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U-turners and the rural café
Japanese has a set of terms for moving to the countryside: Uターン, returning to your hometown after years in a city; Iターン, moving to a rural place you have no ties to, as Alex has; and Jターン, moving to a smaller city near your hometown. U-turners often take over family buildings — an old shop, a farmhouse — and turn them into cafés, guesthouses or studios. In a small town, a café is rarely just a business. It becomes a meeting place for older residents, a stop for visitors, and a quiet neutral ground in local disputes, which is why its owner may choose to keep certain subjects out of it. Many such cafés survive because the building is owned outright and there is no rent. The grammar of this lesson is the grammar of judging against expectations and giving reasons: わりに, にしては, だけあって, からこそ, and the personal rule ことにしている.