How terraced rice paddies bring Japan's inhabitants together

TOKYO -- It was a century ago that a discerning American geographer described Japan's terraced paddies as the nation's "pyramids." But they are more than that. In early summer, locals refer to the rice fields that rise like staircases up the slopes of mountains as mizu-kagami, water mirrors. In autumn, they are entranced by the fields' golden rice plants waving in the wind.