A community in Nara Prefecture has taken five Thai college students under its wing, training them in wooden architecture as the Southeast Asian country hopes to put such structures back on the map.
The village of Mitsue aims to revive its aging forestry industry through a plan to export model homes using local timber to Thailand, where wooden architecture is disappearing.
About 90 percent of Mitsue is forested land and it once had a thriving timber industry. But due to a prolonged slump in timber prices and depopulation, the village was forced into seeking alternative ways to make use of its abundant natural resources.