"The House in the Middle of Nowhere" (ABC TV/TV Asahi, Sunday 7:58 p.m.) is a variety show that uses satellite photos to find a secluded house. The March 9th broadcast will focus on the life of an 80-year-old man who is tending a mandarin orange field in the mountains of Kumamoto Prefecture that has been passed down from his grandfather's generation.
The guests were Akiko Hinagata, a talent, and Reina Yamazaki, a former member of Nogizaka46. Hinagata, who has a 24-year-old daughter, said, "My daughter is approaching the age where she will be living alone. So I started to imagine a relaxed life for my wife and I, living away from the city." Yamazaki, whose hobby is DIY, revealed that she longs for a rural life, saying, "I want to be able to do DIY in a larger garden than in the city."
The satellite photo shows a house with what appears to be a farm on its grounds. The search team's car passes through a cut in the rocky mountain and proceeds along a mountain road with gentle curves. Eventually, they come to a very narrow cliff road, and the search team grips the steering wheel with trepidation.
A beautifully trimmed hedge can be seen on the steep slope near the ridge. An 80-year-old man greeted us and said, "Everyone in the local area had been telling us that the program would come someday." He explained that the hedge, planted to protect the fields and graves, was a windbreak and that he maintained it himself. He has been living alone in this area since his wife passed away 20 years ago. In the mandarin orange field that was started by his grandfather, early mandarins, dekopon, ponkan, and late mandarins are grown. He says that the greatest joy of all is sending the mandarins he grows to relatives and acquaintances.
The man shared stories from his past with the search team. He told stories of how his elementary school was only four kilometers away and he had to walk for over an hour along mountain paths to get to school. After graduating from junior high school, he helped out with the family business while traveling 24 hours to Tokyo to earn money by boat and locomotive. He told of the harsh life he lived in the mountains. When he fell from a tree and was seriously injured, he called an ambulance, but he got lost and had a hard time finding his way home.
"But it's the house my grandfather built and where I was born and raised. I like living in a place I'm used to living in," says the man. We'll also introduce his life.
