yesterday was our last day working as kurabitos at Daimon Shuzo. we steamed rice in the morning, loaded the third addition (tome) of rice and koji into the moromi, cracked our final batch of koji for the “Ferrari”, scraped some more kasu from the Yabuta, put labels on boxes and then cleaned up the kura one last time.
in the late afternoon, it seemed that everyone needed to find a bit of “self time” before the farewell party. i think all of us were a bit sad that our stay here was coming to an end and we all were in an introspective and reflective mood. i put my headphones on and listened to some music as i watched trains go by, school kids and cars parade past the kura, kids playing baseball across the field and some of the few clouds we’ve had this week roll through the sky.
at 6pm we all met in the room that has been our “command center” for the past week. an amazing spread of food was brought in, many of the dishes featuring bamboo root that may have been picked from the grove just behind the kura. before eating though, we all took turns sharing our thoughts about the experience of working at Daimon Shuzo. i sort of knew what most of my fellow gaijin kurabito felt as we had spent each night hanging out and talking with each other about anything and everything, but it was great to hear what Uei-san, Arai-san, and Daimon-san and his family felt. they all had the sense of amazement and happiness that we did and i think that made us all feel extremely relieved, happy and maybe even a bit proud.
i can’t say i was expecting to have an epiphany during my stay here, and i’m not sure that i did (or have had it yet), but it was definitely one of the best experiences i’ve had in my life. the fact that Daimon-san allowed this program to take place in his kura, knowing that all sorts of things could go wrong, that he was letting (for the most part) random people from around the world into his business, that his kurabito were going to have their extremely efficient work flow altered, that other kura owners and tojis might think he was crazy, … Amazing.
and despite all the ways that things could have gone wrong, nothing did! was it blind luck or good karma that made this work so well? maybe. i think i’m going to give credit to what brought all of us here in the first place though and that is this fabulous concoction made from rice, water, yeast, a lot of hard work, passion and artistry: SAKE
