My first visit to the countryside of Fukushima Prefecture took place in the early autumn of 2008. The occasion was a notable return" to a historic center of premodem Japanese silkworm egg production for two busloads of members of the silk and sericulture industy, en route to the annual Silk Summit held at the Fukushima Agricultural Technology Center. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Onaga-san, look there." I looked out the window and saw in the distance a large, white, rectangular building tucked in amid the greenery. "That's a nuclear power plant," the retired scientist told me. "If that explodes, we'll die." At the time, I was unsure what to make of this jolt of information. Wrapped up in my own thoughts about fieldwork and research, I had certainly forgotten that moment until now.
