Taka, Hyogo

Sheets of 杉原紙 — Sugihara paper — dry on wooden frames somewhere in the hills of 多可町, as they have through many generations of papermakers working the rivers of the Kakogawa watershed. The craft has its own facility here, the 杉原紙研究所, where the techniques of hand-papermaking are kept in active use rather than preserved behind glass. Nearby, the 道の駅杉原紙の里・多可 sells the paper alongside local produce, a roadside station that functions less as a tourist stop and more as a node of the local economy.

The town sits deep in the eastern edge of the Chugoku mountains, ringed by peaks including 千ヶ峰, and the pace that comes with that geography is unmistakable. Rice paddies here grow 山田錦, the sake-brewing variety, and the connection between this mountain valley and the sake culture of the wider Hyogo region runs quietly through the landscape. At マイスター工房八千代, the range of local products on the shelves — preserved foods, condiments, prepared items — reads almost like a catalog of what the surrounding farms and forests produce. The 大歳金刀比羅神社 holds its festival on the 23rd of November each year, one of the three great festivals of the Banshu region, pulling the community together in a way that has little to do with outside attention. 多可町 also claims the origin of Respect for the Aged Day, a detail that sits quietly alongside the paper and the rice, another thread in a place that seems to measure time by its own standards.