City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Listen to the mountain sages, directed by Shohei Shibata ; produced by Yoshimi Oganeku

eng

videorecording

Listen to the mountain sages

electronic resource

877880135

directed by Shohei Shibata ; produced by Yoshimi Oganeku

52

Ethnographic video online, volume 2

What is happening with the traditions of our elders? How can important memories be conveyed to the next generation? In Japan, a country of forests and mountains, traditional work methods that have been at the heart of mountain life for generations, like tree cutting, slash and burn agriculture and roof thatching are quietly disappearing in the course of modernization. Recently, several Japanese high school students went up to the mountains to see the people who live there and possess these skills. Their task was to enquire about their craft and about life itself, writing down what they heard, word for word, unchanged, just as it was spoken. This documentary takes a close look at the lives of four such masters and the four high school students, who by listening and recording, captured the traditional ways of life of these mountain sages in order that their memories continue to live on in the next generation

general