Nagai Shinai
Flower Line
The Flower Line - An Emblem of Nagai
The Japanese countryside is as down-to-earth as it is exotic. Wandering through the small towns and cities that make up the sparsely populated Tohoku region of northern Japan, one could almost feel as if they were back at home in rolling hills and vibrant plains of their own country - wherever that may be.
There is a sort of simple elegance to the Japanese countryside, a rustic, endearing plainness that draws a smile. Nowhere is that simple yet endearing spirit better incapsulated than in the many local train lines that dot the region, among them Nagai's very own flower line.
It can be a shock, at first, when stepping out of the first-rate, cutting-edge gates of the Shinkansen bullet train you boarded in Tokyo you find yourself suddenly deposited in a station like Akayu, a tiny little speck of a train station in the middle of seemingly nowhere. Only three tracks connected by little overpass, and surrounded on all sides by grass, trees and farmland. To the left is an exit through a wooden cabin of sorts, which half the time is not even manned by a ticket agent. Go right, and you enter a tiny little train station whose automatic ticket gates apparently broke down at some point and were simply never fixed. You hear the cry of birds nesting in the overpass above the train tracks, the chirping of crickets and cicadas, and possibly nothing (and no one) else. It is a far cry from modern sprawl Ueno or Tokyo station. Almost like coming to a whole other world.
Who will be your guide through these strange lands, who will convey you on to forward shores? It is at this moment you find the flower line waiting for you on an adjacent track, its two-wagons vibrating lightly under the gentle hum of its little engines. Stepping into the flower line you complete your transition from the Big City to the world of the Little City, of the small, every-man's Japan. After enough time has passed, and maybe two or three other people have joined you onboard, the train conductor starts the engines up and they come roaring to life. What the flower line lacks in the modern and cutting-edge, it makes up for in spirit. A recorded voice comes over the speakers, "Flower Line Forever! Flower Line is go!" and at a pace more reminiscent of the age of horses and buggies than the modern world, the flower line takes to the road.
The Flower Line almost seems like a funny, futile and outdated endeavor when you first come across it. But if you live for any period of time in Nagai, you will come to appreciate it for its spirit. It may be slow, but It goes everywhere. Everywhere it needs to. Under mountains, over rivers, the flower line conquers it all, overcomes every challenge and conveys its passengers to every distant hamlet that its charged to taxi between along this particular stretch of Yamagata.
As more time passes, you come to feel that the Flower Line doesn't just pass through the countryside. It is a part of the countryside. A part of the scenery and the landscape. Wherever you may be at a given time in Nagai and the surrounding neighborhoods of Shirataka and Nanyo, you are liable to see the Flower Line suddenly appear and perform its slow crawl into the horizon. You know you are in Nagai, when you look into the distance and see the little tracks that make up the Flower Line, or the train itself, traveling along them.
Equally charming, if you ever find yourself exploring the surrounding neighborhoods and towns, are the many tiny stops along the line. The one-building, one-platform train stations that the Flower Line passes between like a boat between ports. For many towns, it is obvious that these crumb-sized stations are a precious part of their lives - their main, possibly only, link to other towns and to the other regions of Japan. Especially for children and those either below or above driving age, how else would they travel to see their friends, their family, and their loved ones, if not for the Flower Line?
It is a sort of Zen-experience to meditate on one of these little train stations and realize how complete, how perfect, and how full they are in spite of their seeming insignificance and utter simplicity. For a barefoot man, a pair of shoes is a doorway to the world. For a small town, the Flower Line is a veritable space ship, a portal to other worlds. It is equal to any expensive car, any fancy yacht, any private plane. It does little, but in so doing, it does everything it and the people around it need it to. Likewise, the towns that make up its stops may have little, and be made up of few people - but for the people who live there and make it their home, they too are like all the world and more. The people of Nagai have everything they need to be happy, and treasure their home.
While I was, at first, admittedly a little bit of a sceptic, in time I have found myself growing in appreciation for the Flower Line, this little train line that could. Perhaps Nagai doesn't need its own Bullet Train or a more modern railway after all. Creating something like that would improve the cities infrastructure but, at a cost to its heart and spirit. The Flower Line is really more than good enough, and everyone who lives in Nagai is lucky to have it. Flower Line Forever! Flower Line, let's go!
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