by Leon Jordan

Access to basic services and infrastructure development are much discussed issues related to the disparities between high-tech urban cities and rural communities in Japan and to urban-rural migration. I would like to take a closer look at the importance of infrastructure and the availability of public transportation in rural areas such as Awajishima. While the infrastructure in Japan’s largest cities is second to none, public transportation in rural areas is often deficient. It is important to understand that infrastructure development has always played an important role in influencing migration patterns by bridging the gap between urban and rural areas, not only in terms of urban-rural migration in Japan. However, in the wake of rapid economic growth in Japan, it has become more difficult for private operators to provide public transportation, especially in rural areas. In addition, improved connectivity through transportation networks is shown to have a strong impact on population distribution in rural areas (Fujisaki, K. et al., 2022).

Many community busses in rural areas run only few times a day
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

I have made numerous trips to Awajishima, a rural island with a population of about 125,000 in Hyogo Prefecture. During these trips, I realized how difficult it is to rely solely on public transportation in remote regions and the crucial role a driver’s licence plays in navigating Japan’s rural landscape. Having been born and raised in Berlin, I never had to rely on a driver’s licence because I could always rely on public transportation. Before traveling to Awajishima, I was aware that traversing the island would be more difficult than traveling within larger cities like Tokyo, but I was still surprised. Awajishima is rarely accessible by train, as there are no direct train services to Awajishima, but it is easily accessible by one of the regular boat or ferry services in the far north of the island connecting Awaji to Kobe, or by bus from the south via Naruto. However, once you arrive, the options for getting around are rather limited.

The Naruto Whirlpools one may encounter on a scenic ferry ride from Naruto to Awajishima
Copyright©  Soramimi 2016

I quickly discovered that getting around without a driver’s licence was a bigger hurdle than I first thought. Awajishima is definitely travelable by bicycle and private buses (though they charge very high prices). While I was comfortable with these options to some degree on the island, I still found it difficult to really explore and get around without a driver’s licence. Public transportation is infrequent and non-existent during holidays or major festivals, which limited planning trips at those times. At first, these restrictions seemed to apply only to travelers like me, but with Awaji’s population steadily declining and aging, I learned firsthand that the elderly in particular have a hard time getting around. Long-term residents also find it difficult to access important services such as health care facilities or even grocery stores. While there is a need to improve public transportation in rural areas of Japan (see Fujisaki, K. et al., 2022), this may be more difficult in the case of Awajishima than in other areas. Many places are accessible only by narrow roads that cannot be traveled by buses. And although I felt that community-based transportation services such as ride-sharing were becoming more common in other rural areas, I could not see such a development in Awajishima. Moreover, the elderly couple I stayed with said that while such a change, or even the development of improved public transportation, would benefit some residents and travelers, they were more concerned about the loss of Awajishima’s nature and unique character.

If you don’t have a car in rural Japan, you can rent a bike or wait for the bus
Copyright© Cornelia Reiher 2023

My travels through Awajishima have not only given me the best experiences I have ever had, but also a deeper understanding of the complicated relationship between urban-rural migration and rural infrastructure. While urban areas are often the focus in discussions about development, we should definitely look at rural areas as well. I also believe that recognizing the importance of infrastructure development, particularly in the form of public transportation, in promoting connectivity and improving the quality of life in rural areas is an essential aspect of understanding urban-rural migration.

References
Fujisaki, Koichi et al. (2022) “Empirical recommendations Based on Case Studies in Japan for Sustainable Innovative Mobility in Rural Areas.”, in: Asian transport studies, 8: 100079.
Fan, S. & Chan-Kang, C. (2005) “Road development, economic growth, and poverty reduction in China.”, in: Research report – International Food Policy Research Institute, 138.

Leon Jordan is a student in the BA program in Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin.

by Cecilia Luzi

One Sunday morning in mid-April, during my fieldwork in Hasami, I took my family to the “Takeo Ureshino Märchen Village” Amusement Park. It is an amusement park with a German name and Central European village atmosphere built in 1992. I had stumbled upon it on Google Maps and the bright pictures of a giant squirrel and a pink Ferris wheel had caught my attention. According to the website, the park has 1,000 free parking spaces and was designed for elementary school-aged children on a fairytale theme. It has a variety of attractions, including merry-go-rounds, an electric train, play areas with slides and swings, a large tent where kids could play with tricycles and bicycles and an area with small animals like squirrels, rabbits and two goats. We had a lot of fun running around the attractions, playing with a tricycle, taking the small train twice in a row, and feeding the rabbits with some lettuce. The sensory experience was also overwhelming. The constant jingles from the rides mixed with the joyful cries of children and the voices of parents, while the scent of animals seamlessly transitioned to that of fried food wafting from the various food stalls and the fast-food restaurant on the hill. Most of the visitors were young families with parents in their twenties and two or three kids. They were often accompanied by grandparents who patiently waited for their grandchildren to tire out while sitting under the shade of some large trees.

The giant squirrel at the entrance of the park.
Copyright © Cecilia Luzi 2023

Nevertheless, it was impossible for us to overlook the signs of decay: weathered characters and fading buildings, rusty attractions, a fenced-off swimming pool with greenish water overrun by weeds, abandoned buildings, and half-empty animal cages. When we arrived, we found a vast, deserted parking lot along the main road leading to the park entrance with faded white lines that once had marked parking spaces. The parking area near the main gate was half empty with cracked pavement, overgrown plants, and barely discernible ropes outlining parking spaces.

A view of the park’s rusty attractions and dirty roofs.
Copyright © Cecilia Luzi 2023

As I traveled back and forth by car between Hasami and Buzen, my two research field sites, I crossed northern Kyūshū from coast to coast. Along the way, I passed through numerous towns and villages nestled among mountains, far away from major cities, highways, and railways. My eyes had grown accustomed to the persistent signs of decay that is now a familiar sight in rural Japan. Many of the buildings that were once schools, factories, warehouses, pachinko slots, restaurants, and tourist destinations now lay empty or in a state of disrepair. Akiya are not the only markers of depopulation in rural Japan. Today, abandoned infrastructures, entertainment venues, and public spaces also serve as a monumental reminder of a once-thriving and prosperous past. In those days, even the most remote areas were bustling with construction projects aimed at meeting the needs of a rural population that was still vibrant.

A renovated old post office next to an abandoned building in Nakatsu, Oita prefecture.
Copyright © Cecilia Luzi 2023

In my travels through rural areas in various parts of Japan, I have witnessed this scenario of decay throughout the country. It’s hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia and melancholy when confronted with abandoned rice paddies, fallow fields, deserted villages, and the slow decay of once magnificent wooden houses. I often wonder how hard it must be for those who call these places home to watch their hometowns slowly disappear. But I found the most serene perspective among the older residents who had spent their entire lives in these villages. They have witnessed significant changes throughout their lives and seem to view the current decline as if it were just another natural event accompanying them. An 80-year-old man in Buzen told me, “Life here is hard. There are no services, and the nearest supermarket is 25 minutes away by car. Why would a young person who has a life in the city want to live here? In ten years, this village will disappear, there’s nothing we can do about it, and that’s fine.” In the eyes of some residents, the depopulation we are seeing today is just another development of rural Japan. It is not necessarily something they can or want to reverse. Their view goes beyond resignation; they accept how things are evolving and acknowledge the flow of life in these remote areas.

by Isabell Frank

The COVID-19 pandemic was an accelerator for digital transformation worldwide: suddenly, being present at work, school or university was no longer an option, and new digital formats filled that space. This new situation gave rise to various new forms of work that were encouraged by the government, such as telework. Although there was a decline in telework toward working at one’s own desk after the pandemic subsided, many took a liking to this new style of work. In the case of Japan, this is seen as an opportunity to bring young educated people into the depopulated countryside, which suffers from an aging population and an exodus of young people. In what follows, I would like to introduce two types of telework that have become increasingly popular in recent years and may point to a new direction for working life in Japan.

Remote work enables people to live and work in the countryside
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

The first is the so-called “workation”, a mixture of “work” and “vacation”, where people take a few days or weeks to work in a place of their choice. In most cases, these are tourist locations where people can combine work and leisure. For example, they work their regular hours during the day and then have time to sightsee and enjoy the new scenery. Because of this influx of new visitors or even potential new residents, many municipalities are competing with each other by setting up telework facilities and offering coworking spaces. One such municipality is Fujiyoshida, a city in Yamanashi Prefecture known as a tourist hotspot and a model for creating spaces for telework. The project is called “Satellite Office for the whole City of Fujiyoshida.” Its goal is to provide free workspaces. As of July 2022, there were 42 registered workspaces in Fujiyoshida that can be rented on an hourly or monthly basis and include coworking spaces, cafes, hotels and even campsites. To keep it simple and convenient, the transaction is done through a smartphone app and the total amount is billed at the end of the month. The providers of the spaces also receive some of that money, which makes the offer profitable for local companies. The possibility of converting empty or unused spaces into telework spaces allows the reuse of many unoccupied spaces, which on the one hand contributes to the repopulation of the area and on the other hand also supports the locals financially. In addition, this also provides an opportunity for interaction between telecommuters and residents, which both sides seem to appreciate (Yoshizawa 2022).

Coworking spaces look very different. Some are located in houses that offer office space and accommodation …
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

The second type of telework I would like to introduce is full remote work, where individuals permanently move (far) away from their workplace and work digitally from their new home. One such teleworker is Nozomi, a young woman who moved to Kyūshū while still working for a recruitment agency in Tōkyō. Like many lifestyle migrants, she was looking for a town that was just “enough” rural to be quiet and peaceful, yet close to a major city, and found the city she now lives in on a tourist trip. Since her previous employer did not allow full remote work, she specifically looked for a new job and had quite a bit of difficulty because many employers wanted her to be at the company at least a few days a month. After finding her desired job, she moved to Kyūshū with her husband and is enjoying her new work style. She says she most enjoys the nature that surrounds her and the new freedom to plan her work style. When Nozomi looks out the window, she no longer sees a crowded big city and can work from her room, at a nearby café or even by a river. All she needs for this style of work is her laptop and a pair of headphones. Of course, this way of working also has its downsides. Nozomi misses the communication between her colleagues and sometimes feels lonely. To compensate for the lack of social interaction in her work life, she actively seeks the company of locals, whom she describes as warmer and more welcoming than the “cold” people from Tōkyō. She also informs interested people about her new life via Twitter and her blog. In this way, she wants to help people who are thinking about moving to the countryside but can’t quite imagine rural lifestyles. She also wants to set up a team in her community to support migrants who have already moved here, because many suffer from loneliness or can’t find information about infrastructure and amenities. In this way, she would like to return the kindness she herself received from the local residents and to contribute to the community (Iwatate 2023).

… while other coworking spaces are also used as event spaces.
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

While these two types of remote work represent different ways in which telework can be integrated into people’s lives, many remote workers experience an improved work-life balance and enjoy work more as a result of choosing telework. Telework could become a new driving force in revitalizing not only rural areas but also the Japanese economy, which suffers from low productivity and labor shortages, and could make working in Japan more attractive to Japanese and foreigners alike. While telework is still a niche, it is expected to increase in the future, driven by digital transformation, positive experiences from the pandemic and the need to appeal to skilled workers.

References
Iwatate, Tadasuke (2023), “Furu remōto joshi wa, ijūsha dōshi ga “tanoshii” o kyōyū dekiru chīmu o tsukuritai” [Full remote woman wants to build a team where migrants can have “fun” together], in: Saga Smile, 17. April, https://www.sagasmile.com/interviews/archives/53 (Accessed 27.06.2023).
Yoshizawa, Shiho (2022), “Fujiyoshida-shi marugoto sateraito ofisu” [Satellite office for the whole city of Fujiyoshida], in: Turns, 54, p. 46-51.

Isabell Frank is a student in the BA program in Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin

by Ngo Tu Thanh (Frank Tu)

A former director of JOIN, the Japan organization for Internal Migration told me in an online interview in 2021 that when he moved to Tokyo, he realized that the city could not function without the foreign workers employed in convenience stores and restaurants. He noticed that many workers in convenience stores “were foreigners, and they spoke fluent Japanese. They provided excellent customer service, without a doubt. Even when I visited restaurants, there were many of foreign workers. They are not just travelers. They are people who have been living here for a long time.” (online Interview, 12/10/2021). This bureaucrat’s observation reflects a finding he shares with many other politicians and bureaucrats in Japan I spoke with during my field research. There is a growing consensus among key policy actors in Japan that foreign labor plays a critical role in Japan’s (rural) development, as Japan’s population is expected to continue to shrink in the future, especially in rural areas. Therefore, many of my research participants believe that the acceptance and integration of foreigners into Japanese society is of paramount importance.

Immigrants bring new perspectives and contribute to rural development
Copyright © Ngo Tu Thanh 2022

When asked how foreign workers can contribute to Japan’s regional development, many of my research participants said that international migrants not only provide much-needed labor for Japan’s rural areas, but can also bring financial resources through taxes, investment, trade opportunities, and most importantly, new ideas and ways of thinking. And there are already many foreign nationals working in Japan, such as Pham Thanh Dat from Vietnam, who featured his work in Japan in a post for this blog. However, Japan still lags behind other developed countries in terms of immigration. In 2022, there were about 3 million foreign residents living in Japan, which is about 2.4% of Japan’s total population of 124 million [1][2]. By comparison, this percentage is much lower than Germany (18% of the population in 2022) [3], France (10% of the population in 2022) [4], the United Kingdom (15% of the population in 2022) [5], and even South Korea (3.1% of the population in 2022) [6].

Buzen’s official Facebook page that offers support for foreign residents
Copyright © Ngo Tu Thanh 2023

Why is Japan so slow in promoting immigration? Several of my research participants offered their explanations. At the national level, a politician from the Democratic Constitution Party of Japan, who proudly pointed out that his wife was of foreign origin, argued that the LDP government still did not know how to compete for talented immigrants from Asian countries and that many LDP politicians still had the attitude of “using cheap labor” and only employed low-skilled immigrants for the technical trainee training program (interview, 6/29/2022). At the local level, a government advisor said that local officials and politicians were risk-averse and often tried to avoid such a sensitive issue as immigration because they feared that local residents would oppose accepting more international migrants (interview, 11/10/2021).

Welcoming immigrants requires more than commodifying foreign cultures in theme parks
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

These reports suggest that a shortage of leaders may be the problem. But there are also examples of how to attract foreigners to rural towns and communities. The head of the international cooperation department in Buzen told me that Buzen residents were originally unwilling to accept more immigrants. However, he believes that the city could not develop without foreigners. Therefore, he and his colleagues had to gradually start from scratch to change residents’ attitudes and create mechanisms to protect and support foreign residents (Interview, 08/18/2022). Two council members from Buzen also expressed a desire to welcome more foreign residents and make the city more international, as described in a previous blog post about Buzen’s internationalization initiatives. Buzen’s example shows that strong leadership can bring about meaningful change. I personally believe that the Japanese government should take a leadership role in welcoming more foreign workers, who in turn can bring many benefits to Japan’s (rural) development. Such leadership should be expressed through concrete policy changes and their implementation, not just rhetoric.

References
[1] The Japan Times. 2023. “Foreign Residents in Japan Hit Record 3 Million at End of 2022.” The Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/03/25/national/foreign-residents-japan-increase-2022/.
[2] Yeung, Jessie, and Moeri Karasawa. 2023. “Japan’s Population Drops by Half a Million in 2022.” CNN, CNN World edition. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/13/asia/japan-population-decline-record-drop-intl-hnk/index.html.
[3] DW. 2023. “Germany: Immigrants Made up over 18% of 2022 Population.” DW. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-immigrants-made-up-over-18-of-2022-population/a-65383249.
[4] Le Monde. 2023. “One in 10 People in France an Immigrant, Says National Statistics Agency.” Le Monde, 2023. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/03/30/one-in-10-people-in-france-an-immigrant-statistics-agency_6021240_7.html.
[5] Immigration Advice Service. 2023. “How Many Immigrants Are in the UK?,” 2023. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjZhYD0t5CAAxUORPEDHUvQAJ4QFnoECBMQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fiasservices.org.uk%2Fhow-many-immigrants-are-in-the-uk%2F&usg=AOvVaw3qGpV5Xp4eCKtTpVwf2EVu&opi=89978449.
[6] Kim, Yon-se. 2023. “Foreign Population to Rise to 4.3% in 2040.” The Korea Herald. https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220414000692.

It’s very hot in Berlin and our team is going on vacation for two weeks. The blog will be back up on August 18. Thank you for supporting our blog and our activities. Have a wonderful summer.

Cornelia Reiher

Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

by Edzard Haschka

Although I have never set foot in Fukushima Prefecture myself, it, or rather the events that brought the region tragic global attention in 2011, is closely linked to my personal life story.  From 2009 to 2011, I had the great opportunity to study at Takushoku University in Tokyo. Actually, I planned to study in Tokyo until I graduated in 2014, and who knows, maybe I would have stayed in Japan forever after that. When the earth began to shake at 2:46 p.m. on the afternoon of March 03, 2011, I was in the library of Takushoku University’s Bunkyo campus. At first, the ground began to vibrate slowly, as I had experienced from countless earthquakes, but after a few seconds, the shaking became stronger until I was the first person present to stand up and slowly walk toward the exit. The librarian noticed my worried look and said as the intensity of the shaking increased, “Maybe everything will be okay.” I quickened my pace and replied, “Maybe not.”

Takushoku University Bunkyo Campus, next to the Entry to the Library, Tokyo
Copyright © Edzard Haschka 2009

At that moment, about 15 seconds after the onset of the first tremors, Japan was shaken by the strongest earthquake since records began. As I ran outside, I saw some bookshelves collapse, cracks appear in the concrete of the floor and in the facade of the university, and the glass panes of the buildings caused a deafening clang. Shocked, we watched on a television screen an hour or two later as whole swaths of land not even 100 km from us were destroyed by the strongest tsunami mankind has ever seen. But it was the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant that triggered the consternation in me, and especially in my family, that made it necessary to abandon my enthusiastically pursued plan to stay in Japan and start the journey home – a decision I still don’t regret today.

So much for my personal Japan story, which ended on March 14, when I left Japan as a “flyjin”. Back in Germany, however, the catastrophe never left me. I followed with concern about the attempts to contain the nuclear catastrophe and the helplessness with which mankind faces the threat of radioactive contamination. This invisible threat, against which people can protect themselves only at an extremely high cost and only for a short time, led to the establishment of exclusion zones in the region around Fukushima, a measure that left thousands of people homeless.

View towards Korakuen from the rooftop terrace of Takushoku University’s main building on the Bunkyo campus, Tokyo
Copyright © Edzard Haschka 2011

Given these circumstances, it is noteworthy that the efforts of Japanese institutions to revitalize regions in Japan that are threatened with depopulation also extend to the Fukushima region.  In my research on efforts to revitalize remote regions, I came across a very interesting website run by Fukushima Prefecture. The website, https://fukushima-ijyu.com/, is the official website for those seeking assistance in resettling in Fukushima Prefecture.  The website explicitly promotes resettlement to the region based on specific exemplary migration stories and interviews. The website features (as of June 26, 2023) interviews with 30 ijūsha (internal migrants) who have moved to the Fukushima region for various reasons. Some of them are from Fukushima and lived temporarily in one of the major Japanese cities, while others are from other areas of the Japanese archipelago. The selection of ijūsha gives the impression of a representative cross-section of the population, as both men and women, single people and parents of families from different regions are presented. As different as the circumstances and reasons for migrating to the Fukushima region may be, what all migrants have in common is that the decision to migrate was made out of an inner drive and was voluntary and positively inclined.

Through images similar to this one, the Fukushima Prefecture administration describes the site as an uncontaminated rural idyll, Fukushima Prefecture
Copyright © Rikako Matsuoka 2020

Services offered on the website include answers to frequently asked questions, contact forms to counseling centers, and referrals to support services. I was surprised, however, that the nuclear disaster and its impact on the region are not mentioned on the website, not even in an appeasing way. Even for unconcerned newcomers to the region, learning a few things about radiation might be significant. I also expected to find some information for refugees such as displaced people who need to resettle quickly. So I wondered how the post-disaster evacuation and the new attempts to attract migrants to Fukushima are connected. Who are the relevant target groups for promoting the region as a destination for migrants, and why would people consciously choose to migrate to the Fukushima region? In my opinion, this raises interesting research questions and challenges to be addressed with regard to migration to the Fukushima region.

References
Dambeck, Holger (February 28th, 2012): “Japans Regierung fürchtete Evakuierung Tokios”, Spiegel Online: /https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/fukushima-katastrophe-japans-regierung-fuerchtete-evakuierung-tokios-a-818084.html (last viewed on June 23rd, 2023).
Kan, Naoto, and Jeffrey S. Irish (2012). “My Nuclear Nightmare: Leading Japan through the Fukushima Disaster to a Nuclear-Free Future”. Cornell University Press.
Official website of Fukushima Prefecture for those interested in relocating to this prefecture:  https://fukushima-ijyu.com/interview (last viewed on June 28th, 2023).

Edzard Haschka is a student in the BA program in Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin

by Kazuyoshi Kawasaka and Ami Kobayashi

Rural areas in Japan (inaka) are often thought of as homogenous and “authentic Japan” when compared to metropolises such as Tokyo and Osaka. Metropolitan cities are associated with more diverse and rapidly changing ‘young’ lifestyles, but rural areas in Japan have been also changing due to various reasons. One factor, which we regard as a trigger of societal change in rural areas, is the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET program).  The JET program was introduced by the Japanese government in 1987 in order to internationalize Japanese society, including rural areas. According to McConnell (2000), the JET program is Japan’s unique top-down attempt to create “mass internationalisation.” The JET program aims to cultivate international awareness and understanding of cultural diversity in Japan’s local communities through inviting applicants from abroad as assistant language teachers, coordinators for international relations or sport advisors across Japan. Japanese officials called it “the greatest initiative undertaken since World War II related to the field of human and cultural relations,” designed as an international exchange program to change Japanese people’s attitude towards foreigners and foreign cultures by grassroots personal interactions (McConnell 2000: x).

A typical scenery in rural Japan.
Copyright © Ami Kobayashi 2016

Although it was not its intention, the JET Programme has also influenced LGBTQ+ activism in Japan. For example, JET participants organised ‘Stonewall Japan’ in 1995, which was one of the earliest LGBTQ+ groups in the public education sector in Japan and is still active. Although Japan welcomes thousands of young graduates from all over the world for the JET Programme every year, previous studies rarely discussed the difficulties they face in Japan’s rural communities. Some publications discuss the conflict between the “locals” and “foreigners” from a rather dichotomous perspective, but they do not pay attention to the heterogeneity of foreigner’s experiences, especially those caused by their race, sexuality and gender identities.

ALTs teach English in Japanese elementary schools, middle schools and high schools.
Copyright © Tono Education and Culture Foundation 2015

In order to examine the difficulties that JET teachers with minority backgrounds face, we conducted semi-structured interviews with former and current LGBTQ+ JET teachers in 2021. They all have worked in rural areas and many of them could not speak fluent Japanese. None of our interviewees had access to local LGBTQ+ communities, and none were actively open about their gender and sexual identity, since they feared that their identities would make their lives more difficult. One of the striking points is that depending on the skin colour and ethnic identity of LGBTQ+ teachers, the problems they faced and how they coped with those situations differed significantly. While white interviewees did not mention their ethnicity, interviewees of colour often referred to their ethnicity as an additional factor entangled with their sexuality that made their work at Japanese schools even more difficult.

One female ALT told us: “I think the, there was a lot of, like, race involved as well. My, the other JETs in the area were all like, you know, blue-eyed blonde and everyone was very friendly with them. But I would like, go to a café with my friend who was black and (…) they’re looking at us like ‘nani (…)’ like ‘what, what is this’, you know. (…) And that’s like not something that I can talk to my coworkers about at all, but also wasn’t something that I can talk about with my, like, JET peers, because they were all white.”(Former ALT, Hispanic, Lesbian woman). But despite the challenges and most of the teaching plan being fixed, most of our interviewees have found ways to make LGBTQ+ visible and tried to tackle heteronormative and sexist presumptions in schools. Through their outlook, worksheets and additional information for English classes, they have negotiated the existing gender and sexuality norms within and outside of the classroom.

In some rural areas in Japan, ALTs are the first foreignerschildren meet and their activities often go beyond simply teaching English.
Copyright © Tono Education and Culture Foundation 2015

In rural areas, there is generally less privacy and people are less tolerant of cultural and sexual diversity, while in big cities, many LGBTQ+ people and foreigners have established their own communities. Japanese LGBTQ+ studies have just started to include LGBTQ+ lives in rural areas into their research and to overcome their metrocentrism as the recently published book “Chihō” to seiteki mainoritī [The “Countryside” and Sexual Minorities] by Sugiura Ikuko and Maekawa Naoki shows. In this sense, the subtle activities of LGBTQ+ JET teachers to expand diversity in rural areas need to be evaluated and further explored. In addition, effective measures should be taken to ensure their safety and mental health in Japan’s rural schools and communities.

References
McConnell, David L. (2000), Importing Diversity: Inside Japan’s JET Program, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sugiura Ikuko and Maekawa Naoki (2022),“Chihō” to seiteki mainoritī [The “Countryside” and Sexual Minorities], Tōkyō: Seikyū-sha.

Dr Kazuyoshi Kawasaka is principal investigator of the DFG-funded project “Sexual Diversity and Human Rights in 21st Century Japan: LGBTQ+ Activisms and Resistance from a Transnational Perspective” at the Institute of Modern Japanese Studies at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
Dr Ami Kobayashi teaches at the Institute of Modern Japanese Studies at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and at the Institute of History of Education at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau.

The authors have just published an article about the topic:
Kawasaka, Kazuyoshi and Kobayashi, Ami (2023), “Surviving Under the ‘Hidden Curriculum’: The struggles of LGBTQ+ JET Teachers in Japanese Rural Areas”, Studia Orientalia 124, pp. 145-161.

by Sarah Bijlsma

For the past few months, I have paused my doctoral research due to the birth of my daughter last December. It took me some time to adjust to this new reality, as I went almost directly from fieldwork on Miyakojima to days spent feeding, changing diapers, and reading picture books. Besides this weblog and the occasional academic papers I read, one channel that keeps giving glimpses of life in the Japanese countryside is the Netflix series “Love Village” (“Ai no Sato”).

Watching “Love Village” while the baby takes a nap
Copyright © Sarah Bijlsma 2023

“Love Village” aired in early May and has 18 episodes at the time of writing. The show contains some elements common to modern dating shows. For example, eight single men and women are given a living space outside their normal lives where they get to know each other on a day-to-day basis. When someone falls in love, they ring the “love bell” (ai no kane), confess his or her love and leave either together or alone if rejected. What is new, however, is that the participants of “Love Village” are between 35 and 60 years old, so they have all passed 30, which is about the average age of marriage in Japan [1]. A second new element of the show is that the contestants do not live in a stylishly furnished apartment, but in a 152-year-old kominka (traditional Japanese house). While living in the countryside, the contestants are tasked with growing their own vegetables and renovating the house together during episodes of the show.

Watching “Love Village” makes me miss the Japanese countryside
Copyright © Sarah Bijlsma 2023

These two unique elements – the age of the participants and the task of restoration – are fascinating to me because they directly reflect the two major problems facing Japan today. The first is the aging of the population. With 28.4% of older Japanese in 2018, Japan has the oldest population in the world [2]. The second problem is the shrinking population, especially in rural areas. As several authors have pointed out in this blog, the restoration of akiya (vacant houses) by urban Japanese newcomers is a new trend used as a strategy to combat rural migration [3]. Accompanied by a soundtrack of high-energy Backstreet Boys hits from the 1990s, “Love Village” portrays life in the countryside as great fun. Members cut bamboo in the forest and eat flowing noodles (nagashi sōmen), they happily remove spiders from bedrooms and they simply move their dinner inside when it starts to rain. In addition, daily life seems both convenient and cheap: many vegetables are picked directly from the field, and there is a grocery delivery service that brings the rest of the food into the house. Restoration also seems to be going on without much of a hurdle, and week after week one can see members successfully restoring the wooden floor and shoji paper windows in the house. Most importantly, the restoration of an old Japanese house actually turns out to be a recipe for finding true love.

Under construction: it takes some time to renovate an old country house
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

**the next paragraph contains spoilers**

The first “Love Village” couple is Junpei and Okayo. Junpei is 42 years old and has lived his life as a free spirit both in Japan and abroad. After his father’s death, he returned to Shizuoka to take over his carpentry business and is now looking for a woman to help him. Okayo, 39, works part-time at a grocery store. After the two spend days together renovating the woman’s room, Okayo confesses her feelings to Junpei. She emphasizes how important it was for them to work together on the sleeping area and that “I wanted to help someone I liked in my own way” [4]. Although Junpei admits that he was initially more attracted to another female roommate, he chooses the introverted Okayo and leaves the show with her. According to their Instagram profiles, the two are still together. Many viewers have wondered where the kominka from “Love Village” is in Japan, which has led to heated discussions on the Internet. The most widely accepted theory is that it is located in Minamiboso-shi in Chiba-ken. This conclusion is drawn because viewers have found that two company names dropped in the broadcast could belong to a restoration company and a real estate company, both of which operate in Chiba-ken. In addition, the website of each real estate agency notes that they currently sell only traditional houses in the Minamiboso-shi area.

Many newcomers renovate abandoned houses in rural Japan like this one
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

I like Japanese dating shows because they are so real. A European version would focus mainly on the arguments during the long working days and the jealousy among the contestants. Love Village, on the other hand, shows everyone cheering each other on and working together in many ways. As I myself float on a pink cloud during these months, it’s nice to see relationships forming between people who had long given up on love.

References
[1]          https://www.statista.com/statistics/611957/japan-mean-age-marriage-by-gender/#:~:text=Men%20and%20women%20in%20Japan,when%20they%20first%20got%20married.
[2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/09/15/national/elderly-citizens-accounted-record-28-4-japans-population-2018-data-show/
[3] See or example this blog, “Vacant houses in rural Japan: From empty space to potential places for newcomers” by Jyoti Vasnani (2021), “Renovating old houses: Between Japan and France” by Maritchu Durand (2021), and “A gallery in the middle of nowhere: reusing abandoned houses as art spaces in Japan’s countryside” by Cornelia Reiher (2023).
[4] Love Village, 2023, episode 8.

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)