Japanese ghost town Nagoro has more scarecrow dolls than actual people - TomoNews

There’s something weird happening in the sleepy Japanese mountain hamlet of Nagoro. Deaths, a declining national birthrate and depopulation have seen countryside communities like it whither. For years, the young have been abandoning villages like Nagoro, heading for the cities in search of better job opportunities, acutely aware that whatever dreams they have will surely fade and die were they to remain. But dreams often give way to the cruel realities of life. Some the of the young people may turn to a life of prostitution, servicing drunken salarymen doing their best to avoid neurotic wives and emotionally distant children.Today Nagaro is home to a lonely number of just 35 survivors — those who have neither the means or wish to leave. Their only company, a growing legion of canvas mannequins who outnumber the living three-to-one. These dolls are the work of Tsukimi Ayano, a 65-year-old woman who has returned to Nagoro to care for her elderly father, having moved to Osaka decades ago. Tsukimi is one of the town’s youngest residents. “They bring back memories,” she says of the scarecrows which leer at visitors from unchanging vantage points. Their dead eyes seeing your every move; their strange, unnatural poses making you feel ill at ease. “That old lady used to come and chat and drink tea. That old man used to love to drink sake and tell stories. It reminds me of the old times, when they were still alive and well, she told a reporter from the Associated Press. There is little sign Nagoro’s population will ever be replenished. It is a museum honoring a better time when town’s like it buzzed with activity. For now, its only nre residents are the product of the mind and hands of an elderly woman caring for her father.