The renown Tonda bunraku puppet troupe in Nagahama will hold its summer performance on Aug. 1, 2010 at Lute Plaza in Nagahama. The show starts at 1:30 pm and includes four plays lasting about 2 hours. Advance tickets are 1,000 yen (1,200 yen at the door on Aug. 1). You can buy advance tickets by calling Lute Plaza (0749-72-5257) and reserving a ticket. You can pay for the reserved ticket at the door on Aug. 1.

Tickets are also available at Lute Plaza, Azai Bunka Hall, Nagahama Bunka Geijutsu Kaikan, Hikiyama Hakubutsukan Museum, and Keibun. (リュートプラザ、浅井文化ホール、長浜文化芸術会館、曳山博物館、KEIBUN）

The Tonda puppet troupe receives trainees from overseas on a regular basis. In this upcoming show, five college students from the US and UK will appear. They’ve been training full time (8 hours/day on weekdays) since June 10, 2010 at the Tonda Puppet Hall in Nagahama while doing homestays with local families. Their teacher is Abe Hidehiko (阿部秀彦), the leader of the Tonda troupe.

Each puppet weighing about 4 kg is manipulated by three people. Two of them are usually dressed as kurogo with their faces covered. So I wonder how we’ll recognize the non-Japanese puppeteers.

I saw the Tonda bunraku in Dec. 2009 at Lute Plaza and it was impressive even though I couldn’t understand the story so well. But I’m always happy to see foreigners learning traditional Japanese things, especially in Shiga. I wish them well.

Lute Plaza Web site

An NPO in Nagahama called Machizukuri Yakuba created a sightseeing map of Nagahama in English. The A3-size black-and-white map is available at the tourist info counter at Nagahama Station and at Nagahama hotels and ryokan inns.

The back of the map has a guide to Nagahama hotels and ryokan inns and the ferry schedule to Chikubushima. The Northern Shiga Kohoku Sightseeing Federation sponsored the production of the map. They printed 5,000 copies.

長浜市 合併おめでとう！

Today, Jan. 1, 2010, is when Nagahama became a new city upon its merger with six towns in northern Shiga: Torahime, Kohoku, Takatsuki, Kinomoto, Yogo, and Nishi-Azai. Congratulations to all the residents of these former towns on becoming citizens of Nagahama.

With a population of 123,608 (as of Nov. 1, 2009), Nagahama is now Shiga’s third-most populous city after Otsu and Kusatsu. By area, Nagahama is now Shiga’s largest city covering a massive 539.48 ㎢ of land (680.79 ㎢ if you include Lake Biwa), larger than Takashima’s 511.36 ㎢.

With the addition of the six former towns, Nagahama boasts a wide variety of attractions, historical sites, and natural scenery. Their sightseeing department is in a very good and enviable position by having so many unique things to see. Remember that Mt. Ibuki is still in Maibara, not Nagahama.)

During Dec. 2009, the six merging towns held their town-closing ceremonies, and about 100 public employees from the six towns moved to the main building of Nagahama City Hall.

Note that addresses in the six former towns have changed. Most of the addresses are appended with the former town’s name, except for Torahime. Looks like Torahime has quite a few place names which have been renamed. Many of them now have “cho” appended to the neighborhood’s place name. If you live in the former towns or need to send stuff to people in the six former towns, check the address. The changed address can be checked in Japanese here:
http://www.city.nagahama.shiga.jp/index.cfm/6,8475,12,92,html

There will be a municipal merger ceremony on Jan. 17, 2010 at 1:30 pm at the Azai Bunka Hall. The former mayors of the six mergning  towns, Shiga Governor Kada, and others will be on hand to mark the merger. Details in Japanese:
http://www.city.nagahama.shiga.jp/index.cfm/6,8611,12,92,html

Meanwhile, I’m busy merging my Web pages for the six towns with Nagahama’s Web pages.

Lute Plaza

人形浄瑠璃「冨田人形」秋公演

The highly-acclaimed Tonda bunraku puppet troupe based in Nagahama will stage their autumn puppet show on Dec. 6, 2009 at 1:30 pm at Lute Plaza in Biwa-cho.

Tickets are only 1,000 yen for non-reserved seats (free for kids under high school age). Reserve a ticket by calling Lute Plaza at 0749-72-5257. Tickets will also be sold at the door from 1 pm. The Hikiyama Museum in Nagahama also sells tickets.

Four plays will be performed:
東海道中膝栗毛
鬼一法眼三略巻
傾城阿波の鳴門
団子売り

A shuttle bus for Lute Plaza will leave Nagahama Station’s West exit (Nishi-guchi which faces the lake) at 12:30 pm and 1 pm.

More info about the Tona puppet troupe in English:
http://www.asianinterstage.com/tonda/

In Japanese:
http://www.gaido.jp/suteki/suteki.php?ID=80

On March 3, 2009, the six northern Shiga towns of Torahime, Kohoku, Takatsuki, Kinomoto, Yogo, and Nishi-Azai (虎姫、湖北、高月、木之本、余呉、西浅井) signed a letter of agreement (協定書に調印) to merge with the city of Nagahama on Jan. 1, 2010. The letter signing was witnessed by Governor Yukiko Kada who gave her blessing to the proposed merger.

By March 17, 2009, all the town councils and the Nagahama city council passed a bill to merge. They will then submit an application to merge to Shiga Prefecture for approval. On March 25, Governor Kada will submit a bill to the prefectural assembly to  approve the merger.

This merger was proposed a few years ago, but failed. This time, they reopened merger talks in Oct. 2007 and met eleven times to finally sign the letter of agreement.

The letter of agreement stipulated the following major points:

• The six towns are to merge into Nagahama.
• The name of the newly expanded city will remain “Nagahama.”
• The new city will inherit all the assets and liabilities of the six towns.
• The current total of 93 city and town council members will shrink to 63 after the merger.
• The city hall will remain at the Nagahama City Hall.

After the merger, the total population of the city will be about 124,000, making it Shiga’s second most populous city and largest city in area with about 680 sq. km. I hope each town will retain their old place names (Yogo-cho, Takatsuki-cho, etc.).

I think that Nagahama and Maibara will also merge someday as well. They would make a good couple.

Torahime-cho in English: 
http://photoguide.jp/txt/Torahime-cho,_Shiga

Photos: http://photoguide.jp/pix/index.php?cat=178

A major update for my Takatsuki-cho page: 
http://photoguide.jp/txt/Takatsuki-cho,_Shiga 

You can see that I visited Amenomori Hoshu-an museum. If you are interested in Japan-Korean relations, visit this museum. Nishino Water Tunnel was also interesting. The tunnel has cool air, good place to cool off in summer.

Also Google Map of Takatsuki: 
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105501786212832952601.000442bb566771db7e066&z=13&om=0

Click image to see more photos.

I recently visited Hayazaki Naiko Biotope 早崎内湖ビオトープ and talked with a local NPO taking care of it. Hayazaki (Hayasaki) Naiko was a small lake or lagoon north of Oku-Biwa Sports no Mori. In 1970, it was reclaimed (filled in) and turned into rice paddies. About half of Biwako’s naiko (attached lakes) were reclaimed right after the war to increase rice production.

However, we now have enough rice, and the rice paddies at Hayasaki Naiko are very hard to farm due to the water level being lower than Biwako. The farmers have problems finding a successor and the old water drainage pump is too expensive to replace. Shiga Prefecture then proposed to restore the paddy land into a naiko again. As an experiment, Shiga Prefecture flooded about one-fourth of the land to create a wetland or small lake. This was in 2001. Today, the flooded area is full of nature, with fish, reeds, and birds. It’s a very successful ecological experiment.

So they want to buy all the land and flood all of it to restore Hayasaki naiko. But Shiga does not have much money and the land prices are high. So it is still an ongoing ecological experiment. A local NPO conducts tours for kids and adults. Winter would be a good time to visit, when the swans, etc., are there. But spring-summer is good too since it’s warm enough to go into the water.

This nature restoration project 自然再生 is actually quite famous among environmental researchers and groups in Japan and overseas. It’s also about environmental sociology 環境社会学, about how people co-exist and live in the natural environment. Biwako is unique to have so many naiko attached lakes. It’s too bad that many of them were buried. They were actually essential for Biwako’s ecology. The naiko’s reeds, etc., kept the water clean and allowed fish and birds to breed.

Photos:
http://photoguide.jp/pix/thumbnails.php?album=692

More info:
http://www.hayazakinaiko.jp/
http://www.ex.biwa.ne.jp/~hayazaki/

*On June 5, 2008, the Ministry of the Environment announced Japan’s 100 Best Spring Waters of the Heisei Era (平成の名水百選) and four of them are in Shiga Prefecture including one in Nagahama: Dorai Shozu (堂来清水) in Takayama-cho. The 100 locations were selected based on the water’s quality, volume, and how well it was used and preserved by the community.