ITOIGAWA, Niigata -- After a 15-minute walk north of JR Itoigawa Station, you'll arrive at the "jade coast" where lovers of the stone gather to hunt for jade pebbles.
Emma Longhorn, 51, from Britain, visited the area for the first time in April 2008, when she was a resident of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture.
"It's so mysterious to find jade at a beach," she said. Although she couldn't find any jade at the time, after several attempts, she became fascinated by the majestic nature and the unpretentious people. She moved to the city in 2015.
Even now, she walks along the coast and riverbanks about once a week in between her work as a translator and volunteering, to teach children to look for jade and other stones.
"The locals are surprisingly unaware of how incredible and fun this environment is," Longhorn said with a smile.
Rough jade can be found in the upper reaches of the Kotaki River and the Omi River, which run through the city. After being washed out to sea by the rapids, they drift ashore in the vicinity of Itoigawa.
Jade in its rough form has no dazzling shine. But jade craftsman Yuki Tatsumi, 80, said, "It comes in many different colors and will shine brilliantly when polished."
The stone can be found in the ryokan inn that he runs in the form of things like a jade ashtray, a jade coffee mill and a handmade jade bath.
"The jade coffee mill has just the right level of hardness to grind the beans," he said.
According to Tsutomu Kijima, 61, director of the Chojagahara Archaeological Museum in Itoigawa, jade in the city was appreciated for rituals in the Jomon period (ca 10,000 B.C.-ca 300 B.C.) and the Kofun period (ca 300-ca 710).
Some of the jade pieces used for rituals have been excavated at sites including the Sannai-Maruyama archeological site in Aomori Prefecture, with some even being designated as national important cultural assets.
The demand for jade dried up during the Nara period (710-784), when Buddhist culture took root. Accordingly, the name of Itoigawa also became eclipsed. However, when huge chunks of rough jade were discovered one after another in the 1950s and 1960s, the city came back into the spotlight, and many people, including Tatsumi, began working on their crafts.
Hisui, the Japanese word for jade, has been used in the names of many things in the city, such as for the local agricultural cooperative established in 1990, a school that opened in 2013, a railway line that was launched in 2015 and even confectionery.
Takiji Utagawa, 59, chairman of Machizukuri Supporters, a nonprofit organization, said, "Our citizens are proud of and have become attached to jade."
A group of volunteers, including Utagawa, formed an association to make jade the representative stone of Niigata Prefecture in March.
Their goal is to collect 50,000 signatures -- more than the population of the city -- to petition the prefectural assembly.
Jade was selected as the city stone in 2008, and in 2016, it became regarded as the national stone by the Japan Association of Mineralogical Sciences, but no prefectural government has ever officially selected it as a prefectural stone.
Hiroshi Miyajima, 63, former director of a municipal museum said, "If selected as the prefectural stone [which will be the first in the nation,] jade will be better protected and utilized more."
As the director of the museum, he worked hard to protect jade. He is currently lobbying the prefectural and city governments to develop the city using the stone through efforts such as creating an experience-based facility where visitors can search for jade fragments created in processing work.
According to the Itoigawa municipal government, the number of tourists in fiscal 2015 -- immediately after the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line -- was 2.48 million, but the number decreased to 2.26 million in fiscal 2018.
As part of an initiative to attract more tourists, the city began its "Stone City" campaign last July. The aim of the campaign is to attract tourists, mainly urban women, by promoting the appeal of jade and the fun of searching for stones in cooperation with advertising companies.
As a result of the recent typhoon and the novel coronavirus outbreak, the city has only been able to conduct one stone-hunting tour, but is hoping to attract more visitors. "There must be demand for trips with a learning element," said an official of the city.
In July last year, the Itoigawa municipal government -- which has made the ancient romance of jade a pillar of its tourism promotion -- signed an exchange agreement with the municipal governments of Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, and Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, based on the legend of Princess Nunakawa, which is written in the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters).
Princess Nunakawa of Koshinokuni, the present-day Hokuriku region, was married to Okuninushi no Okami, the deity of Izumo Taisha shrine.
Their child later entered Suwa by traveling up the Hime River, which flows through Itoigawa, and became a god of the Suwa Grand Shrine, Takeminakata no Kami.
There are many historic sites in Itoigawa associated with the princess. The three cities formed a joint network, planning to increase the number of people who interact with each city through their mythologies. Plans include increasing the recognition of the princess, holding a joint event for Kojiki fans and launching a tourist route traveling the three cities, among others.
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