"The House in the Middle of Nowhere" (ABC TV/TV Asahi, Sunday 7:58pm) is a variety show that uses satellite photos to find a secluded house. On October 20th, the show will air the aftermath of the search team's search, which last week (13th) visited two vacant houses and finally reached a third house. The guests will be the same as last week, freelance announcer Akira Fukuzawa and actor Kaya Kiyohara.
The search team finally reached an inhabited house in the mountains of Tokushima Prefecture. The house was built on a site carved out of a corner of a mountain ridge, a truly unexplored house. An 87-year-old woman and her 61-year-old son warmly welcomed the search team.
The son had been living with his wife and two children in his own home in Tokushima City, but since his father passed away about four years ago, he has been living with his mother here. He says it was his wife who gave him the push he needed to take care of his mother. After working as a chef in a restaurant in Osaka and a long-established hotel in Tokushima, the son opened a local cafe restaurant. He learned farm work from his mother and now looks after the fields on his own.
A well-maintained field spreads out on the slope in front of the 150-year-old main house, where 20 types of crops are grown each year, including buckwheat, five-grain rice, soybeans, konjac, and tea. There, the son supports his mother with traditional wisdom and techniques passed down from mother to son, living a self-sufficient life.
The search team is treated to local dishes such as homemade soba noodles and "obota," rice balls covered in soybean flour. Guest Fukuzawa commented with emotion, "I was impressed by the energy of their will to live," and Kiyohara also seemed impressed, saying, "Everything that happened was overwhelming. Even though it was through a screen, I felt like I was given the energy to live... Your outlook on life really does change."
