When I arrive at Beniya Mukayu, a traditional ryokan inn on the outskirts of Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture, Sachiko Nakamichi leads me from the airy lounge to a quiet room where co-owner and husband, Kazunari, dressed in a traditional yukata kimono and black haori jacket, welcomes me with an abbreviated tea ceremony experience.
After a stroll through the garden, I experience the property's spa treatment (a therapeutic massage followed by a personalized herbal therapy based on traditional herbal medicine and a constitutional questionnaire determining which herbs were bundled into a heated compress) before a kaiseki (haute Japanese cuisine) dinner of local specialties prepared by chef Hiroaki Kaku.
Yet beneath this luxurious and serene surface lies a more complex mission. Sachiko sees ryokan — both Beniya Mukayu in particular and Japan’s traditional inns as a whole — as a vessel for sustaining an entire cultural ecosystem.
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