros. where can you get a house by the sea in europe, for 12,000 euros? his neighbor — a Japanese hippie — got his house for free. it has no hot water, but in the winter time he works in the north in a ski resort. is it easy to buy a house as a foreigner, I asked him. absolutely, he said. no questions asked.

I was, for lack of better word, completely blown away. 12,000 euros for an old rural house along the coast of japan? (apparently, there are a lot of vacant old houses, because no one wants to live here.) and meeting this man — if only for ten minutes — felt like meeting one of my kind. I don’t mean white men. nor do I mean non-Japanese person. I mean: the country-less nation of people willing to live radically different lives, in different languages, in different countries — without any structure, compass center, or imposed order — except the one they create for themselves. a kindred traveler spirit who is open to the world, and finds their home in and through the world, a home they have to make with their own hands, instead of a home that is given to them.

I have never in my life considered buying a house. but in that moment, some spark lit in me — and this is not to say that I will literally buy a house in Japan next year, even for 12,000 euros, but I simply realized yet another new world of possibilities. why not? I could learn to speak fluent Japanese, adopt Japanese mannerisms, buy a motorbike or learn how to drive, learn how to garden, how to fix things and renovate the house, invite my friends around the world to live with me in this house by the sea of Japan. why isn’t this possible? it is. I would go to the sea everyday, drink in the shimmering waters, live my tatami mat life for a few months, then, go elsewhere. I would write about it all. I don’t think I will work at the salt farm. but anything and everything else — is definitely possible.