The Inaka: A Japanese term for the middle of nowhere

When I point my car north and drive for 10 minutes, I find myself leaving the city limits along a steep road that winds itself into the dark, often misty, and always mysterious, forested mountains of Kochi. 84% of Kochi is covered by forests. Buried in the depths of Kochi’s forests are deer, boar, and the macaque monkey. Twice I saw a monkey dart into the forest as I drove along one of the winding mountain roads. As you drive along these roads you will come across abandoned villages and solitary grey factories, that send out plumes of white smog and remind you that some people do still work here. The abandoned villages, nestled in the mountains are reminders of Japan’s endemic problem of emigration from the village to the city. We stopped at one of these ghost villages and I remember seeing empty homes, and a gas station that was probably last operational in the 1980s. As I drove away I noticed a lone woman sitting at a desk in a one story building. She was the only person I saw.