Kuzumaki, Iwate

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Location of Kuzumaki in Iwate Prefecture

Kuzumaki (葛巻町; -machi) is a town located in Iwate District, Iwate, Japan.

As of 2003, the town has an estimated population of 8,113 and a density of 18.65 persons per km². The total area is 434.99 km².

(From a former foreign resident of the town, John Thiel, 1997-1999) Located at the nexus of Iwate Prefectures two main roads, Kuzumaki promotes itself as the Land of Milk and Wine due to its relatively high dairy cow to human population ratio and the local winery which specializes in "yama-budou" (mountain grape) wine which is unique in color and flavor. The residents have a lot of pride invested in this particular product, and the visitor would do well to be conscientious of that fact when speaking to the locals--that, and the amount of snow which accumulates to about half a meter per year are their chief investments in terms of town ego.

Chief problems of the town are its high emigration of young people pursuing better education and employment opportunities in the larger towns of Morioka--two hours away by bus--and Tokyo--an additional three hours away by bullet train. People of traditional marriage and child-bearing age are a small percentage amongst the increasingly elderly population but somehow the above population figure of 8,000 or so seems to have been maintained even so late as 1999.

During World War II the population skyrocketted of course, as families left the cities for the rural countryside to escape bombing. Kuzumaki's local elementary school which dates well over 200 years old--I forget the exact figure--has a class photo collection that is telling of this fact as the visitor can see the class size of a handful before and after the war at probably 100 students or more at that school alone during the war years.

If Kuzumaki should be famous for two things which it is not, it's the quality and taste of the food--truly outstanding, better than neighboring towns, even for Japan in general--and the numerous thatch-rooved homes, many of which are hundreds of years old and still occupied as regular family houses rather than the national treasures that they naturally are. The beef is outstanding--Kobe has nothing on Kuzumaki beef and yet it's not a beef town.

There is an unadvertised rustic appeal about Kuzumaki, its people, and the dialect they are constantly trying to push into extinction but which insists on functioning and remaining a distinctive cultural asset of the Tohoku (or maybe I should pronounce it "Cho-ogu") region. It would be hard to get along in Kuzumaki without at least being able to understand the omnipresent "zuzu-ben" of the locals, but thankfully it's more of an accent than a dialect. For the most part, Kuzumaki residents speak standard Japanese with a heavy rural accent though some remote pockets do employ a unique vocabulary that seems to have its roots in ancient Mandarin (numbers for instance can be heard as "Ichi, Arr, Oo, Shi, . . ." here and there). One store owner gave my 200 yen change once with the statement, "Arr shaku en ga ogaiji dezu" and that's a pretty good example of how the sentence is pronounced there versus the standard "Ni hyaku en ga okaishi des."

Kuzumaki is a wonderful town to roll through and spend some time on your way to other Iwate destinations, such as Ryusendo Cave in the neighboring town, or the beautiful train ride up the coast from nearby Kuji. It is bereft of souvenir shops; there only a few chain stores such as their one convenience store 7-11; the food is great, the people are friendly, and they are eager to let you know they are there. Any foreigner stopping here will be the talk of the town in less than five minutes.