“Come in and watch TV for a minute!”

The female driver. Mrs. Nakano said this from the driver’s seat of her white taxi and sped away. Ten minutes later, she returned with her taxi.




“I’m sorry about that. Someone called for me.”


There are no buses on this island. The sole method of public transport is taxi’s which carry the locals back and forth. We were able to catch Mrs. Nakano and her husband Mr. Nakano right as he was getting ready to leave out on a call. Even from this small interaction, we could already tell they were quite the pair.

Mrs. Nakano: Storms in the Sea of Japan can be really rough during the winters. It makes one wonder what to do if they were to get sick then. There are times when helicopters don’t come to the island either.

Mr. Nakano: Then you’d just die. That’s just the reality of living on an island. Ever since helicopters started coming, the chances of dying have decreased quite a bit since there are less delays in treatment.


Mrs. Nakano: It takes about 20 minutes to fly to the mainland right? In the past, the doctor would accompany patients to the mainland and we would be left without any other doctors. Nowadays, the doctor stays here on the island and can go visit mainland doctors too thanks to the Doctor Heli.

Mr. Nakano: These days kids start complaining if the ferry doesn’t come. From our point of view, there’s nothing to complaint about. Living on this kind of island, it’s natural that the ferry won’t come all the time, better yet, if it does show up…

Mrs. Nakano: You’re lucky?

Mr. Nakano: That’s right. You’re lucky. You just have to understand that these kinds of things happen on an island.


Mrs. Nakano: Yeah, that’s true… even the boats back then—they were so small that even a small storm was big trouble. And there was nowhere for them to dock either. They would just come in from the middle of the bay,　 and we would ride from the barge. We’d climb a ladder to escape from where the water was splashing up to the barge… I’m still surprised there weren’t more accidents.

Mr. Nakano: There really weren’t any. We were taught those kind of things from such a young age…. Island life strengthened our cores.We often bring kids from the city and have them bathe in the sea here, but they aren’t used to walking on the rocks and would just end of crawling. The local kids have no problem hopping between the rocks. That’s where the difference is and… well, if I start talking, I’ll never stop. So, I’ll go home now.

Mrs. Nakano: “Go home?” And just where are you going home to? *laughs*

Mr. Nakano: Ah, to work. *laughs* Well, go ahead and ask her what you’d like. My wife is from the city, so she may have a different perspective.

“It was rare for a wife from Saitama to come here during those times.”


And with those words, Mr. Nakano headed back to work. I continued to ask Mrs. Nakano about the taxi business and life on the island.

──Why did you move here from Saitama?


‘Cause that man came to Saitama! We met through some random happenstance, and he seemed so cool at that moment. *laughs* We were in Saitama for awhile after that, but around the time when our kids entered elementary school he started talking about how he was the oldest son and sooner or later he would have to move to Chiburi. He said it would be better for me to get used to it sooner rather later, and so our life took a sudden U-turn.


──Did you all start the taxi business as soon as you came back to Chiburi?
My husband was working in the construction industry in Saitama, so he worked here as a carpenter for awhile. But the man who used to run the taxi company ended up quitting around the first year of Heisei (1989). And well, my husband was the next in line, so he took it over. It all happened right as he was getting sick of working in carpentry, and the locals were saying life couldn’t go on without taxis. It’s been 30 years since then. The man who originally ran the company did so since 1969, which is longer than the man before him.

──Why did the man before your husband decide to quit the taxi business?

Well, he had a sense for business, sohe must have realized we were moving towards a car-based society. At that time there were a thousand and some hundred people living on the island, but when we took it over, there were less than 1000. See, if the population goes down, profit goes down too, right? Regardless, after we took over the business, the number of people with a driver’s license increased as did the number of people with a car. We couldn’t survive just on the taxi business, so we turned to oyster cultivation as well.

──So wait, does that mean you are both also fishermen?

Well, you could say we’ve just recently been able to call ourselves merchants. Up until then, we were really just fumbling around. We really struggled with cultivation and we basically had to expand the market ourselves. At first, the oysters we were able to raise were eaten by fish, and we should have been able to sell some tens of thousands, but there were no oysters left to sell. So, we used nets as a strategy against the fish as well as other trial-and-error methods until, finally, we were able to make a profit.

──How long would you say it took to get to that point?

I guess about 15 years or so. We were able to actually turn it into a business about 2 or 3 years ago, but up until then the profits just weren’t matching up. After all, it takes about 3 or 4 years to raise oysters in the first place. Nurseries back then weren’t as dense as they are now, and in a span of 3 years you were able to raise and sell oysters that were quite large. Nowadays, everyone is raising oysters, so there probably isn’t enough plankton to go around. Of course, we are still able to raise good quality oysters, but it takes more time than before. It takes four years instead of three. If you think of that way, the offspring of the first oysters we got in stock wouldn’t sellable until four years later, so obviously the first four years were tight. Thanks to the taxi business though, we were able to break even, more or less.

──You’ve been really supportive for your husband through all of this, haven’t you?

I’m handling the taxis so I don’t work with the oysters at all. Instead, I handle all of the office-related work.

──You and your husband both work together so well! What do you have to do for the taxi business?

Just now, one of the locals called me wanting to go to the city hall. We take some people to go shopping or to the hospital, and pick up some who can’t drive because of a bad leg, and so on. Usually it’s always the same people using the taxis. The fareis decided by meter, so that’s normal. For tourists, there is an amount decided by Oki Archipelago that’s written in a pamphlet a set fare for 90 minutes or 120 minutes. So if the passenger says, “90 minutes, please,” then we taken them around to the places within that time frame. For example, if you come to Chiburijima at 11:30 and you have to be back by the 1 o’clock boat, 90 minutes is barely enough time. If you have 120 minutes, we have a bit more leeway and can provide a more detailed tour of the island.

──What’s the route you take tourists on?

As our sightseeing course, we head to Kōri Port from Kurī, drive up Mt. Akahage, and while looking out over the island, make our way to Akakabe. After that we make our way back to the port, and I introduce little facts along the way, like,“This area is called ‘Chiburi-Ginza’ and it has everything from the city hall, markets, and hospital.”. After all, sometimes I run out of things to say. Since Chiburijima is such a small island, you end up explaining everything as it comes up. “That’s where they raise the tuna,” or “That’s where we raise oysters,” or “The cows swim over to that island over there…” On the way to Mt. Akahage, there are cows that will open up the road for the passing cars. While you drive past, you can thank the cows and look out at them grazing on the fields. Once we reach the mountain peak, you can look out over the caldera, whose calm scenery gives way to Akakabe, an awe-inspiring sight for tourists. There are many people who ask to do a shrine course as well.

──What is your favorite place?

I think I like Mt. Akahage the most. If you are a little tired and just want to space out and not think about anything, it’s the perfect place. Akakabe is also really intense. The colors of the ocean is amazing. The sky and ocean are so blue, while the mountains are green, and the rocks are this bright red. I recommend going in the morning. Many people take pictures of Akakabe at sunset, but in the morning, while the sun rises up from the east, is when it appears to be the reddest. You can really see the unevenness of the rocks, whereas at night, the shadows off the uneven surface make the wall seem more black than red. I really want everyone to see just how red the wall actually is.

──What sort of days do you find to be the best for your tours?
I’d have to say those days when the ocean and the sky are both a pure blue. On days like this—when we climb up Mt. Akahage and look out to the horizon where the ocean and sky meet—that is when I feel everyone truly comprehends how round and blue the earth actually is. I usually point out that since the peak provides a 360 degree view of the island, you can see the sun rising from the same horizon that it sets into later in the day. They respond, “Now that you mention it, I guess you’re right!”

──Have you been this fond of the island since you came here?

It’s been over 40 years since I first came to the island, and it was completely different back then. Even if there was a market, there was nowhere near as many items as there are now. At the time, we were living with my in-laws and they were fisherman, but we couldn’t just keep eating what we caught. For example, if we caught squid, we would eventually want another kind of fish. But when we went to the shops there was nothing there. Whenever I had to cook, I felt like crying. And of course there was the issue of the dialect. I couldn’t even understand what was going on.


──Do you still feel that way?

Nowadays, the older people have to adjust to their grandchildren and kids who come visiting from far away and they have started to use a dialect closer to mainland Japanese. But when I came, they only used the island dialect in its purest form. I couldn’t even tell store names and family names apart.


──It does seem really difficult to understand.

Yeah, even in a normal conversation. I can ask my husband to repeat what he says when he’s nearby, but sometimes twice isn’t enough, and if I ask him to repeat himself a third time, he’ll call me an idiot. . So phone calls were terrifying. If the phone would ring I would think, “Man I hate this…” So if I had a fight with my husband, things would be really scary. There would be no one to translate for me, and I would be left all alone.

──It is an environment where you don’t even know a single person after all...

Yeah, at those times I would go to the port and the things that connect to the boats… What do you call them… ?

── Seems like they are called a “bit.”

I would sit on those iron, rock-like things and look out at the open sea thinking “I want to go home,” and start crying. But the neighborhood wives would invite me out to tea. Not just tea, but also to go out to the sea and search for “sazae” or “turban shells”. My in-laws are fisherman, right? But they didn’t go searching for shellfish or anything of that sort. So whenever I brought some home, they would be really happy. They make for a great snack.

──It’s a kind of “island” communication huh?

After that I slowly grew used to it. On the day of Odaishi Mairi, my in-laws invited me to the district meeting hall and we all cooked food together since all of the food for ceremonial events had to be made by hand. As I didn’t know how to do anything at first, I had to watch how they cut the vegetables and learned as I went. At first, I really hated that as well. But everyone tried really hard to make me feel welcome, and I slowly got used to things. Now they treat me like I’m one of them. And now, thanks to them, it’s been 40 years. I’ve become a regular Chiburijima old-timer. *laughs* I don’t really consider any of it to be inconvenient anymore.


“I’m too embarrassed for pictures,” said Mrs. Nakano who smiles when she introduces herself as “the island’s only female taxi driver.” Call a taxi during your travels here and you may come across Mrs. Nakano for yourself. If you need a taxi, feel free to use the number below.

Chibu Taxi: 08514-8-2458