#itakura

Happy New Year!
This is one of the last places we visited with Freeschool #I CAN.
I had visited Eshini Hall before, and @toddstafford has visited here before, but the Eshin no Sato Memorial Hall was a nice place to get a cup of coffee while enjoying a beautiful view.
The cut-outs on display were created by an eighty year old artist and represent the 12 animal zodiac signs of each year. 2019 is the year of the boar.
Eshin, the Buddhist nun and wife of Shinran, has some writings and letters displayed here, but photos are not allowed. There are meeting rooms and a large multi purpose room also for rent. #joetsu #itakura #enishi #coffee #shinran
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The historic soba (buckwheat) noodle shop as well as my favorite gelato place were closed on Tuesday. Undaunted, I went in search of a local hero who I was just recently introduced to by @yamazakimieko. What’s the connection between this part of snowy Joetsu and the tropical seas of Okinawa?
In fact, one of the residents from here set off to find his fortune…in black pearls…on the tiny island of Miyakojima, far from the main island of Okinawa, closer in fact to Taiwan.
What he found there was a devistating, suicide-inducing TAX system enforced by the local leaders of the island. The burden was so great—women in particular spend days in near-slavery in dark warehouses weaving garments to be used as payment, the men often opted to lop off an arm to get some relief from the enforced tool.
This Joetsu hero, Nakamura Juusaku, took it upon himself to work to reform the draconian “nintouzei” tax system that he accidentally discovered.
At the corner museum I found, there were photos of Juusaku and his brother and others who helped reform the system, as well as more recent photos of children from Itakura and Miyakojima who continue an exchange program to this day. Though revered almost as a god on the island of Miyakojima, he was hardly known in his hometown. Until his death in 1943, he never told anyone back home about what he had accomplished.
#joetsu #juusaku #itakura #localhistory #friendship
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