by Cecilia Luzi

As mentioned in previous blog posts, field research with a child comes with some challenges, especially when it comes to finding appropriate spaces to play and relax. In this article, I would like to talk about an unexpected place that has become a sanctuary for both of us during our fieldwork in Japan: the onsen (hot springs). During my months of field research in Kyūshū, I made some fascinating discoveries about onsen. For example, I observed that some elderly local women visit the onsen every day, whether in the morning or right after lunch, to bathe for an hour or so before returning to their daily activities. Their skin looks gorgeous, and they look much younger than their actual age. I also discovered that there are family baths, kazokuburo, in Kyūshū where you can pay for an hour’s private bath for your family. Although I was unfamiliar with this, I quickly got used to it because it was a nice way for my family to spend the last few hours of the weekend together before my partner had to catch the train back to Kyōto. Finally, I learned that the people of Kyūshū pay very close attention to the quality of the water in the onsen. They can notice even the slightest change or difference in water quality from one bath to another. It always surprises me when I hear that some people take over an hour’s drive just to have a good bath with high-quality water at the end of the day, even if there is an onsen only ten minutes from their house.

A family bath (kazokuburo) in Takeo
Copyright© Cecilia Luzi 2023

In my last few months in Japan, I had some memorable experiences in the onsen. The first house we stayed in had a traditional Japanese metal kettle bath, called a goemonburo, heated directly from below with firewood. This was a great experience. However, when it was too cold to go outside and prepare the fire, or when I was too tired, we would go to the onsen, which was just a five-minute walk up the street. I often met locals there, and over time their faces became familiar to me. Sometimes there were tourists there, too. One day I met three girls who had come from Kitakyūshū to spend the night at the nearby campsite. They wanted to take a nice bath before going to sleep. “Everyone here says there’s nothing interesting in the area, but I don’t think that’s true,” one of them told me. “The nature is beautiful in every season, and the people are very nice!”

The entrance in one of my favorite onsen
Copyright© Cecilia Luzi 2023

On another occasion, I visited an onsen in Beppu with one of my friends. It was a small onsen up in the hills. It was a cold winter day, and it was very pleasant to bathe in the warmth of the onsen while it was drizzling in the mist… In the pool outside, we struck up a conversation with an old lady who lived nearby and came to the onsen every day. There was also a woman who had just moved with her husband from Kitakyūshū to Beppu after they retired. The elderly lady, who claimed to be 82 years old but looked at least ten years younger, gave the newcomer a list of places to go, including suggestions for cheap onsen for only 100 yen and meals at the university cafeteria: “It’s both delicious and very cheap. You should go there. I go very often!”

A nice meal after a bath in Beppu
Copyright© Cecilia Luzi 2023

When I went to an onsen recently, I was with a young woman who had moved to Hasami from Tōkyō just two weeks ago. I got out of the bathroom early to get my son dressed, and a very funny lady who had already approached me inside started asking me what had brought me to Hasami. Soon all the people in the locker room joined the conversation, especially a young mother with two children who were playing with my son. I asked her where she was from, and when she replied, “Hirado” the other ladies blurted out, “That’s very far away! And you came here just for the onsen? Surely that must take more than an hour!” The young woman nodded, and then suddenly one of the others came up to me and said, “You should go to Hirado while you’re here! It’s a beautiful place.” As soon as she finished, another lady listed a number of other places in the area that I should visit before leaving, and then another lady started naming good onsen and inviting me to try different ones. Suddenly, the entire locker room turned into some kind of travel agency promoting tourism in Nagasaki Prefecture. They were so good at it that I joked that a municipality should hire them!

Takeo Onsen complex during the cherry blossom season
Copyright© Cecilia Luzi 2023

Onsen are great places to engage in conversation and learn more about the daily habits of locals. They can serve as a place to relax as well as a social space for conversation and community building. For my child, onsen became a playground. For me, they became an opportunity to learn more about the daily rhythms of the local community. Exchanges in the bath are very conversational and provide a unique opportunity to connect with others in a relaxed and informal setting. It reminded me of the little bars you find in the main square of any Italian village in the countryside, where people meet to have a drink, chat and give each other unsolicited advice.

by Ngo Tu Thanh (Frank Tu)

Since the invention of the Internet, digital technologies have increasingly become a dominant force in our everyday lives. Digital technology and digitization have evolved remarkably fast in recent years (Coccoli et al. 2014). Morakanyane et al. (2017) define digital transformation or DX as a process that leverages digital capabilities and technologies with the goal of creating new value. Various digital technologies such as social media, cloud-based services, the Internet of Things, blockchain, robotics and automation and Society 5.0 have led to significant changes (Khare et al. 2020, Margiono 2019). In the context of globalization, digital transformation is considered an important strategy that has the potential to positively impact social life and economic growth. As a result, governments and businesses around the world have leveraged digital transformation for their development. In Europe, for example, a 2017 survey found that two-thirds of EU citizens recognize the positive impact of digital transformation and consider it important. Since 2014, the EU has proactively implemented legislation focused on business digitization, investment in digital infrastructure and services, cybersecurity, e-commerce, and data protection (European Parliament 2019).

Working area open to the public on the top of Nagaski Prefectural Government Building
Copyright © Ngo Tu Thanh 2022

Digital transformation has also become a key focus in Japan, both as a buzzword and as a real policy. My interviews with more than thirty policy actors, including politicians, bureaucrats, and advisors, show that many Japanese policy insiders believe that digital transformation was greatly accelerated due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Like the rest of the world, Japan experienced a widespread utilization of digital services and new modes of working, such as telework and e-education, as a result of the pandemic. Indeed, it has been reported that Former Prime Minister Suga proposed a plan to establish a Digital Agency in 2020 due to Japan’s inadequate digital infrastructure exposed by COVID-19 (Suzuki 2021). The Digital Agency was eventually realized in 2021 and is currently headed by Digital Minister Konō Tarō.

In many rural communities, coworking spaces were just introduced recently
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

Most of the political actors I interviewed firmly believe that digital transformation will have a positive impact on regional development. New ways of working, studying and living, such as telework, workation and distance learning, can help prevent people from migrating from rural areas to cities, especially Tokyo, to work and study. In addition, migrants can now move to rural areas to work and study. Digital transformation is also having a positive impact on Japan’s (rural) development by simplifying the strict bureaucratic processes for which Japan is notorious. Interviewees noted that traditional procedures involving seals, paper documents and fax machines have been eliminated in some public institutions and private companies. For example, a member of the Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly (interviewed August 30, 2022) believes that further efforts should be made to digitize Japan’s bureaucratic procedures to make it easier to apply for national rural revitalization grants.

Coworking spaces in Saga and Oita prefectures
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022, 2023

The Japanese government believes that digital transformation is a domain that requires strong leadership at the national level. In 2022, the Kishida administration further demonstrated its commitment to promoting and leveraging digitalization for regional development by adopting a new framework titled “Digital National Garden City Concept” (Dejitaru denen toshi kokka kōsō). However, local government officials I have interviewed highlight some challenges for Japan’s digitalization efforts. Municipal officials from Buzen City and Hasami Town stated that these municipalities still lack the necessary infrastructure to fully benefit from digital transformation, such as strong internet connection, co-working areas for teleworkers, and human resources capable of driving local digitalization initiatives. However, this new framework presents an interesting development that warrants further examination and attention. Will digitalization succeed in Japan, and how will it impact Japan’s rural development? These are the questions that I want to explore in the future.

References
Coccoli, Mauro, Angela Guercio, Paolo Maresca, and Lidia Stanganelli. 2014. “Smarter Universities: A Vision for the Fast Changing Digital Era.” Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 25: 1003–11.
European Parliament. 2019. “Digital Transformation.” European Parliament. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/633171/EPRS_BRI(2019)633171_EN.pdf.
Margiono, Ari. 2021. “Digital Transformation: Setting the Pace.” Journal of Business Strategy 42 (5): 315–22.
Morakanyane, Resego, Audrey A Grace, and Philip O’Reily. 2017. “Conceptualizing Digital Transformation in Business Organizations: A Systematic Review of Literature.” In BLED 2017 Proceedings, 21:428–44. Bled, Slovenia.
Suzuki, Wataru. 2021. “Japan Launches Agency to Undo ‘Digital Defeat’: 5 Things to Know.” Nikkei Asia, 2021, sec. Politics. https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan-launches-agency-to-undo-digital-defeat-5-things-to-know.

雨の中で磁器を購入
Shopping for porcelain in the rain
Copyright @ Arita Town Hall 2023

マスクをつけている来場者とつけていない来場者
Visitors at the Tōki-ichi , some with and some without mask
Copyright @ Arita Town Hall 2023

有田陶器市が開催された皿山通りを練り歩くバグパイプパレード
Bagpipe Parade through the main street where the Tōki-ichi  was held
Copyright @ Arita Town Hall 2023

朝がゆのふるまい
Serving Asa-Gayu
Copyright @ Arita Town Hall 2023

References

[1] Official Tourism Website of Saga Prefecture, https://www.asobo-saga.jp (last viewed on May 23^rd, 2023)
[2] https://arita-toukiichi.or.jp/news (last viewed on May 23^rd, 2023)
[3] https://www.saga-s.co.jp/articles/-/1031379 (last viewed on May 23^rd, 2023)
[4] https://www.saga-s.co.jp/articles/-/849986 (last viewed on May 23^rd, 2023)
[5] https://www.saga-s.co.jp/articles/-/1029400 (last viewed on May 23^rd, 2023)
[6] https://www.saga-s.co.jp/articles/-/1028563 (last viewed on May 23^rd, 2023)

by Cornelia Reiher

Finding housing in rural areas is a very important and sometimes difficult part of the urban-rural migrant experience. Previous blogposts have pointed out that while there are many abandoned houses in rural communities, it is often difficult to find housing because the owner is unknown or because they do not want to sell or rent their house. While many urban-rural migrants with families are looking for a house (ikkenya) or an apartment, single people, in particular, do not want to live alone for economic reasons or because they feel lonely. Therefore, sharehouses, a concept that has recently become more popular in Japan (Meagher 2020: 16), are now available in rural areas. However, there are not yet that many sharehouses and those in the areas I studied were established only in the last five years.

View from the window of the sharehouse over the roofs of the town
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

During my fieldwork, I met many residents of sharehouses. For most, living in the sharehouse was temporary, but there were also some long-term residents and those who have stayed for a short time, left and then returned to live in the sharehouse for a longer period of time. Sharehouses in the countryside seem to serve several functions: They provide a place to live and often work, new experiences and encounters with diverse people from different backgrounds and valuable information about the city for newcomers. They can also be places where locals and newcomers meet. For example, in the basement of one sharehouse I visited, there is an event space that can be transformed into a coworking space, a café, a concert space, or a pop-up restaurant where locals, Japanese migrants and foreign residents come together.

The living room and kitchen of the sharehouse where I stayed
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

I lived in a sharehouse myself during my last field research in the spring and shared the house with two people, a man and a woman in their thirties, who had moved to the city from big cities in Kanto and Kansai. Since the sharehouse had only opened last October, three rooms were still unoccupied and were therefore rented out to short-term visitors like me. On the first floor were three bedrooms and a bathroom. Upstairs was the kitchen, which was also used as a living room, another bathroom and two bedrooms. The decor was a very stylish mix of DIY renovation, old furniture, textiles and IKEA.

The sharehouse was renovated by its owners with the help of volunteers
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

Although I had met a resident of the sharehouse during my last field research, I was very nervous about sharing a house with strangers. My last experience with a shared apartment was during my student days, and I didn’t really know what to expect. But it turned out to be a very pleasant experience. We prepared and ate meals together, went out for drinks or just had a nice chat when we met in the kitchen. According to my temporary roommates, one advantage of living together is that they can share food and there are no leftovers. Although they both do their own grocery shopping and each has a basket of non-perishable food like coffee that is not shared, they order vegetables together from a farmer and share them. And if they need something that is not available in town, they order it individually online. Most of the migrants I interviewed agreed that ordering things online makes life in the countryside much more convenient. It was very interesting to see what was shared and what was not shared by the residents of the sharehouse and how they organize their shared space.

A radish from a local organic farmer’s food delivery and a box from Amazon
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

Staying in the sharehouse made me realize how important they are for newcomers. Both of my roommates agreed that they came to this city because of the sharehouse and its owners. They both learned about the sharehouse from others who lived there for a short time or helped the owners renovate the sharehouse. They were also impressed by their social media accounts, and when they first visited, the owners introduced them to interesting people, which is why they both think the city is exciting, offers many opportunities, and is home to interesting people. In light of the difficult housing situation in many rural communities, sharehouses can provide housing for newcomers, independent of the sometimes quite limited community support systems. They also offer newcomers many opportunities to connect with locals and learn from the experiences of other urban-rural migrants. Thus, sharehouses are important hubs for urban-rural migrants and also places where many activities take place that make rural communities more interesting.

Reference:

Meagher, Caitlin (2020), Inside a Japanese sharehouse: dreams and realities, London and New York: Routledge.

by Susanne Klien

Fieldwork tends to be seen as a standard tool in ethnography, at least until the pandemic. Not so much has been written about exhaustions during and after fieldwork although some vivid depictions of challenges feature on this blog and are described in detail in Kottmann’s and Reiher’s Handbook of Research Design, Fieldwork and Methods (2020). Often, as researchers being indebted to a multiplicity of people in the field, we are less aware of the physical and mental tolls that the conduct of fieldwork in fact takes on our bodies and minds. Immersion constitutes immeasurable chances for us to gain new insights into the field. Yet, immersion also means pressure to miss out, as Harvey-Sanchez and Olsen (2019) observe: “Being forced to see how all the fragments are situated in a web of significance is draining at times. I feel like a vessel and an emotional labourer at once. Taking in all of the different fragments and being forced to see how they fit into a system of meaning, while also being attuned to every pause, every silence, every conversation, and the broader rhythm of speech and movement. I want to be able to unsee it, I explained at the time. Now I’ve learned how to turn on my ethnographer mode, but I need to learn how to turn it off. I want to take off the ethnographer hat –“

Life and death
Copyright © Susanne Klien 2021

From my own experience, it is often after returning home that the full impact shows: a sense of prolonged exhaustion that continues for one month or even more depending on the length and intensity of fieldwork. With increasing age and time constraints, the extent of exhaustion seems to grow. During my follow-up fieldwork of one month in Kamiyama Town, Tokushima in April-May 2021, the different climate, insect and concerns about how to conduct fieldwork during a pandemic were just some elements that seemed to enforce my sense of exhaustion. I remember dropping into the local public bath (onsen) every other day as a means of coping with my lingering physical tiredness. Soaking in the hot water worked wonders. I had been to the small rural town six years before, but still, finding a daily pace, re-establishing a network, accessing things, people, securing food – there were many potential sources of trouble, especially because this was at the height of the pandemic. This time, I stayed with an acquaintance who had set up a guesthouse in a small mountain village – a decision that helped me to get invaluable insights into the tensions between newcomers and locals. The elevated location of my accommodation offered an impressive panorama view across the picturesque valley. It also meant, however, an exposure to a vast array of insects, most uncomfortably, poisonous centipedes and leeches. During my stay, other guests were also exposed and with every day of my stay, I felt the threat of an encounter, especially because I was sleeping on a futon on the tatami floor. I witnessed the fiancé of my host expertly catching a centipede with chopsticks, an impressive feat. Towards the end of my stay, I detected one more of my centipede fellows next to my mattress. I felt a sense of triumph when I managed to catch it (admittedly, not with chopsticks) – ironically, next to Didier Fassin’s Life: A Critical User’s Manual, which I never got around to reading during my stay.

The narrow, curvy road leading to the guesthouse
Copyright © Susanne Klien 2021

The lingering sense of tension, a stiff neck, unfamiliar humidity, the fear of driving on the narrow, winding roads are all moments of immersion. At the beginning of my stay, I was ambitious enough to think that I would cook for myself. After the second day, however, I gave in to the temptation of sharing meals with my hosts. These meals were particularly enjoyable given that there were new guests and visitors every other day and even if there weren’t, these were wonderful opportunities to ask questions about the town and its people. These meals also provided chances to support local shops: I loved going to the (only) local butcher on the main street to get some meat as it was incredibly tasty. My hosts would contribute (mostly self-grown) vegetables – a perfect combination. I also liked to buy a few bottles of local craft beer in town for my hosts, guests and myself.

Kamiyama beer, local meat and self-grown vegetables of my hosts for dinner
Copyright © Susanne Klien 2021

But let’s get back to the ethnographer’s hat and how to get rid of it for one’s own and for the sake of one’s body and mind. In retrospect, I approached my follow-up stay as an extended immersive practice, even when I was sleeping, as I expected centipedes. The only time-out in a way was soaking myself in the hot water, enjoying the moment, trying to think of nothing. There were other instances of going to public baths in rural areas during fieldwork that were more social, so the practice of going to onsen as such may be multi-faceted depending on the field, one’s stage of fieldwork and many other factors. In any case, with more experiences of fieldwork in vastly different contexts, I feel that it is crucial to make sure that one allows for such moments of taking off the ethnographer’s hat and – ideally more extended time off out of respect for one’s body and mind.

References
Harvey-Sanchez, Amanda and Annika Olsen (2019). “Ethnography as Obsession: On Immersion and Separation in Fieldwork and Writing”, Ethnography of the University 2018: Focus on Politics, https://ethnographylab.ca/2019/01/07/ethnography-as-obsession-on-immersion-and-separation-in-fieldwork-and-writing/ accessed on 25 April 2023.
Kottmann, Nora and Cornelia Reiher (eds.) (2020). Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods, Baden Baden: Nomos.

*Susanne Klien is an associate professor at Hokkaido University. Her main research interests include the appropriation of local traditions, demographic decline and alternative forms of living and working in post-growth Japan. She is the author of Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-Growth Society (State University of New York Press, 2020).