by Cornelia Reiher

In September, I was able to travel to Japan for the first time after three and a half years. Since visa-free travel was not possible until October 11, I had to undergo a time-consuming visa application process. Thanks to our colleagues at Kyushu University, I was able to affiliate as a visiting scholar and was very happy when the visa was finally stamped in my passport. Fortunately, just before I left for Japan, the PCR tests for those who had been vaccinated three times were no longer required for entry. At the same time, not only the entry ban but also the war in Ukraine has made it difficult to travel to Japan. Since it is no longer possible to fly over Russia, air routes have become much longer and air ticket prices have risen sharply. Against all odds, I put on my mask, boarded a plane and entered Japan in mid-September, where I was the only foreigner in the immigration queue. I had never seen the international terminal of Haneda Airport so empty.

Alone at the immigration line at Haneda airport
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

The number of Covid-19 infections in Japan has increased since July 2022, even in rural areas. Therefore, hygiene measures were taken very seriously and everyone wore a mask indoors and outdoors. Even in my field sites, many people had already been infected with Covid. Many interlocutors told me openly that they or their children had Corona, but apparently, the subject was taboo, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. Foreigners in particular were shunned. One interviewee told me that people even changed sides of the street when they saw her, and she felt discriminated against for the first time in Japan, even though she had lived there for a long time.

Since one of the principles of good research practice is to do no harm to research participants, I followed all the formal and informal rules as much as possible. Since everyone always wore a mask, I did too. I also carried a suitcase full of Covid-19 test kits and performed tests regularly. Fortunately, I did not experience any discrimination or rejection from my research participants, but found Covid to be a good conversation starter, as everyone I met was interested in the Covid situation and rules in Germany and Europe. Many Japanese found it hard to believe that people in most European countries no longer wear masks.

Even cows wear masks during the pandemic. I found this plastic one at a michi no eki in Aso.
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

After conducting online interviews during the past year, I had come to Japan to conduct on-site interviews and attend events to see more than just people’s faces. But also during my stay in Japan, I had to interview some people remotely because they or their family members were infected with Covid-19. And this time I hardly saw anyone’s face because the interviewees had their masks on during almost all the interviews, some even in their own houses. Only when I took photos of my research participants did they briefly remove their masks. In the town halls of my two field sites, as well as in many other public institutions, a scanner at the entrance monitored the body temperature of visitors and staff. Although wearing masks is currently required in Germany only on public transportation, disinfecting hands and wearing masks even at 32°C became second nature to me (again). Like everyone else in Japan, I spent entire days without taking off my mask.

Interview with masks and partition walls in a municipal hall in Kyushu
Copyright © Takako Horita 2022

But how can a researcher relate to people if she only sees them with a mask? I found it very unfortunate that I could not see the facial expressions of many of my research participants during the interviews because they are just as important as their verbal expressions. On the other hand, I had met many of my research participants before – either online without masks or during previous fieldwork in Japan. Without these previous encounters, however, it would have been somewhat difficult for me to get to know them. Sometimes I wondered if this type of field research was really better than the online interviews I had already conducted. However, I would say that it was important to be on-site to observe the environment in which my research participants live and the social interactions in their daily lives. During the online interviews, I only saw their faces and often a virtual background. Some participants gave me a tour of their homes or neighborhood online, but I could only see what they wanted me to see. For this reason, it was important to (re)visit my field sites in person. In doing so, I not only noticed how much the places have changed since previous visits, but I also happened to come across many interesting things by coincidence. In summary, during my fieldwork in Japan, I experienced firsthand how the pandemic changed not only fieldwork for researchers outside of Japan who could not enter the country and had to find alternative ways to do fieldwork, but also fieldwork in Japan itself.

From left to right: Monitoring body temperature at the entrance of public facilities; signs that ask customers to wear masks and to keep distance at a supermarket; and the check-in equipment at a guesthouse (tissues, disinfection spray, masks and a fever thermometer).
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

by Sarah Bijlsma

A question that inevitably comes up when thinking about (urban migration to) rural Japan is where ‘the rural’ as a unit of analysis begins and ends. To put it differently, is rural Japan defined by population density, municipal borders, the conceptual boundaries of ‘the countryside,’ linguistic terms like chiiki (region), inaka (countryside), or chihō (district), or by a combination of all? In my research on Miyakojima it is the term shima (island) or ritō (remote island) that is used by people to reflect on the space they inhabit. Being a piece of land fully surrounded by water, I often feel that the term is applied to describe an isolated and more or less homogeneous space [1]. Yet, spending time on Miyako I realized that its 159 km² is used, planned, and negotiated by different people in fundamentally different ways.

To begin with, Miyako has a small urbanized area on the west side of the island. This is where most of the 52,814 inhabitants live [2]. However, when I strolled through the narrow streets, I was especially struck by the many multi-story buildings with a different karaoke bar or hostess club on each floor. One night I spoke to a girl named Mika who works in such a hostess club. She told me that she was originally from Osaka and had moved to Miyako three months earlier. On Miyako, only migrants like herself work as hostesses as the job comes with a number of benefits for them. For example, the club provides a dorm to live in, food and free drinks, a relatively high salary, and even pays for a one-way airplane ticket from the girl’s home city to Miyako. Mika had been a hostess for many years but stated that she likes the work way better on the island. In Osaka, her customers were mainly middle-aged salarymen. In contrast, on Miyako her customers are tourists and Japanese construction workers who are more or less the same age. So she gets paid to party, get drunk, and talk to people she would also be friends with outside of her job.

Club Venus and other hostess clubs in the center of Miyako
Copyright © Sarah Bijlsma 2022

The seaside is an area that is marked by the concrete of hotels and resorts. These buildings did not exist until a few years before; the year 2015 marked the beginning of a large-scale construction rush that became known as the ‘Miyako Bubble’. I have been told that the local population hardly benefits from these hotels, as they are built, managed, invested in, and used by people from Japan. Mika’s boyfriend is someone who knows Miyako’s beach areas very well. Originally from Yamanashi-ken, he worked at a real estate company in Tokyo before moving to Miyako in 2021. He started his own SUP business next to Yonaha-Maehama Beach, Miyako’s number one tourist spot. When I asked him if there are any locals who make use of his services, he said that locals do not spend time at the beach at all. For them, the ocean is something ordinary (atarimae). The only locals you see are the owners of jet ski companies, many of whom are yakuza. He does not know the exact reason for this, but since a lot of money goes is turned over in these businesses and customers pay in cash, they seem to be the perfect vehicles for laundering money.

Miyako is known by Japanese tourists for its bright blue sea
Copyright © Sarah Bijlsma 2022

While Miyako’s city center and beaches are the terrains of Japanese tourists and emigrants, the inland belongs to the local population. Miyako has no mountains and these inner landscapes are characterized by wide sugarcane fields. In a small village on the east side of the island stands the house of Hiroto and his wife. The couple, originally from Miyako, run a small restaurant while raising their eight children. When they were still a family of six, they traveled around Japan to learn about alternative ways of agriculture, architecture, and education. When they returned, they could not find a house and decided to build a hut from old cans and clay in a banana field. Their fifth child was born there. After six months, they bought an old house which they fully rebuilt. The roof was taken off to make the house twice as high. A second floor was built, accessible only by log, and it contains so many books that they call it their ‘library.’ There are no separate rooms in the house; everyone can just grab a futon and sleep wherever they want. The walls of the bathroom are made out of corals, and the toilet is largely built of glass bottles that cast a pleasant green light into the house whenever in use.  

The house of Hiroto and his wife
Copyright © Sarah Bijlsma 2022

These three examples illustrate that, far from being a homogeneous environment, the geography of Miyako is organized according to different social groups. As such, the landscape of Miyako can be ‘read’ as text [3]: Taking a close look at the island’s architectural structures provides insights into the fabric and social relationships that are being negotiated on this small piece of land.

Endnotes

[1] Gillis, John R. 2007. “Island Sojourns”. Geographical Review, Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 274-287.

[2] As of June 2022. Miyako Mainichi. 27.06.2022. Miyako keniki jinkō 35nen buri souka / 20nen kokuseichōsa sokuhō [Miyako’s population increases for the first time in 35 years / 20 year preliminary census report]. Via https://www.miyakomainichi.com/news/post-142738/ (accessed on 19.10.2022)

[3] Cosgrove, Denis. 1989. “Geography is everywhere: culture and symbolism in human landscapes.” In: Derek Gregory & Rex Walford (eds.), Horizons in Human Geography. Barnes & Noble. pp. 118–135.

by Ngo Tu Thanh (Frank Tu)

Buzen is a small coastal city located in the northeast of Fukuoka Prefecture. Despite its small size, both area-wise and population-wise (approx. 24,000 residents), Buzen City has amazed me with its efforts to promote international cooperation and multiculturalism. After fieldwork in Buzen, in this blogpost, I want to share my experiences and the reasons why officials in Buzen are working hard for the city’s internationalization. My first (online) contact in Buzen in September 2021 was with Ms Ngo Thi Nhung, a Vietnamese national working in the City Hall of Buzen, who is a member of the chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai (COKT) Program and also contributed to our blog . I was surprised that Ms Nhung was recruited to work at the city hall and being a Vietnamese national myself, I was also happy to meet a fellow “comrade”. When I connected with Ms. Nhung via Facebook I realized that she is also one of Buzen’s foreigner-friendly official Facebook page admins. Her role in promoting Buzen’s public relations really sets Buzen apart from other localities, as she connects the local government with the public. Thanks to Ms Nhung I could directly arrange appointments with local officials via Buzen’s Facebook page. Last year, I was able to secure an online meeting with both Ms. Nhung and her direct supervisor, who told me that promoting international cooperation is one of Buzen’s main regional revitalization strategies.

Months had passed since our first online interview and when I finally made it to Japan, I attended a diplomatic event between Vietnam and Japan in Fukuoka in July 2022, where chairmen of Vietnamese provinces and their counterparts from Fukuoka Prefecture and other localities in Kyushu came together to promote bilateral partnership. To my surprise, I saw the booth of Buzen City at the event and, more importantly, I also met the official whom I interviewed online. This coincidental encounter was really a joy as neither I nor the Buzen’s official expected to meet each other at an event hosted by the Consulate of Vietnam in Fukuoka. We exchanged contacts and talked briefly. He told me that Buzen is currently trying to strengthen its partnership with Taiwan and Vietnam, and the Mayor of Buzen was at that time on a business trip to Vietnam with Ms. Ngo Thi Nhung to cultivate new opportunities.

In August, I finally went to Buzen. After visiting the city hall and conducting interviews with officials, I learned that the city had just established a new division for international cooperation and multiculturalism (kokusai kyōsei suishin shitsu) with four members, including the official I met online and in Fukuoka, Ms Nhung and another COKT with an international background, who has lived in Switzerland and Taiwan for several years. This new division was established as part of the mayor’s vision to develop the city by strengthening the partnerships with Taiwan and Vietnam and supporting foreign nationals living in Buzen. For instance, Buzen is trying to invite Vietnamese universities to establish local branches in the city, where both international and local students can study. Also, Buzen is looking for business partners in Vietnam who can import Buzen’s local products. Next, in order to promote mutual understanding and support foreign residents (most of whom are Vietnamese technical interns), Buzen also organizes Vietnamese language sessions for locals, and Japanese language courses for foreign nationals. In order for me to directly experience their activities, the officials also invited me to join two events.

I joined a meeting between local officials and a Taiwanese professor who is teaching in Kitakyushu to prepare a Taiwan festival in Buzen in 2023. The event aims at promoting tourism and mutual understanding. The Taiwanese professor came to the meeting with a meticulous plan for the festival and presented his ideas for activities to be conducted at the festival. These included hosting Taiwanese cooking lessons and launching sky lanterns. He also prepared some sample Taiwanese foods for us to try. At the end of the meeting, the officials said they would continue to discuss the plan in the months to come. The officials were very open and flexible with the plan and to test new strategies and ideas. The meeting also made me aware how academics interact with bureaucrats in rural Japan.

The second event I joined was a Vietnamese cooking day organized by Buzen’s local residents and supported by the city hall’s staff. The event featured one of Buzen’s signature agricultural products: loofahs (hechima). Since loofahs are frequently used in the Vietnamese food culture, local residents wanted to learn how Vietnamese people cook it. For this reason, many Vietnamese residents in Buzen joined the event, and together we made six different loofah-based dishes. The event was also a way for local residents and Vietnamese nationals to meet and learn from each other, thereby increasing mutual understanding. After the event, the officials had organized a discussion session where participants could exchange ideas to promote multiculturalism in Buzen. Given that the majority of Vietnamese (and other international) migrants in Buzen are technical interns (ginō jisshūsei), the conversation quickly turned towards this topic. First, Japanese residents acknowledged that the Technical Intern Training program is highly problematic and, in many cases, cruel to Vietnamese participants. While the goal of the program is to provide interns with technical skills that can be transferred back to their home countries, many interns have to undertake repetitive and low-skilled jobs. Ms Nhung made a passionate speech, saying that she had heard of many cases where Japanese firms mistreated and abused Vietnamese interns, considering them only as cheap labor. She hoped the authorities would improve the program. Buzen’s local officials also shared this passion and asked for suggestions to protect and support interns in Buzen by establishing direct hotlines for interns to consult and report cases of mistreatment. That said, some Vietnamese technical interns who participated in the event said that they were personally treated decently, despite the challenging jobs that they were undertaking. During the discussion session, both local residents and officials of Buzen seemed very sympathetic, polite, and willing to take immediate actions.

In summary, Buzen, although a small city, offers great potential for regional revitalization with its efforts in international cooperation and multiculturalism. I personally had a wonderful time in Buzen and very much look forward to visiting the city again. 

Phd research with a kid — part 2

by Cecilia Luzi

It’s been a year since I returned from maternity leave last September. When I wrote the first post for this blog about my experience of raising a child as a PhD student, I talked mostly about what it felt like to return to work after giving birth. I remember being very confused at the time: I didn’t know exactly what to expect or how to approach the various stages of the PhD process with a young child. What worried me the most was the fact that I had to leave Europe to start fieldwork in Japan. Now, I am about to leave for Japan and feel that I am learning to be an anthropologist and a mother at the same time, with all the enthusiasm and anxiety that accompany any new beginning. Although I know that having my son and partner in the field with me is a wonderful opportunity for the mother and anthropologist I want to become, the newness of it all scares me a little.

Over the past year, I have been juggling the uncertainty and insecurity left by the Covid 19 pandemic and the need for constant care and attention that a child in the first year of life requires. My partner and I began preparing all the necessary documents in November 2021, hoping to leave for Japan by the end of the year. For this reason, we decided not to start looking for a kindergarten for our son right away. He was about six months old at the time, and we didn’t want to take him somewhere, let him settle in, and then take him out two months later at that age. However, when the Omicron variant showed up at the end of November and the Japanese government closed the borders again, it became increasingly clear to us that we could not leave so soon. Moreover, we had no idea when and if at all fieldwork in Japan would be possible. After a year of my doctoral work, I was tired of going through the cumbersome bureaucratic procedures to apply for a visa, so in March 2022, we decided to postpone our departure until the fall and I began to collect data with online interviews. At that time, we started looking for a kindergarten for our one-year-old son and only started the Certificate of Eligibility (CoE) application process again in summer. We had to go through the entire process from scratch because our host institutions in Japan had changed. Now the last documents are on their way and soon we will go to the embassy to get the visas in our passports.

For me, organizing a long fieldwork in Japan without knowing the exact start date for months meant learning how to manage an upcoming move by making sure to respect the schedule and necessities of the rigid routine of a child’s first year of life. Specifically, CoE applications alternated with urgent emails to kindergartens in Berlin and pediatrician appointments for mandatory immunizations had to be juggled with Zoom meetings with our host universities in Japan. Today I know that what was for us a long time of postponements and cancellations, fatigue and frustration, was for my son the year of his life, when he ate spaghetti with tomato sauce for the first time, learned to walk around the living room singing songs and making dog noises when he met one on the street. It was a very emotional moment to see him go to to kindergarten for the first time and gradually become independent from me.

Lately I have been thinking about what fieldwork and motherhood might have in common, and this has helped me to see my fears from a different perspective. I am learning to reflect and be aware of my own position, to consider my role and how I perceive myself in contact with others, and I believe this is part of both ethnography and motherhood. Although I realize that the two can be very similar, it scares me that I will have to learn to work in the field and take care of my child at the same time. Will I be good enough to do this for him and for my research? How can I find the time to write notes every night, pay attention to his needs, keep track of what is happening around me, and respond to my growing child’s explosive curiosity? I feel like I’m taking a leap into the void, but perhaps this fear of the unknown is ultimately exactly the feeling one should have when embarking on the field during one’s PhD or becoming a first-time mother.

by Cornelia Reiher

This blog contains several posts about and by members of chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai (COKT).  Launched in 2009 by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Sōmushō), COKT provides funding to communities in rural Japan to hire people who move into their communities and promote revitalization activities for three years (Reiher 2020). However, when editing recent blogposts and scrolling through numerous Instagram profiles of urban-rural migrants and local and central government websites, I was struck by the wide variety of English translations for the program. Some examples include “rural revitalization corps,” “local vitalization cooperator,” “local revitalization squadron” and “community building support staff.” Since COKT is one of the central government’s programs aimed at both rural revitalization and urban-rural migration, I think it is important to reflect on the various translations and interpretations of the program’s name itself.

In this post, I focus primarily on the meaning of the term kyōryoku, which means cooperation or “to work together to do things”. But the way how people work together can differ as I realized when I listened to my research participants who are or were members of COKT. Many reflected on their roles as employees of their respective communities and some saw their role rather as supporting revitalization activities while others described their work more as a cooperation between equal partners. Thus, I believe, thinking about “kyōryoku” can help to better understand the relationships between COKT program participants and their host communities.

Certainly, there are many other problems when translating chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai into English (or German). The problem starts with the term chiiki. It is primarily a geographical and sociological term that can be translated as region or regional, but can also mean a relatively small space such as the immediate neighborhood or an inner-city area or all communities outside of urban centers (Morioka 2008). Chiiki okoshi is a concept with its own history. Since the 1970s, attempts to establish new industries in rural regions and greater autonomy for local authorities have been discussed under the term village renewal (mura okoshi) or regional renewal (chiiki okoshi). The mura okoshi movement was strongly inspired by the ideas of localism (chiiki shugi) (Kitano 2009: 22, 23). It is also debated whether the term ‘revitalization’ or ‘vitalization’ should be used as revitalization implies a rather conservative approach of nostalgic longing for a better past (Klien 2009: 221).

Although at first glance it may seem the least problematic term in the program’s name, kyōryoku can have different meanings when COKT members and municipalities work together. COKT participants’ jobs and the way they are treated by the local government that employs them can differ greatly within and between municipalities. While some COKT members are artists and enjoy the freedom to work in their studios all day, others are required to show up for work in the town hall at 8:30 am and to regularly report to their superiors. Some have clearly defined tasks, such as working at the support desk for incoming migrants, creating and updating municipalities’ social media accounts or working in local cultural facilities. Those who report more positive experiences in the COKT often describe their work experience in terms of cooperation. Some told me that they did not plan to join COKT, but when they called the municipal government of the town they wanted to relocate to or visited the place they were offered a position in the program. In some cases, municipal governments look for people who bring new ideas and initiate projects and are happy to support them. In order to find the best people for the job, they go through a careful selection process. Municipalities who select COKT members based on their ideas for the revitalization of their town are more likely to give them a free hand with their projects. With the goal of settling down, some COKT members already establish companies or careers for the time after their three-year contract ends.

Other (and sometimes the same) municipalities provide COKT members with only little agency to realize their own projects. They are expected them to support local activities instead of cooperating on an equal footing. COKT members who are older and have already had careers in other professions find this particularly obstructive. They have their own ideas about revitalization, but not all of these ideas can be realized. Some of my interviewees, however, don’t want to implement their own ideas and are happy to simply support existing projects.

Sometimes COKT members are hired as substitute for municipal staff due to tight municipal budgets. Some municipalities have found very creative solutions to deal with the lack of staff, for example, topping up the working hours of COKT members (they only work 15 days a month) with an additional salary. So, a large part of the personnel costs is financed by the central government through the COKT program. This is the only way cultural institutions can operate in some communities and further increases the dependency between municipalities and the central government.

In summary, the meaning of kyōryoku in chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai varies from municipality to municipality and within municipalities. However, COKT members who experience kyōryoku as cooperation rather than as support report more positive experiences with the program. Municipalities have different reasons for employing individuals via the COKT program; lacking resources is one of many. Future research examining COKT’s contribution to rural revitalization should pay attention to how municipalities actually work with COKT participants.

References

Reiher, Cornelia (2020), “Embracing the periphery: Urbanites’ motivations to relocate to rural Japan”, in Manzenreiter, Wolfram, Lützeler, Ralph and Polak-Rottmann, Sebastian (Eds.), Japan’s new ruralities: Coping with decline in the periphery, London: Routledge, pp. 230–244.

Kitano, Shu (2009), Space, Planning and Rurality. Uneven Rural Development in Japan, Victoria, BC: Trafford.

Morioka, Kiyoshi (2008) „‚Chiʼiki‘ e no apurōchi“ [Approaches to chiʼiki], in: ders. (ed.), Chiʼiki no shakaigaku [Regional Sociology], Tōkyō: Yūhikaku, S.3-20.

Klien, Susanne (2009), „Ländliche Regionen und Tourismusvermarktung zwischen Revitalisierung oder Exotisierung: Das Beispiel Echigo-Tsumari“, in: Wieczorek, Iris und David Chiavacci (Hg.), Japan 2009. Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Berlin: VSJF, S. 217-242.

by Sarah Bijlsma

On a Monday afternoon, I enter the door of a small esoteric shop on Miyakojima that is hidden behind a bush of shell ginger (getto). I came here together with Kenji, a 40-year-old man originally from Osaka who, until recently, worked as a member of the Community Building Support Staff (chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai). I had been curious about the shop as it describes itself as a space where human vibrations align with the power of nature. The owner, a charismatic man who I estimate to be about 40 years old, tells us that the lapis lazuli, amber, and amethyst jewelry that he sells is inspired by Miyako’s natural world. Stones that have different shades of blue remind him of the ocean, while the darker ones represent the starry sky at night. According to the shop owner, customers often feel a strong connection with one particular stone; it is as if the jewelry picks the buyer instead of the other way around.

Behind the counter, there is a photograph of the owner and receptionist together with the late former PM Shinzo Abe. “He was a very spiritual person,” the receptionist notes. “And he and his wife grew their own vegetables. I don’t know anything about politics, but from a human perspective I had the feeling he was a very good man.” The receptionist, who introduces herself as Emiko, explains that Abe and his wife enjoyed the island because of the high number of negative ions that make Miyako into one large power spot. Negative ions are said to be molecules or atoms that are electrically charged with negative energy and are considered to have a positive effect on the physical and mental well-being of living beings [1].  Furthermore, the strong energy of Miyako can be related to the many dragon deities (ryūjin-sama) that live here. The world that cannot be seen (me ni mienai sekai) is very present, she explains. In that world, every living being is one and the same, that is why we need to share our knowledge and happiness with each other also in this world.

I ask Emiko whether the healing energy of the island remains as powerful as before amidst Miyako’s recent building rush.  She says that if development happens in the right way, energy can certainly be preserved. It is important, for example, that the sky of Miyako is not blocked, so winds and the dragons can freely move around. While she acknowledges that construction work goes hand in hand with environmental issues on Miyako, she stresses she is not against development in general. For example, until a few years ago, local children had only the option to go into sugarcane farming when growing up. Due to this lack of opportunities, most of them left and found jobs in other areas of Japan. Now some of them stay to work in the tourist industry or return to Miyako after a couple of years. Moreover, before 2015, the beaches were full of washed-up plastic and garbage that people had left behind. Much of this has been removed. So, development does not only destroy the environment, but it also creates opportunities for improvement. As we say goodbye, Emiko gives me a firm hug and says I can come back whenever I want to know more. Back in the car, Kenji mentions that judging on the atmosphere around her, he thinks she might be a local shaman (yuta) who mediates between the gods and the contemporary world.

We drive to the ICT center to attend a public talk on recycling. It is organized by Miyako’s Eco Island department that is responsible for environmental policies and PR activities. During the hour and a half presentation, we learn how garbage can be transformed into a valuable resource. Rubber ties can be turned into an energy source used for streetlights and greenhouses in the winter. Also, plastic can be recycled into fashionable drinking cups, of which we all get one after the presentation is done. At the end of the evening, I ask Kenji if he has gained some new insights during the talk. He tells me that he started to think fundamentally differently about Miyako’s development through today’s events. He knows that the community of Japanese migrants on Miyakojima is taking a strong stance against recent changes. But by listening to Emiko and the recycling specialist, he came to understand that development is actually not something that should be avoided at any cost. When you find the right balance, it can become a positive thing for both people and the environment.

When I left my house that day to learn more about Miyako’s environmental changes through the lenses of spirituality and local policies, I did not expect that in both cases economic development would be advocated to me. It made me realize that local residents think about nature in different terms than Japanese migrants from urban areas. This indicates that environmental issues are not so easily captured in terms of objective truth. Even on an island as small as Miyako, the question of what “nature” is and how it should be protected has different answers depending on who you ask.

References

[1] Jiang, S. Y., Ma, A., & Ramachandran, S. (2018). Negative Air Ions and Their Effects on Human Health and Air Quality Improvement. International journal of molecular sciences, 19(10), 2966. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19102966

by Kiyomi Misaki

Last November, I started to work for a local tourism association in Niseko in northern Japan as a local revitalization cooperator in the chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai program initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to encourage people from cities to move to and settle in rural areas and to engage in community activities. It is a countermeasure against the overconcentration of the population in Tokyo and the outflow of the rural population. I am doing fieldwork while working for Kutchan Tourism Association (KTA). Through my fieldwork and working for KTA, I am currently thinking that an economy-oriented climate may undermine the local community and local culture.

It may be confusing that Niseko does not technically have the definition of a region, and people first come to mind is a mountain area in Kutchan town when they hear the name Niseko. For that reason, Niseko in this article means Kutchan town. Niseko, with a population of 15,000 people, is a tourist destination known for powder snow in winter, attracting skiers and snowboarders from all over the world. The mountain area in Niseko has been redeveloped since the late 1990s by Australian entrepreneurs. Since the season in Australia and Japan is opposite, some Australians enjoy skiing and snowboarding throughout the year, going back and forth between Niseko and Australia each winter. Since 2014, the proportion of Australians, which accounted for half of all visitors, has gradually decreased and visitors from Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore and China have increased instead.

With so many foreign tourists, Niseko is a very international place. English becomes the common language in its ski resort during the winter. Long queues at ski lifts and lodges packed with international tourists are a familiar sight during peak season. Land prices going up due to foreign investments and expelling small local businesses from the community. Niseko is now regarded as a successful example of rural revitalization and internationalization through tourism and a front runner of challenges such as overtourism and gentrification at the same time. As a result, media attention and the image of Niseko that people envisage focus on tourism development and internationalization led by tourism. Niseko also uses the international image to attract more tourists and immigrants.

While tourism development significantly impacts the community in Niseko, the community is not only about tourism. People engaging in agriculture have a different lifestyle from those working in the tourism sector. Business owners in the city center (20 minutes’ drive from the mountain area) have different perspectives from those located in the mountain area (ski resorts) regarding community development. They complain about what KTA is doing because they think tourism only contributes to the mountain area and leaves people in the city center behind. I joined a French conversation club in the city center to meet new people. Eventually, I met people with diverse backgrounds, such as an illustrator moving from west Japan to seek powder snow, a housewife coming to Niseko due to her husband’s transfer and a woman who has been running an inn for over 20 years. I am a researcher at a university in Australia/ a chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai member/ born and growing up in Hokkaido. We have different motivations for coming here and diverse perspectives. We all create current Niseko, meaning that local culture is an accumulation of interactions between such people living in the place and nature.

Therefore, culture should be recognized as grassroot politics, practices of people with various values, contradictions, conflict and cooperation emerging from diverse social relationships. However, culture can easily be transformed into a source of profits. Amidst globalized urban lifestyles, rare and unique practices are commodified for tourism in information capitalism [1]. Tourism seemingly brought economic prosperity and diversity to Niseko, but it seems to undermine cultural prosperity and diversity. Cultural prosperity is not promoting the culture as a commodity but creating a climate where people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives can discuss matters of the community.

What is happening in the local community is closely linked with the national policy for regional revitalization. In the shrinking domestic economy, the Japanese government encourages communities to create a unique culture that attracts people to come and immigrate to the area to survive from decline. Many members of the chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai make efforts to find local characteristics for branding and the promotion of tourism to distinguish communities from each other. In this context, communities must become a “kasegu” (making money) community. Many rely on competitive public subsidies to become part of the Kasegu community. Although powder snow and an international image have become an attraction for tourists and immigrants in Niseko, cultural diversity seems missing. Some residents feel that diverse backgrounds and perspectives other than tourism are often neglected in local politics.

The same is true for the decision-making process. Our association is a good example. KTA, does not only depend on subsidies from the town, but is also a hierarchical and patriarchal organization. The top-down process is effective for implementing projects because projects financed through subsidies need to show short-term outcomes. Deliberation is omitted to achieve results in a short time. A short-sighted plan precludes a time-consuming process with many stakeholders. Moreover, middle-aged men are still at the center of the local economy and are responsible for money-making activities. Who is excluded from the decision-making? Should the local culture, understood as all the people and nature creating the community be considered more and how so? In my PhD project, I am trying to explore possible answers to these questions.

References

[1] Yoshimi, S., & Morris-Suzuki, T. (2004). Gurōbarizēshon no Bunka Seiji (The cultural politics of globalisation). Heibonsha.

Kiyomi Misaki is a PhD candidate at Asia Institute, the University of Melbourne, and a researcher at Center for Advanced Tourism Studies, Hokkaido University. She currently works as a member of chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai (translated as local revitalization cooperator) as part of her fieldwork in Niseko, Hokkaido.

Part 2: (Im)Mobilities and economic risks

by Johannes Wilhelm

In rural Aso, the pandemic was initially perceived as a problem of urban areas, but the then unknown disease frightened many. The initial impact in Kumamoto was most noticeable in schools, where graduation ceremonies and new enrollments for the new school year around March/April 2020 were cancelled. Events around the cherry blossom season – such as the beautiful village festival in the 9th district of Kugino – did not take place in most cases. One exception was the hifuri no shinji at Aso Shrine on March 18, 2020, a festival in which hay bundles are tied to a rope and twirled around the shrine’s entrance area. In a sense, the festival marks the beginning of the agricultural year, which is symbolized by a cultic marriage of two deities. Interestingly, the festival almost always coincides with the beginning of the cherry blossom season, an old woman told me. The sandō path to the shrine was lined with numerous people following the festival after dusk, since it is one of the most important holiday ceremonies at the sacred site.

The steadily growing number of so-called inbound tourists from abroad until the turn of the year 2019/2020 – in Kyūshū’s case mainly from China and Korea due to the relatively short distance –came to an abrupt stop with the country’s closure to foreigners. Japan’s entry restrictions had a huge impact on the tourism sector. Aso was no exception. As a resident, this had some advantages such as fewer cars, for example. Before the pandemic, tourists suddenly stopped and parked their car somewhere along a serpentine and even wandered around at times to take photos with their cell phones for social media. One day in May 2020, I had an interesting encounter in Uchinomaki. I was invited by a local group as a guest to stay overnight at the beautiful Sozankyō guesthouse. Throughout its history, the old guesthouse has accommodated famous people like the well-known poets Yosano Tekkan and Akiko. On the way back from breakfast, I unexpectedly met a middle-aged German who had made his way to Japan after an odyssey from Polynesia, where he wanted to wander around as a tourist for as long as possible. Well, each to his own, I thought .

Less tourism also has its advantages, but for those in Aso whose jobs depend on tourism, the pandemic has been a disaster with an unclear end. Y., an employee at the so-called Shokuan (Shokugyō antei-sho, commonly known as “Hellowork”) told us that the number of job seekers was skyrocketing. Since she was also responsible for non-Japanese clients at the “employment office,” she was also able to tell me more about the many foreign helpers, especially in the agricultural sector (Nōgyō jisshūsei, i.e. officially “agricultural interns”). Many among the latter found themselves in an absurd situation, a pandemic limbo, because on the one hand it was not possible for them to leave Japan or enter their home countries. Meanwhile, they ran the risk of overstaying their residence permits and thus slipping into visa crime. By the time the relevant authorities were able to offer a solution to this very problem, the immigration authorities were completely overrun. I experienced this firsthand, when I had to extend my visa in March 2020.

The case of four siblings from the Philippines shows how migrants were affected by this situation. They originally came to Japan as interns and were later hired as helpers by the landlord of my regular pub, where small jazz sessions were held. But the pub had to be constantly closed for a certain period of time and the landlord finally had to file for bankruptcy in April 2021, leaving the siblings more or less out in the cold. The employment office worker told me about nursing schools that were suddenly overrun with women from the Philippines seeking to retrain in nursing despite their lack of Japanese language skills. These schools, in turn, urgently needed support staff and funding to teach basic language skills in the nursing sector.

In contrast to urban areas, the risks of infection in rural Aso were initially manageable. As a result, young urban families and freelancers (e.g., in the digital sector with no local ties) began to move to the countryside. This was actually quite similar to what had happened after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The new concept of working holiday was gratefully received and also propagated by numerous media-savvy academics and government agencies (abbreviated as wā-hori it should not be confused with the same abbreviation for workaholic), which in turn led to subsidy programs for office conversions for numerous hostels. Let’s see how long this trend lasts, I thought. At the same time, these new migrants seemed somewhat selfish to me, especially since – in most cases – they ignored the local residents and local conditions to some degree. They did not want to give up their urban lifestyles and do ‘their thing’. Such an attitude, together with a lack of integration efforts by the local authorities tied to Corona measures, was doomed to fail. That locals were hardly willing to make their partly empty properties available was may be a sign of resistance. In the spring of 2020, the waiting list counted more than 200 households who wanted to move in from urban areas to Minamiaso-mura.

Soon, however, the pandemic will also reach rural areas as we have learned from the so-called ‘Spanish flu’. More on this in the following parts of the report.

[… to be continued …]

Johannes Wilhelm is an independent researcher and is affiliated with Vienna University. His main studies focus on the relationship between nature and society. His interests include fisheries, pastures in mountainous regions, and rural areas as much as general phenomena in society such as radicalism, migration and social vulnerability.

by Ngo Tu Thanh (Frank Tu)

In July 2022, I finally made it to Fukuoka after 9 years! This is my first visit to Kyūshū since my time as a high school senior in Yame-shi – a small rural city in Fukuoka Prefecture. Needless to say, I was overjoyed to be back or as they say in Japanese: “dokidoki-kan, wakuwaku-kan hanpanai”. The excitement does not only come from the fact that I can reunite with my host family, high school friends and teachers after such a long time. But it also stems from the main reason why I am here: to research Fukuoka’s regional revitalization policies. During my two-month stay here, I will be mainly based in Fukuoka City to interview officials at the Fukuoka prefectural government, as well as in Buzen City to meet municipal officials. 

“Humidity”, “beachy”, “hospitality”, “energy”, “positivity”, “touristy”, and “gastronomy” are the words I would use to describe my stay in Fukuoka so far. Facing the sea on three sides, Fukuoka Prefecture is home to many beautiful beaches, many of which are accessible by public transport. In the summer, Fukuoka is humid and hot, similar to most other parts of Japan. However, the salty sea breezes here gives a very different feeling from other cities such as Tokyo. Fukuoka’s beaches are also hotspots for small businesses such as bars, restaurants, diving, surfing and swimming courses. Personally, I often went swimming in Momochi beach (Fukuoka City) after work and “contributed to Fukuoka’s economy” by getting a fresh cocktail. Yet, I kept wondering why the beach never gets overly crowded. In response to this question, the owner of the flat I am currently staying at told me that Fukuoka’s beaches used to attract many tourists from Korea, Taiwan and some Southeast Asian countries. However, Covid-19 has put a stop to tourism from outside of Japan and hence the number of visitors declined. But right now, thanks to the summer vacation period and the Obon festival (July – August), domestic travelers can still be seen everywhere. 

In addition to beaches, Fukuoka Prefecture also offers a wide range of tourist attractions. For instance, Dazaifu Tenmangu (Dazaifu City) is a well-known shrine dedicated to the God of Education. Japanese students usually visit the shrine before exams for good fortune. Personally, I also went to Dazaifu Tenmangu in 2013 before my university entrance exam, and visited it again this time around in hope of a successful PhD graduation.

Another example is the Hakata Gion Yamakasa Festival (Fukuoka City), which is held every year during the first half of July. This festival returned for the first time since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. The festival was a multi-day race between groups of men who had to run a five-kilometer course while carrying a one-ton festival float (kakiyama). Despite the extreme heat and humidity in July, visitors to the festival could feel the energy and vitality emanating from the participants. The festival did really revitalize the city!

Furthermore, Fukuoka is highly famous within Japan for its various delicacies, such as Hakata ramen, chanpon, and especially seafood. Also, visiting a street food stall (yatai) is often introduced as one of Fukuoka’s must-do activities, even by locals. Gastronomy is one of the main attractions for many tourists in Fukuoka.

As described so far, Fukuoka Prefecture seems to have a lot of potential for tourism, and that is exactly what many of its municipalities are striving for. During my stay here, I had the opportunity to speak with a former Cabinet Office official who now works at Fukuoka City Hall. The official informed me that many places in Fukuoka Prefecture do not have large rivers necessary for factories, and therefore many communities call themselves “service towns” and focus on tourism. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has made the strategy of focusing on the service sector very risky. Therefore, it is important for municipalities in Fukuoka to diversify their strategies for regional development.

New rural lifestyles in Japan (part 2)

by Cecilia Luzi

I am about to leave for fieldwork in Japan and I am looking forward to visiting my two field sites, Hasami-chō in Nagasaki-ken and Buzen-shi in Fukuoka-ken. Today I will introduce images and online representations of Hasami. I have never been to Hasami. I never visited the ceramic park nor did I enjoy a freshly brewed ice-coffee in one of the cafés in town. My image of Hasami however is that of a trendy village and it is based on hours spent following Instagram accounts, watching YouTube travel videos in my office in Berlin and a few online interviews with locals. Hasami-chō is a small village of around 15.000 inhabitants surrounded by mountains. Along with many pottery studios and workshops selling handmade porcelain to suit every pocket, Hasami is full of small, cozy cafés with delicious handmade food and welcoming owners. Hasami is the only municipality in Nagasaki prefecture with no direct access to the sea. There is no train station either, but Hasami is only a two-hour drive away from Fukuoka, so tourists visit its historical kilns and the ceramic park often by car. Usually, visitors come for a one-day trip, though a few stay overnight.

 According to the online videos, after a quick stop at the first ramen-shop on the road many visit  Hiroppa a famous ceramic themed park designed by a Tōkyō-based architecture studio. Hiroppa holds a shop selling ceramics from different kilns, other small boutiques, cafés and a wide garden. It perfectly fits the contemporary aesthetic standards of the most stylish and “Instagrammable” places in Tōkyō: a mix of industrial design, minimalist decor and photograph-worthy details. The tour of Hasami then continues with a visit to old porcelain manufactures and more recent workshops, where traditional styles and techniques of local potters stand next to the original works of younger craftsmen and craftswomen.

In Hasami, small cafés have spread over the past decade, and visitors can take a rest to sip fresh brewed coffee and taste eye-catching dishes while enjoying the atmosphere of an old Japanese house or renovated ceramic workshop. They can choose to have customized crêpes (Morinaga special crepe), artisanal ice creams (Kometama) or French-style cuisine (Yōshokuya Forest). Some of these places are affiliated with a porcelain studio (as at Zoe l’Atelier de poterie), while others are located in what was once an old ceramic manufacturing complex (e.g. Nishinohara, where migrants who arrived around 15 years ago also built an indoor climbing wall!). Each of these businesses is unique and they all share a cosmopolitan and sophisticated atmosphere.

A couple of my research participants explained to me how Hasami’s townscape has changed in only one decade. When some of the migrants I interviewed arrived between 2007 and 2010, the town was not particularly attractive for young urbanites. However, favorable economic conditions and political choices for rural repopulation created the right mix of incentives for many new small personal businesses including cafés and crafts shops. Young artists and ceramic artisans also started to settle down. As a result, tourists and one-day visitors increased. This Hasami-būmu, as one of my informants called it, has been transforming the town from a place where “nothing was there” (nanimo nakatta) to a cool, stylish and trendy location (osharena tokoro). Yet, the case of Hasami is not unique but rather reflects what happens in many small municipalities in rural Japan that are undergoing some degree of transformation under the influence of urban-rural migration and domestic tourism.

The online images of Hasami I have introduced above, show that the digital transformation of daily life is impacting the way rural Japan is experienced by residents and perceived by outsiders. In this context, online space plays an important role as a platform for both the production and consumption of a new image of rural Japan. Understanding the importance of the online dimension for the dissemination of these representations is essential, especially since a large proportion of them are created by urban-rural migrants who target other urbanites. To attract this specific type of audience, rural Japan is portrayed as stylish, traditional and innovative and as a vibrant place with interesting activities and people living close to nature. Rural areas are depicted as beautiful landscapes with terraced rice paddies, small villages and lush mountains.

The changes of images and perceptions of rural areas taking place in the digital space are visible through social media like Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook. But this transformation in the production and consumption of rural Japan impacts the physical space and daily lives of rural dwellers as well. Not only does the landscape change, but businesses and new activities also open up new opportunities for long-term residents. One of my research participants, who runs a café that was among the first businesses that kicked off Hasami’s transformation, told me that after an initial period of skepticism, Hasami’s elderly residents slowly began to frequent her establishment and eventually became regular customers. They now sit in the café alongside travel bloggers from Fukuoka and recent immigrants from Tōkyō, providing the place with the touch of authenticity many (former) urbanites are looking for.

Yet from my desk in Berlin many questions remain. These include for example: How are things really changing? How is the digital representation of rural Japan mirroring real life experiences of both locals, newcomers and settled migrants?  I plan to leave for fieldwork by mid-October. I’m looking forward to being in Hasami and to meeting and talking to its residents about all these transformations in person.