Kameoka

Day two of the program. Our fieldwork in Kameoka began even before we arrived. To step back from modern "clock time" (Chronos), we boarded the Sagano Romantic Train—a "Genkan methodology" akin to the Ohitaki fire festival we witnessed a day before in Fushimi. This railway originated as the Kyoto Railway in 1899. Though it was decommissioned in 1989 due to the doubling of the San-in Main Line, it was reborn a year later as a sightseeing train. We chose this over the standard JR line to physically imprint upon ourselves "an alternate sense of time" that flows along and through the Hozu Gorge.
As the train wound along the cliffs, a cold wind bit through the windows. Below, the emerald green of the Hozugawa River shimmered in the sunlight. To the rhythmic clack-clack of the rails, I felt the illusion of traveling backward through history. This river was once a vital artery for the capital’s logistics. During the construction of Heijo-kyo (Nara), timber from Tanba was lashed into rafts and floated downstream. In the Edo period, the wealthy merchant Suminokura Ryoi invested a fortune (equivalent to nearly one million USD today) to excavate the riverbed. This allowed not just rafts but boats to navigate the waters, ensuring a steady supply of Kameoka’s rice and vegetables to the city of Kyoto. Remarkably, to return upstream, the boatmen had to pull the heavy vessels back by walking along mountain paths—a labor almost unimaginable to those of us living in modern society. When the railway opened in the Meiji era, logistics moved to land, and the Hozugawa River transformed into an infrastructure for tourism. The tradition of river boat rides, which began in earnest around 1895, welcomed dignitaries such as the future Kings George V and Edward VIII, spreading the fame of the gorge’s beauty worldwide
Fūdo and infrastructure. A waterway for timber became a canal for food, and eventually a resource for exploring the land’s beauty. Though its roles have shifted, the harsh yet bountiful flow of the Hozugawa River has never ceased to sustain the lives of the people inhabiting the land. Lost in these thoughts, we passed through the final tunnel to find the thick morning mist characteristic of Kameoka gently awaiting us.

Arriving at Kameoka Station, we ascended mist-covered mountain roads to visit the Natural Whetstone and Hone Museum. Kameoka is one of the rare regions in the world that produces natural "finishing stones," essential for the final sharpening of blades. The geological layers here date back 250 million years to deep-sea sediments. The unique geological position of the Japanese archipelago—at the junction of four tectonic plates—uplifted hard siliceous claystone, creating this "holy land" of whetstones with a microscopic structure found nowhere else.

Guided by Tanaka-san, the director of the museum, we participated in a workshop based on the "Kannō Method" designed for this year’s program. We felt the weight of an authentic Japanese sword in our palms, planed wood with a kanna（鉋, plane) sharpened knives on locally sourced whetstone, and heightening our senses in the process. When sharpening a knife, you hold the blade at a precise 15-degree angle, moving it back and forth at a steady, gliding (yet not too fast) pace. Press down just a little and you will feel the stone biting. The vibration goes into your fingers and up your arm. You repeat the gliding motion ten or so times, and by the end, the edge is sharp and shines in the light. Sharpening a knife takes time and effort. In those moments of tranquility, we find ourselves in conversation with the tool and the earth itself. The tactile sensation of a stone that ends up in front of us after 250 million years reminds us that we are part of the planet. In the modern era, we are less likely to engage in the act of sharpening. This signifies more than just a carelessness toward our tools; it suggests a severing of our connection to the earth and our ancestors. Against the backdrop of CDW’s mission of exploring "circularities" unique to the Asia-Pacific region, I realized mere mechanical tweaking or hacking of material cycles would not cut it. Instead, we must turn our attention to the deep bonds we are still capable of forming with the fūdo.

Tanaka-san describes whetstones as the “nexus of Japan's nature, culture, and technology." In a land scarce in iron ore, the culture of precise sharpening developed to preserve precious steel refined from iron sand. This culture underpinned the delicate knife work of Japanese cuisine and the exquisite architecture of master carpenters. A Kameoka whetstone is more than a tool; it is a "spiritual infrastructure" lying at the foundation of our culture across 250 million years.

Next, we visited the Nantan Seiso Diaper Recycling Center. Here, technology is being developed to recycle used diapers into high-quality pulp and plastic. According to Masayuki Terai, who founded Gomi-no-Gakko (ごみの学校, The School of Waste) Inc. and is deeply involved in this project, used diapers—water-logged and difficult to burn—account for roughly 8% of Kameoka’s combustible waste. In a super-aging society, this number is expected to grow. A diaper is a three-layer structure of pulp, plastic, and super-absorbent polymer (SAP). In a machine Terai describes as a "giant washing machine," diapers are heated and rotated with water and chemicals. This cleanses and sterilizes the material while the impact of rotation breaks them down into pulp fibers and plastic fragments. Thus, what was once destined for the incinerator is reborn as raw material.

The Chinese character for "excrement" (ben: 便, convenience) originally carries the meaning of "smooth" or "without hindrance." In the Edo period, human waste was a valuable resource traded as fertilizer. In contrast, we moderns view it purely as "filth," erasing it from our thoughts the moment it is flushed. As the philosopher Timothy Morton suggests, there is no true boundary between "here" (inside the system) and "there" (outside). Trash put out in the morning or excreta flushed down the toilet does not simply vanish. Diaper recycling is an attempt to reintegrate what has been "forgotten" and thus relegated to non-existence in the wake of modernization back into the original cyclical flow.

Our final guide in Kameoka was Tomohachi Toyoda of the Hozugawa Yusen Boatmen’s Association. He explained that since the time of Suminokura Ryoi, boatmen have maintained the riverbed and crafted their own tools. Even the ropes used to moor the boats are hand-woven by the boatmen themselves from palm fibers (shuro).

"Now, let's all try weaving a rope," he said with a smile. To show us how, Toyoda-san began weaving two plastic strings nonchalantly, producing a sturdy rope in an instant. Inspired by his effortlessness, we tried to mimic his movements, but it was incredibly difficult. While a few eventually caught on, the slightest misalignment in the pressure and angle of one’s palms caused the braid to unravel immediately.
"Embodied knowledge at its peak!" I thought. But then a realization struck: perhaps it is not accurate to say that this knowledge “belongs” to Toyoda-san alone. While certainly embodied in his body, it is also a "situated knowledge" open to the land of Kameoka and the generations of boatmen before and after him. Discerning the nuances of the riverbed that change with the weather, moving rocks to clear the path, crafting tools by hand—each is an act of embodied knowledge passed down through generations. Through this immense, continuous maintenance, I felt the boatmen were constantly reconstructing the relationship between (and among) the river, the surrounding land, and themselves.
The opportunity to reconnect with land and things is open to us as well, even if we are not boatmen. It can be found in the daily acts repeated innumerable times across generations—like sharpening a knife or weaving a rope—where the physical and the material entwine. Each of these acts connects us to the fūdo and allows us to be woven back into the "communal," comprising both ancestors and descendants. Spending time in Kameoka, where timeframes of millions and hundreds of years coexist with the present moment, allowed me to see this truth anew.