The Strange Reason Murakami Fans Gather at a Hokkaido Sheep Farm Every Year

When you think of Japanese food and farming, you probably don’t think of sheep, and you’d mostly be right; lamb, mutton, and sheep milk are not major staples of the Japanese diet. But in Hokkaido, the northernmost island in the country, sheep farming has over the last hundred and fifty years or so become more and more common. At one of those sheep farms, Matsuyama Farm in the far north of Hokkaido, a strange gathering of literature fans has become annual.

The Asahi Shimbun has a look at the yearly assemblage of fans of writer Haruki Murakami at Matsuyama Farm in Bifuka, Hokkaido. Though perhaps Murakami, author of dreamlike novels set usually in Japan but with frequent western elements, is best known for his urban settings, Bifuka, not Tokyo, is the spot where some Murakami fans feel the most connection with his work.

His third novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, is partially set in a town in Hokkaido called Junitaki. Junitaki isn’t real, but the description of the town, both physical and geographic, lines up so closely with Bifuka that Murakami fans have all but declared the small Hokkaido town as the inspiration. And so Murakami fans travel north, far north, to Bifuka, to stay in a western-style sheep farm, in order to watch the Nobel Prize announcements. Their hope, not all that crazy of a hope, is for Murakami to win the Nobel in literature. He hasn’t yet, but the Murakami fans will keep coming back.

Read more over at the Asahi Shimbun.
[Image via DeviantArt]