It is said that when Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb, the first creature to appear in the bombed landscape was the matsutake mushroom.
The acquisition of the atomic bomb came at a time when humanity's dream of dominating nature reached its peak.
And from this point on, the dream began to return to nothing.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima changed the situation.
Suddenly we realized that humans, whether intentionally or not, could destroy the habitability of the Earth.
This awareness has grown as we learn more about pollution, mass extinction, and climate change.
Half of the current instability concerns the fate of the planet.
What kind of human-induced disruption can we truly live with? Sustainability is being talked about, but what are the chances of us leaving a habitable environment for our multi-species descendants?
--- p.24

The number of things considered “jobs” by 20th-century standards has declined.
Moreover, it seemed that we were all going to die from environmental destruction, whether we had a job or not.
We are faced with the problem of having to survive in the midst of economic and ecological collapse.
Neither the story of progress nor the story of collapse tells us how we can think about cooperative survival.
At this point, let's pay attention to mushroom picking.
Mushroom foraging won't save us, but it might open the doors to our imagination.

--- p.49

Given capitalism's massive destruction of the state and the natural landscape, we might ask why those things that were outside the state and capitalism's project survive today.
To answer this question, we need to look at things on the edges that are difficult to handle.
What brought Mien people and pine mushrooms together in Oregon? This seemingly trivial question could change everything, leading us to see their unpredictable encounter as crucial.

--- p.51

Thanks to the pine mushroom, the host tree can survive even in poor soils lacking fertile humus.
In return, the fungus receives nutrients from the tree.
Because of this unusual symbiosis, human cultivation of pine mushrooms was impossible.
Japanese research institutes have spent millions of yen trying to cultivate matsutake mushrooms, but have not yet succeeded.
Matsutake mushrooms are resistant to the environmental conditions of plantation farms.

--- p.85

Humans have inherited a rich heritage in understanding mushrooms through uncertainty.
The series "Indeterminacy," a series of short performance pieces by American composer John Cage, includes many pieces that celebrate encounters with mushrooms.
Cage saw that finding wild mushrooms required a specific kind of attention.
It is about paying attention to the here and now of the encounter, including all the possibilities and surprises that arise when the encounter occurs.

--- p.95

According to Dr. Ogawa, long before Koreans came to central Japan, they cut down forests to use as fuel for temple construction and forges producing ironware.
They cultivated open, human-disturbed pine forests in Korea where pine mushrooms grew, long before such forests appeared in Japan.
In the 8th century, Koreans came to Japan and cut down the forests.
Pine forests suddenly appeared after such deforestation, and along with them, pine mushrooms.
Koreans smelled the pine mushrooms and thought of their homeland.
That was my first nostalgia and my first love for pine mushrooms.
Dr. Ogawa said that it was out of a longing for Korea that Japan's new aristocracy first praised the now-famous autumn scent.
He added that it is no surprise that Japanese people who have emigrated abroad are obsessed with matsutake mushrooms.

--- p.101-102

Mushroom picking is haunted by the ghost of the city, but it is not a city.
Gathering is not labor either.
It's not even 'work'.
Lao foragers explained that 'work' meant obeying one's superiors and doing the work they were told to do.
On the other hand, picking pine mushrooms is an ‘act of searching.’
It is an act of seeking a large sum of money rather than doing one's own work.

--- p.127

Sorting is an art form! Sorting is like a fire show, a captivating sight, with arms moving rapidly while legs remain still.
White people do it like juggling.
On the other hand, the selection work of Lao women, another excellent buyer, looks like a court Lao dance.
A good picker is someone who knows a lot about mushrooms just by touching them.
…a good buyer knows by feel.
They can also detect the source of mushrooms by smell.
The smell is used to determine the host tree, the area where it was collected, and the presence of other plants such as rhododendron that affect its size and shape.
Everyone enjoys watching the selection process for great buyers.
It is a public performance that shows off one's skills to the fullest.
Sometimes collectors take photographs of the selection process.
Sometimes they even take pictures of the best mushrooms they've found or the best paychecks (especially when they're $100 bills).
Those photos are trophies commemorating mushroom hunting.

--- p.154-155

According to the capitalist logic of commodification, things are separated from the life world they belong to in order to become objects of exchange.
I call this process 'alienation', a term I use to describe a potential attribute of humans as well as non-humans.
A striking observation from the Oregon pine mushroom foraging is that alienation is not involved in the relationship between forager and mushroom.
… even when collected, mushrooms become hunting trophies rather than alienated commodities ready to be converted into capital when sold.
The forager is full of pride and shows off the mushrooms he has picked.

--- p.225

Determining what constitutes a disturbance is always a matter of perspective.
From a human perspective, a disturbance that destroys an anthill is very different from a disturbance that blows up a human city.
From the ant's point of view, this cannot be necessarily seen as such.
Perspectives vary across species.
Rosalind Shaw shows how men and women, urbanites and rural dwellers, rich and poor, conceptualize the floods in Bangladesh differently.
This is because they are affected differently by rising water levels.
The point at which a rise in water levels exceeds tolerable levels and becomes a flood varies from group to group.
A single criterion for assessing disturbance is impossible.
Disruption is a problem that has to do with the way we live.

--- p.286

If you've ever wanted to be inspired by the historical power of plants, I recommend starting with the pine tree.
Pine trees are one of the most active trees on Earth.
If a road is cut through a forest with a bulldozer, there is a good chance that new shoots will grow where the pine trees were cut down.
If people abandoned their farmland, the pine trees would be the first to take over.
When volcanoes erupt, glaciers move, or wind and sea deposit sand, pines will be among the first plants to find a place to put down roots.

--- p.297

Foragers have their own way of recognizing a pine mushroom forest.
That is, they are looking for the lifeline of mushrooms.
Being in the forest in this way can be considered a dance.
They seek lifelines through sensation, movement, and orientation.
This dance is a form of forest knowledge.
However, this is not documented in the report.
And in that sense, all foragers dance, but not all dances are similar.
Each dance takes shape according to a shared history that contains heterogeneous aesthetics and orientations.
To introduce this dance, I go back into the Oregon forest.

--- p.429

We trust our vision too much.
I looked at the ground and thought, 'There's nothing here.'
But as if Marchman had groped around and found something, there was something there.
To get through without progress, we must feel it with our hands.

--- p.488