Tourist information
Understand
It's useless. The sand can swallow up cities and countries, if it wants to.
Kobo Abe's existential meditation on sand and work, The Woman in the Dunes, was published in 1964. Although the novel does not mention Tottori by name, it was a natural choice for the film adaptation of Abe's book. "There has never been sand photography like this no, not even in Lawrence of Arabia," said Roger Ebert, of the Oscar-nominated film.
You will, almost certainly, have a better visit than did the story's protagonist, Niki Junpei; come to collect insects, Junpei was fascinated by the patterns and movement of the sand, and missed the last train. Locals offered him lodging for the night, but the next morning, Junpei discovered that he was a prisoner at the bottom of a sandpit, which he and an unnamed woman must shovel out every day in order to keep the house and village from being swallowed in the endless, enigmatic movement of the sand.
The city itself is the industrial center of the prefecture, with several big electronics factories for companies like Sanyo. The fishing industry is also quite lively. There are also two universities, which attract agricultural students and researchers from other parts of Japan and a small number of foreign students. Although the number of foreign residents in Tottori is low, compared to other major cities in Japan, its 250,000 locals are certainly friendly — and thoroughly unlikely to strand you at the bottom of a sand pit.
