こんにちは (Konnichiwa)!
My journey to Japan began with a few days in Osaka, where I found the first glass of sake I have ever enjoyed, befriended several Canadians, and wandered the endless temples and shrines of Koyasan, Japan’s holiest mountain. I also discovered my passion for Japanese convenience stores - where else can you choose from amongst 15 varieties of coffee and 7 different stuffed rice balls at literally any hour of the day? I’m sorry to my beloved Quality Shop, but you may have been bested.
Before coming to Japan, I read “In the Era of Big Change: Essays About Small-Scale Japanese Fisheries”, edited by Yinji Li and Tamano Namikawa. (You can read the e-book for free here, and I highly recommend you do!) Dr. Yinji Li is a professor at Tokai University’s School of Marine Science and Technology campus in Shizuoka City, Japan. In 2021, Yinji founded a group called “Girls Who Fish Japan” modeled after a similar organization in Newfoundland that she worked with during her sabbatical year in Canada. Inspired by her work and curious to learn more, I reached out to her via email. As luck would have it, Yinji was planning a Girls Who Fish event in Shizuoka shortly after I planned to arrive in Japan! Even luckier, the owner of my Osaka guest house was headed to Shizuoka anyway to pick up a vintage shoe rack. Not one to ignore such serendipity, I packed my bags and headed north.
As March tilts into April, Japan’s sakura (cherry blossoms) are popping out everywhere. Tourists are storming into Tokyo and Kyoto to snap pictures amongst the graceful branches dripping with pink petals. The mountains around central Japan that we drove through looked like a dark green quilt that has been patched with pink. But here in the Shizuoka Prefecture, fishing communities are getting ready for a different sakura season: sakura-ebi!
I have to emphasize how much I love that name. Sakura-ebi translates to “cherry blossom shrimp”… just try to resist that. They are beautiful little pink shrimp, fried into fritters or piled atop donburi (rice bowls). Yum!!
Shizuoka, like New York, is both the name of a prefecture (like a Japanese state) and the name of its largest city. Located on Japan’s southeastern coast, Shizuoka is a land of geologic contrasts. Japan’s highest peak, Mount Fuji (12,388 feet) stands next to its deepest bay, the Suruga, which is 8,200 feet at its deepest point. Suruga Bay is largely sheltered from open ocean swells by the Izu Peninsula, making it a hotspot for small-scale fisheries and boats. I stayed in Shizuoka City center, but paid several visits to different fishing villages along the shores of Suruga Bay.
Mochimune Port and Shirasu
When I arrived, Yinji took me on a tour of the Mochimune fishing port just a few train stops away from the Shizuoka City central station. In Japan, fishing villages across the country are facing problems with succession. Japan now has the second oldest population in the world after Monaco, and many of the country’s young people are moving to big cities. This means that much of rural Japan is effectively emptying out, including many fishing villages.
This is a grave problem for the future of Japan’s small-scale fishing industry, but fortunately Mochimune is an exception. When Yinji and I walked past the landing site, it was filled with a group of young and middle-aged fishermen laughing, chatting, and setting up their gear for the next day. Yinji pointed out that Mochimune isn’t anywhere near as isolated as most Japanese fishing villages. Shizuoka –a big city with shinkansen (bullet train) connections to Tokyo– is just 15 minutes away by train. Sakura-ebi and shirasu (whitebait) fisheries can also be quite lucrative, which attracts a lot of young men to the industry. Also, fishermen have a fair amount of agency over their working schedules as they get to decide when and where to fish within existing regulations. Bad weather and temporary fishery closures can encourage or even force them to take days off. In a nation where vacation days are few and far between for many office workers, I suspect this kind of free time would be appealing to some of Mochimune’s young people.
After my tour of the Mochimune port, Yinji took me to a local processing plant for shirasu, another pillar of Shizuoka fisheries. Shirasu is baby whitefish (typically sardines, anchovies, or round herring) that are served boiled or raw, usually as part of a rice bowl. They have a nice, mild flavor and are a great source of vitamin D, calcium, and omega-3s.
It’s very rare to see women fishing for sakura-ebi or shirasu, but the processors at the plant were mostly women. We got to watch as they washed, sorted, boiled, and packed the little fish up in styrofoam boxes. Boiled shirasu are white and teeny, and reminded me a lot of the hattifatteners from Moomintroll. Does anyone else see this resemblance?
Fisheries Cooperative Associations
All fisheries throughout Japan are managed by Fisheries Cooperative Associations (FCAs). Each FCA controls a certain area of fishing ground, and is responsible for ensuring sustainable use and management of stocks, operating local markets, hosting beach cleanups, and more.* Although the FCA system in its current form was established by the Fishery Cooperative Act in 1949, the origins of these groups are much older. As far back as the feudal period (think samurai and shogun, beginning in the late 12th century) fishing villages exclusively used and managed their own territorial fishing grounds. This area-based community fishing rights system was more or less preserved, and formed the basis of this modern FCA system.
* There are also a few nationwide FCAs that control specific fisheries like bluefin tuna, but I didn’t meet anyone involved with them.
Although women only make up about 11% of Japanese on-water fishers, many cooperatives have women’s associations that play a crucial role in the community. These women's groups are primarily made up of fishermen’s wives, and women involved in land-based fisheries work like processing and selling. These groups began popping up across Japan in the 1950s, and have been at the forefront of marine environmental activism - such as controlling the use of harmful detergents and soaps that impact water quality. Because fishermen are often out at sea for long periods of time, some villages even established fire brigades as part of FCA women’s association business! Especially in more remote communities, fishing is such a big part of community life that FCAs become wide-ranging organizations, serving their official management tasks while adapting to address the priorities of their members.
Girls Who Fish and the Yui Fisheries Cooperative
The day of the actual Girls Who Fish event, Yinji and I caught the train at 6:00 am from Shizuoka station. Twenty minutes later we arrived in Yui, a small fishing town nestled at the base of sloping green mountains just north of the city. We walked a few minutes down streets of two-story traditional Japanese houses before arriving at the Yui Fisheries Cooperative Association building, a large industrial-looking structure with a pink sakura shrimp prominently fixed to the steel wall.
After a tour of the cooperative's fish landing site, market, and weather tower, we headed into the industrial kitchen for a cooking demonstration. We watched as a local chef deftly scraped off the scales, chopped off the head, gutted, cleaned, and sliced the fish into neat strips of boneless filet. A few economical swipes of the knife later, and the mackerel became a small pile of pink sashimi perched atop a shiso leaf, garnished with green onion and spiralized radish. Each of us was then given a small mackerel of our own, and instructed to do the same. It took me at least four times as long, but I eventually succeeded in turning my own mackerel into a sashimi dish with a passing resemblance to the original. After a few more seafood demonstrations and a truly tremendous feast of all that we had prepared, several members of the Yui FCA gave small speeches and answered questions from the assembled audience.
Yinji created Girls Who Fish Japan in order to introduce a more diverse set of people to the fishing industry. Despite the name “Girls Who Fish”, Yinji’s events aren’t just for girls. The organization keeps its focus on girls to counteract their long-standing exclusion from fishing, but anyone is welcome to attend. In Yui, fishing isn’t just a way that some people make a living: it’s an integral part of the local culture, history, and culinary arts. Miki-san, a member of the Yui Fisheries Cooperative women’s group, told us that she wanted young people to recognize the work and artistry that goes into the fish they eat, and to feel connected to it. You can’t force kids to do anything, she explained, but events like this can introduce new ideas to an increasingly urbanized generation.
It has been a tough few years for the Yui Fisheries Cooperative. In 2018, sakura-ebi stocks abruptly dropped for reasons that are still unclear. And then in 2020, COVID-19 shuttered what was left of the cooperative’s events programming, including their annual sakura-ebi festival. But there is hope: the sakura-ebi festival will be back this May after many years of low catches and quarantines. In the past, this event has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Yui over the course of a single day to feast on sakura shrimp prepared by local vendors. And for the past two years, Yinji and Girls Who Fish Japan have partnered with Yui FCA to host regular events like the one I attended. These different events are helping to revitalize the economic and social systems disturbed by fishery shocks and COVID.
At the Girls Who Fish event, I watched kids connect with older generations of fisherfolk, and learn new facts and skills right alongside their parents and friends. Groups like this serve to create pathways for interest and empathy between social groups separated by gender, generation, and occupation. In the long run, it may be girls like these who will guide Japan’s small-scale fisheries into the future.
Until next time!
Grace
