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Life without a train
Kōchi prefecture is one of the most sparsely populated in Japan, and much of its mountain interior can be reached only by road. As towns like 日吉野 have shrunk, bus routes have been cut in the cycle 岡村 describes: fewer riders, fewer buses, fewer riders again. In rural Japan, a car is usually not a convenience but a necessity, and the 軽トラ — the small kei truck — is the vehicle of farms, shops and town offices alike. Mountain roads in Shikoku are often a single lane wide, with pull-outs (待避所) where drivers wait for oncoming traffic; local drivers know them by heart. New tunnels have shortened many routes, but the old river roads remain, and they are what many residents remember as the town's lifeline. The grammar of this lesson is the grammar of change over distance and time: につれて, に伴って, にわたって, から…にかけて, and 最中に.