Ama divers in Japan: With the mermaids – trip

Sanayo Matsui has already sunk lower than any of her guests today. She was diving, of course. All mermaids in Osatsucho on Japan’s Shima Peninsula dive as often as they can at this time of year. They say the seafood tastes better in winter. In addition, it is not allowed to collect mussels, abalons and sea cucumbers every season. You have to take advantage of the opportunities you get. This is how people live here.

So it started at nine, after the fishing association gave clearance. The sun was shining. The sea was smooth and cold. And it must have been worth it again, because Sanayo Matsui is now sitting in the mermaid’s hut “Ozegosan” at the lavish grill and smiling blissfully from under her white hood. Is she smiling because the harvest was good on her morning foray into the underwater world? Or because every day at sea is a good day for you? Probably both, because Sanayo Matsui, a graceful woman with benevolent features, does not give the impression that her homeland could ever disappoint her. With nimble movements she turns mussels and fish. In addition, she tells of her life as a mermaid, as Amaas it is called in Japanese. “I started when I was 17,” she says, “that was our family job, my parents wanted it that way.” At 19, she married a fisherman from the village, gave birth to three children and kept working – in the sea and on her field on land, which she still tills today. Sanayo Matsui is 71 years old.

Japan, the third largest economy in the world, sometimes looks like a particularly polished future place with robots buzzing through high-rise worlds and high-speed trains that glide from one city to another with an almost intimidating punctuality. By 2030, the Japanese government wants to amaze 60 million foreign tourists every year with a perfect mix of national Far East tradition and modern consumer landscape. The goal is still relevant, even if foreign tourists have been banned from entering the country for almost two years due to the pandemic. The Cool Japan campaign, which took off under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is set to impress the world’s paying visitors.

But then you come to the Ama divers in Osatsucho in the prefecture of Mie on the southeast flank of the main island of Honshu and experience a completely different form of Japanese coolness. Namely a grown serenity that grew out of an old, near-natural trade.

Clam diving is a woman’s business, that’s traditional belief in Japan. Women have more subcutaneous fat, which protects against the cold water, men have more strength for the heavy fishing nets – that is why this division of labor has become established in many fishing villages. A long time ago. Ama were first mentioned in “Man’yoshu”, the oldest anthology of poems in Japan. That was in 750 – even then they were probably an old phenomenon. Fetching seaweed, seafood and mussels from the sea with your bare hands and holding your breath is the most original version of fishing. There is practically no aid. According to tradition, women are said not to have even been wearing much in the past.

That women maintain tradition does not mean that they are not moving with the times

Sanayo Matsui says: “I used to dive with a white coat.” With a kind of uniform made of undemanding material that looks like the classic Ama costume today. The entrepreneur Mikimoto Kokichi used it to equip the divers who he had worked for his tourist attraction Mikimoto Pearl Island in the urban area of ​​Toba not far from Osatsucho at the beginning of the 20th century. The Mikimoto Pearl Island was Sanayo Matsui’s first job as an ama.

She points out the window of the Ama hut into the bay. Fishing boats plow through the water with spray. “You are now going to catch lobster,” she says. The Ama hut crouches under trees on the edge of a narrow concrete road that leads into the steep coast. From here you have a first-class view of Osatsucho’s harbor and the sea, which glitters in the sun under a herd of elephant clouds. Sanayo Matsui never seems to get bored with a view of this landscape. Does she sometimes miss the advantages of metropolises like Tokyo or Osaka? She laughs. “Not at all.” But that’s not to say that it can’t keep up with the times. She didn’t cheat when the ama started wearing wetsuits, fins, goggles and weight belts against buoyancy. That was in the 1960s.

Open detailed view

In the 2020s the challenges are more diverse. And the ama divers cannot pretend that is none of their business. The ama are the main attraction in the urban area of ​​Toba, which also includes Osatsucho. Orie Iwasaki, the tourism representative of the Chamber of Commerce in Toba, makes no secret of it. Basically, Toba is not in a bad position to get something from the large flow of tourists. The Ise Shrine, one of the most important Shinto complexes in Japan, is not far away. But there are negative influences: The tendency towards group travel in Japan is diminishing, Ise is not on the regular route for foreign tourists, which usually leads along the Shinkansen route from Tokyo via Kyoto to Hiroshima. And above all: there is still a pandemic.

Regional campaigns and targeted school trips have offset the dent in the coronavirus crisis somewhat. That couldn’t help the foreigner statistics. In 2019, 2073 people from other nations came to the Ama Museum in Osatsucho. 2020 29th 2021 six. Orie Iwasaki has to rebuild a brand again, so to speak. A new Ama website should help, but it shows another problem. Because it’s not just the tourists who are decreasing. Demographic change is making itself felt. Orie Iwasaki, born in 1977, says: “When I was born, the city of Toba had 30,000 people. Now it has 17,000.” And of course the Ama divers won’t be anymore either.

Long gone are the days when it was natural for young Osatsucho women to marry a local fisherman and become an ama diver. “It was normal for us,” says the ama diver Michiko Nakamura, 69, “today there are several women here who are not ama who have work elsewhere.” After all, there are still more ama in Osatsucho than anywhere else in Mie. “About 100,” says Orie Iwasaki. In other areas of the Shima Peninsula only two are still working. The average age is 65.

Open detailed view

Ayami Nakata is 42 and is also a different kind of Ama diver. She sits on the first floor of the souvenir shop, which was set up in the former home of an Ama diver. She is a cheerful person. And it’s not because of her that Japan’s rural areas are dying out. She married a former classmate and had five children with him. In addition, after her third child, she was instructed in ama diving – although she does not have the best qualifications for it. “I still can’t swim,” says Ayami Nakata, “to this day.” With a wetsuit and flippers, she can move about in the water, and in the end, diving is all about going under. This is why she was able to become an Ama even as a non-swimmer. But it doesn’t make the task any easier.

Ayami Nakata is an avowed resident of Osatsucho. When she was 15 she moved to a kind of sports boarding school because she was a talented judo fighter. But also because she had the feeling that she had to get to know something else besides the routine in the fishing village before one day she took over her mother’s grocery store. She became a bank clerk and lived temporarily in Osaka – but with Osatsucho in her heart. “I talked a lot about it in Osaka, I told people you should go there.”

It’s been back for 13 years. She has been diving for five years. A local friend of the sea taught her the perils of the current and showed her the most fertile parts of the seabed. Today she doesn’t let anything come of her hometown. She loves the rugged, peaceful landscape here, both on land and under water. “It’s comforting to live here,” she says. But she also feels the problems here. The decline in tourism because of the pandemic. And her middle daughter has only three other children in her class in her first year of elementary school.

“Overall, I don’t think about it that much,” says Ayami Nakata. She does what she can to help her village survive. But she cannot be driven crazy by unpleasant signs either. No Ama diver here can be driven crazy. They are pioneers of the modern working woman, have been bringing family and work under one roof for decades and enjoy life in harmony with nature.

The pandemic? “Shoganai,” says Sanayo Matsui in the Ama hut. Can not do anything. She is personally not afraid that there will be a permanent slump in the number of guests. She has a field and the diving – if you are humble you don’t need any more. The oldest active Ama diver is 85. So there will be a few more years left – provided the sea doesn’t change too much. All divers say that the underwater landscape has lost its strength. Less seaweed, less fish. And Sanayo Matsui says: “The water is not as cold as it used to be.” She seems as relaxed about it as with everything she says. But it may well be that her only deep concern is behind this sentence. After all, the sea is their life.

Information:

Arrival / entry: For the time being, the Japanese government does not allow tourists to enter Japan. If you are already in the country, you can reach Osatsucho from Tokyo either by car or from Irago with the Isewan ferry. Or by train and bus via Nagoya and Toba.

Further information: Lunch and tea times in an Ama hut are available through the Page osatsu.org Reserve. In Osatsucho there is also a shrine dedicated to the Ama divers, an Ama museum and an Ama souvenir shop.