0202 Crop Art

Here in Japan, when the economy comes a cropper, the Japanese do crop art. Or at least in Inakadate, a small rural community up north, they do. Owing Tokyo a whopping 106 million bucks for a Neolithic theme park that went belly up, the Inakadate-ans were searching for ways to attract tourists and their money. Inakadate has been a rice growing region for more than 2,000 years so it isn’t surprising that rice paddies offered them a solution: paddy art. By planting different colored varieties of rice, the rice paddies have become living canvases with different pictures planted every year. Last year, 170,000 tourists viewed the pictures from atop the village hall but ultimately left without buying much. Which proves that if you plant it, they will come but they won’t necessarily spend enough money to get you out of your bubble economy debt. #ceas #hacker #japan