Cycle Around Japan

Season 10, Episode 8: Fukuoka - Always Thinking Ahead

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Historically the nation's gateway to Asia, Fukuoka Prefecture is where Japan's rice-growing culture began. We meet a couple reviving their community through tourism and organic farming, a singing boatman in a city of canals and a maker of traditional fireworks. After helping villagers maintain a century-old stone bridge, we hear the history of coal in this area - once a major industry driving Japan's modernization - from the last of its miners, as he sings old songs of the harshness of life below ground.