DAM IT.

Yesterday I had a nice rainy day to myself and I wandered around the fringe of Kyoto.

I was able to see a few streams and rivers which seemed, more or less natural. What a treat in Japan, where most "rivers" are concreted to the point that no natural riverbead remains. According to the Japanese construction ministry, however, this is done in order to "tame the hazards rivers present," or something to that effect. The mindset here, unchanged since the post-WWII era, is that damming or paving a river to prevent once in 100 or 500 year floods is seen as a public service, something to be proud of.

As Alex Kerr writes in his book on Japan, Dogs and Demons, only 3 of Japan's 115 rivers are undammed or unchanneled. This was from a book published in 2001.

So the market is ripe for rivers to be renaturalized and for trees to be planted to stabilize the new dirt river banks, if you know anyone influential in central Japan government, please pass this tip along...