A new life of giving

A couple who moved to Sado Island in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture from Kawauchi in Fukushima after the March 2011 disaster last month opened a cultural centre for both the islanders and their fellow evacuees from the north.
Tatsuo Deto, 65, and his wife, Masako, 59, who moved to Niku district due to the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant, renovated a 130-year-old house for the centre. It’s now called Niku Banyuso and hosts activities including traditional performing arts.
They created rooms that can be used for cooking classes using local products and for concerts. The large living room provides space enough for traditional Sado Island performing arts.
On September 20, a local group carrying on the tradition of Sado Island’s puppet play, called Noroma Ningyo, which is designated “a national important intangible folk cultural property”, performed there. The group presented “Ikijizo” from its repertoire, a story about a living jizo Buddist deity statue.
The play’s unique lines delivered with a peculiar tone evoked laughter from the 55 people in the audience, Fukushima evacuees and islanders. “More people than expected came to see the play,” Deto says. Deto and his wife, who ran a machinery-manufacturing company in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, moved to Kawauchi in Fukushima in 2005 to realise their dream of living in the country. They grew maitake and shimeji mushrooms and baked bread in a stone oven.
Immediately after they learned their food would be sold at a department store in Tokyo, the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck, causing the nuclear crisis. After Deto and his wife took refuge at their son’s home in Kawaguchi, they moved to Sado with the help of a relative there. While working with the islanders to plant rice and make local dishes such as sasa dango (rice dumplings with sweet bean paste wrapped in bamboo leaves), they realised the island was suffering from a greying population. Its numbers were in decline.
Deto says they decided to create a place for islanders and non-islanders to get together and think about the future of the island. Deto rented the house and used their savings to renovate it.
About 50 people who evacuated from Fukushima live on Sado. Kazuo Tsuruma, 79, who worked a Noroma Ningyo puppet at the play, said, “I’m sure Deto must have faced a lot of difficulty, but I’m glad he created such a nice place for exchanges among us.”