Today, railway tourism is highly popular in Japan. Tourist trains сan be created on the basis of trains that are no longer in use, or they can be specially designed for a specific project. One of these trains is the luxury cruise train “Seven Stars in Kyushu”. It was launched by JR Kyūshū on 15 October 2013. In a few days, the train crosses Kyūshū’s prefectures. During this journey, passengers can visit local sights, try local cuisine and participate in workshops. In 2014, “Seven Stars in Kyushu” was chosen as an example of a revitalization project in the MLIT White Paper [1]. The designer of “Seven Stars” Mitooka Eiji collaborated with Japanese artists from Kyūshū. For example, artists from Ōkawa, Fukuoka Prefecture, decorated the interior of the train with the Japanese art of woodworking (kumiko). Another example of cooperation is the porcelain used on board of the train. It is made by potters from Arita, Saga Prefecture [2].
This is a promotion video for the Seven Stars in Kyushu on the occasion of it’s 7th birthday
ACHTUNG: Daten nach YouTube werden erst beim Abspielen des Videos übertragen.
In my bachelor thesis, I studied the impact of „Seven Stars” on the revitalization of Kyūshū’s rural areas. To answer this question, I conducted a qualitative content analysis of articles that appeared about “Seven Stars” in the Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper. I analyzed articles that came out in the time interval from the launch of the train to the beginning of the pandemic. The research has shown a generally positive effect from an economic point of view. The demand for the train is many times greater than the number of available seats. The train is highly popular and attracts wealthy tourists to the region. Since the train passengers mostly live outside Kyūshū, it can be stated that they bring financial resources to the region. In addition, the articles highlighted the growing interest in Kyūshū as a destination. “Seven Stars” attracts people interested in rail transport. The articles mention the growing popularity of the tourist trains that already existed in Kyūshū, especially those whose route intersects with the luxury train. In addition, the popularity of “Seven Stars” has led to the introduction of new touristic trains, which have a similar effect. The analysis of the articles also revealed an increase in sales of local products associated with “Seven Stars“. People want to buy items like those used on the train and try the same meal as the passengers. The increase in sales of local goods also has a positive impact on the economy.
Trains hold a special place in Japan and come in many variations
Furthermore, there is some evidence of the positive impact of the train on society. Articles repeatedly mentioned that for locals the arrival of the train becomes an event. They cheerfully welcome the train and thus show their hospitality. This initiative of the locals is also encouraged by JR Kyushu. It is important to note that the articles also showed an increase in the motivation of local farmers. Thus, the train also has a positive impact on the local people on a social level. Although the train changes its route regularly and therefore cannot serve as a stable revitalization factor for a particular location, it still has a positive effect on the island in general. To summarize, my bachelor’s research showed that, according to the news coverage in the Yomiuri Shinbun, the introduction of the „Seven Stars in Kyushu” project had an overall positive effect on the economic and social levels.
Even small local trains can be a special attraction
[1] MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) (2014), Kokudo kōtsū shiro [White Paper of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism], https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/001113556.pdf (Accessed on 25 October 2021).
[2] Cruise Train „Seven Stars in Kyushu” (2021), „The train” https://www.cruisetrain-sevenstars.jp/english/train/ (Accessed on 25 October 2021).
Galina Khoikhina is a student in Freie Universität Berlin’s Japanese Studies master‘s program. She has written her bachelor‘s thesis about tourism in rural Japan.
Talking to Mr. Ryochu, headpriest of Sanbutsu-ji Copyright Josko Kozic 2021
During my research on rural Shugendō, a Japanese religion focusing on asceticism and mountain worship, I regularly come across temples contributing to their local communities in different ways. This is not a new phenomenon, however, it might be an increasingly important factor, due to several demographic changes which also affect the sphere of religious life. It so happens that Japan currently does not only face a decline in the birthrate or rural outmigration, it also faces a decline of temple successors (kōkeishamondai).
At Manidera temple in Tottori for instance, I got to know the successor priest, who himself is an I-turner and moved to the area from Tokyo only a few years ago. He became a monk at the age of 40, which seems relatively late for dedicating oneself to a temple for the rest of one’s life. It shows how much rural temples rely on successors from far away. At Sanbutsu-ji, a more famous temple in the region located on Mt Mitoku, an I-turner from England is working as a guide, bringing international tourists to the site. He offers one-day ascetic workshops (shugyō taiken) that include hiking to sacred sites, sometimes called “power spots” or meditating under waterfalls (takigyō). Sanbutsu-ji recently updated its website and Instagram page to attract more national and international visitors, also hoping of promote the temple’s registration as a world heritage site. Both power spots as well as waterfall meditations seem to be part of a mainstream interest in sacralized, “Japanese” nature. Forest bathing is also part of this trend. For temples located in areas with forests and waterfalls, including such workshops or “experiences” in tourist campaigns is an important way to contribute to the attractiveness of their local communities.
The ‘Taki-gyo’ waterfall training near Aoya-cho, Tottori and a power spot it Tottori’s mountainous area Copyright Josko Kozic 2021
In the past, most temple economies relied heavily on their parishioners (danka). This is also true for temples in charge of practitioners of Shugendō. Originally, they maintained cofraternities of lay practitioners and parishioners (kō) from whom they received financial donations and other goods. Recently however, both the danka as well as the kō experience rigorous decline. It so happens that during festivities and rituals performed by Shugendō groups, almost no kō associations are left to host the practitioners. Nowadays, members of the Community Building Support Staff (chiiki okoshi kyōryoku-tai) occasionally take over this task.
Local ritual at Aoya town Copyright Josko Kozic 2021
Another temple I built a connection with is located in the mountains near the small town of Aoya. Apparently, the priest in charge was asked to become a monk by a family member before he entered monkhood. As he mentioned during one of our conversations, there would have been no other person to take over the temple otherwise. He now runs his own YouTube and Twitter account, sharing impressions of his everyday country life and his thoughts on worldly matters. Last month, he kindly invited me to join for a waterfall-meditation. His wife is originally from Saitama prefecture and is a self-employed manga artist. She moved to Tottori as an I-turner after publishing her first manga, ‘Yamabushi Girl‘. In an interview, she told me about pros and cons of living in the rural area, emphasizing though that she is happy with her choice after all.
I always feel grateful being able to get in touch with locals, priests and practitioners who live at the outskirts of Japan. Currently, I am residing in the Tamba region of Hyōgo prefecture where I am conducting further research on this topic.
Josko Kozic (MA) moved to Japan five years ago after graduating in Japanese & Southeast Asian Studies at Goethe University in his hometown Frankfurt. He currently resides in Yokohama while working on his PhD thesis about contemporary Shugendo (a Japanese religious tradition). He is affiliated with the faculty of Religious studies at Heidelberg University.
The first time I arrived in the Wakayama prefecture countryside was in 2016, on a cloudy August afternoon, and the heat and humidity at the beginning of the typhoon season were at their peak. I was welcomed by the cheerful Yukari-san, who came to pick me up at the train station with her white, compact pick-up truck –
an ever-present element in Japan’s countryside. I spent one month as a WWOOFer (see Maritchu Durand’s post) working with her and her husband Āyan-san on their small farm in the southern part of Wakayama prefecture. We became good friends and eventually kept in touch even after my departure. When I moved to Tokyo with a scholarship in 2018, I took the opportunity to visit them whenever possible, especially, to spend time with one of their daughters, who became a very close friend. We shared space, time, long chats, food, drinks and music. We helped each other a lot and I began to understand her fascinating way of living in the countryside.
Kai is a young woman and a single mother of two daughters. She used to live in Kōbe. When she decided to start a family, she moved back to the place where she grew up. Today, she rents a small field overlooking the ocean, where she grows sweet potatoes. She uses them to make sweets, tarts, and bagels that she sells at the local grocery stores or at occasional outdoor markets. In November 2018, we would wake up at 6 a.m. Kai prepared breakfast while I dressed her older daughter Konoha and dropped her off at the nursery school. I then joined Kai on the field to help her dig up sweet potatoes. When I came back in July 2019, Utaha was born, and we were working around the house to make space for a winter vegetable garden. Kai would put Uta-chan to sleep on a futon inside and leave the shōji all opened to let the summer breeze pass through the house.
While living with Kai, I learned that children are a central part of the life of urban-rural migrants in Wakayama prefecture. They play hide-and-seek barefoot on rice paddies during the harvesting season in September, sink their hands deep into the bean paste when making miso for hinamatsuri in March and run around the house while adults are eating and drinking during long winter nights. Families may have different shapes and compositions, but children are always around. One of the reasons why these people decided to move and resettle in a remote rural area was precisely because they wanted to start a family and raise their children in a better environment. Fresh air, healthy food, wide space to run and play outside is what made the countryside appealing, while the distance from nuclear power plants more specifically explains why they chose this specific area. Escaping from the city means to provide their children with what they believe is a more sustainable and happier future.
As Cornelia Reiher wrote in her last post, local authorities are mostly driven by demographic reasons: they want to attract migrants with young children in order to fight the population decline of rural areas. However, beautiful landscapes and delicious food are not enough for young families and life is not always idyllic for in-migrants with children. Families dwell in old houses far from each other and spend much time isolated; one parent often has multiple and/or seasonal jobs in order to make ends meet, often leaving the other at home with the children. Yet the strong sense of community counterbalances this precarity. Despite the distance, people tend to be supportive of each other: they provide comfort and care when one is ill and recurrently take care of each other’s children.
Earlier this year, Kai finally realized her dream to open a cafe where she can cook and sell her own products. She received a lot of help from the community to renovate the old, abandoned grocery shop where she now works and lives with a friend. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, I was planning to stay some months in Japan to help her out with the construction works and the opening. Unfortunately, I could only follow the developments through Facebook and Instagram. I know it has been hard for her, and the economic environment in which she works and lives today is still precarious. Yet, I sometimes scroll the pictures of her cafe on my phone waiting for the moment I will finally be there with her, chatting and eating a delicious imo-no-taruto while our children play together on the ground.
A little over a year ago, Ryutaro Hagi decided to quit his Tokyo job, to move back to his birthplace in Mie Prefecture, and to become an organic farmer. While growing up on a farm as a child, he had never considered this kind of life for himself. Quite the opposite; Ryutaro studied transnational communication in Kyoto, spent a year in the U.S., has friends living all over the world, and started his career successfully at an international travel agency in Osaka.
Interestingly, it was exactly Ryutaro’s interest in people and media from outside of Japan that inspired him to go local. His business partners, who politely refused Japanese meat and fish-based dishes, the Netflix documentary Cowspiricy (2014) on the global meat industry, a 2018 keynote speech by Rose Marcario, the CEO of Patagonia at the time, made him aware of the large part the food industry plays in contributing to global warming.
Ryutaro tells me that what struck him the most in Marcario’s talk, was that she mentions that soil acts as a sponge for carbon and that if agriculture would be fully organic, the CO2 emissions annually produced would be completely sequestered in the soil. Over time, he became aware that organic farming offers a solution to a wide variety of environmental threats, both globalized issues and those particular for Japan, like water pollution and the countries dependency on foreign food supplies. Being unable to travel because of the Covid-19 pandemic, he took the opportunity to change his life and started Aina Farm on a small plot of land that he borrows from his father. Aina, as he explains on his website, means “soil” or “land” in the Hawaiian language—producing healthy soil without chemicals is what organic farming is all about.
On the website of Aina, people can learn all about Ryutaro’s new life. In a promotion video for the farm, he talks in English about nature and his own dreams of becoming a farmer. Aina Farms Instagram page, which has more than 1000 followers, shows colorful pictures of growing crops, children playing with vegetables, and Ryutaro himself working the fields. In addition, he publishes long articles on his blog sharing his own experiences while referring to American films, books, and theories of human-nature entanglements. Looking at these posts, I think to myself that his life looks very different from the image of a farming life that I know from the Netherlands. Rather than a simple life, it looks like out of a fashion magazine.
When I ask him about this, Ryutaro explains that this is exactly what he is strategically aiming for. In Japan, there is a fundamental need for more agricultural businesses. But farming suffers a negative image; it is difficult, badly paid, and perhaps even seen as backward. Making use of social media, he wants to change this image and show young Japanese that farming can also be fashionable, fun, important, and rewarding. That farmers are “cool” and can speak multiple languages, that they also travel the world.
Furthermore, since Ryutaro moved to Mie he realizes that the older generation of farmers—including his father—have their very own ideas about best practices. Growing crops without chemicals does not make any sense to them. In his heart, he wants to tell them directly to stop destroying the earth. “But that generation is very stubborn,” he says. “And also, this is everything that they know and grew up with. Picking a fight is not the way to reach them. But in the end, it is all about supply and demand. They do not listen to me and do not care about the environment, but if more people choose to buy organic products, also that generation will have to change. That is why I do my best to grow healthy vegetables and post those cool pictures on Instagram.” He pauses and smiles, “you know, I do not want to be negative and against everything. I just want to be an inspiration to others.”
What I find so fascinating about Ryutaro’s story is that it is defined by a variety of interwoven scales. On the one hand, his practices as a farmer are fundamentally local; the crops that he grows and the physical work he performs all depend on the conditions of this one plot of land somewhere in the middle of Mie prefecture. On the other hand, Ryutaro’s story is largely shaped by events and thoughts originating outside of Japan. And on his turn, social media allows him to spread his message to people living in very different parts of the world. This illustrates that the global and the local are neither easily defined, nor simply dichotomous. Rather, Aina Farm can be seen as a place where different sets of relations intersect, and where nature and technology collaborate.
The idealized notion of rural Japan inherent in the term furusato is characteristic of discourse on rural Japan. It connotes beautiful nature and traditional lifestyles, nostalgia, warmth and a feeling of security that is constructed in opposition to urban spaces [1]. Although this idealized notion of rural Japan has been mobilized in regional revitalization discourses since the 1970s, the success of such portrayals has been rather limited when it comes to attracting capital, people and jobs to the countryside [2].
But with the increasing popularity of urban-rural migration it is not only the countryside that is represented in such an idealized manner. As prefectures and municipalities compete for newcomers and return migrants (ijūsha), they promote idealized images of their prefectures and of the migrants who should settle down in the respective areas. Prefectural and local governments have specific ideas about who should relocate to their towns. When looking at promotional material prefectures issue, it is striking how they attempt to appeal to different audiences. While some prefectures present themselves as the ideal place to raise children, others target women who want to realize their dreams and yet other prefectures are mainly interested in u-turn migrants.
In promotional material found on- and offline, ijūsha share their experiences and praise their new places of residence for beautiful nature, delicious food, a slow lifestyle or the support infrastructure provided by the prefecture or the municipality. Against the backdrop of population decline, it is not surprising that many prefectures target families with young children. Ijūsha featured in these prefectures’ promotional material stress how easy it is to raise children in the countryside, how children benefit from growing up in close contact with nature and how much easier it is to get access to childcare. Images of laughing children running around in paddy fields, feeding chicken, enjoying outside activities or harvesting vegetables and fruits they have grown in the family garden accompany these accounts. Their parents share their experiences with support for buying or renting land and house construction and talk about how they connect easily to locals through their children. The ijūsha depicted in such a manner mostly have three or four children and women mainly speak as mothers.
But the promotional material does not address the many problems related to education in Japan’s countryside. These include the closing of schools, the small size of classes in some rural schools or the difficulties of long distance commuting to a high school that prepares children for the university entrance exams. When I interviewed ijūsha in Ōita in 2018, many had smaller children and some complained that the number of students in the local elementary school wasn’t even large enough to open a baseball team. Many worried about their children’s future and wanted to move back to urban areas as soon as they would start high school. Nevertheless, after being stuck in an apartment in Berlin with my family during the Covid-19 pandemic for one and a half years, I can imagine that people from urban areas feel attracted to the imaginary of a happy life in the countryside presented in the promotion material by prefectures across Japan. It will be interesting to find out how people considering relocation perceive such material, what questions they ask staff at local support desks and how the imaginaries presented in promotional material affects their decisions when selecting a place to relocate to.
[1] Ivy, Marilyn (1995), Discourses of the vanishing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p.105-106. [2] Reiher, Cornelia (2014), Lokale Identität und ländliche Revitalisierung. Die japanische Keramikstadt Arita unddie Grenzen der Globalisierung, Bielefeld: Transcript.
By Ngo Thi Nhung Translated by Ngo Tu Thanh (Frank Tu)
Xin chào mọi người, tôi tên là Nhung, đến từ Việt Nam. Rất vui vì đã có cơ hội gặp và giao lưu với mọi người. Tôi đến Nhật từ năm 2013 sau quá trình học tập và tham gia các hoạt động xã hội tại Nhật năm 2021 tôi tốt nghiệp Master tại Nhật vào tháng 3, và bắt đầu tới Tòa thị chính Buzen (tỉnh Fukuoka) làm việc từ tháng 4 tới nay.
Hello, my name is Nhung and I’m from Vietnam. It’s my pleasure to have this opportunity to share my story with you. I came to Japan in 2013, and I just finished my master’s degree in March 2021, after a long period of studying and participating in different social activities. Since April 2014, I have been working for the City Hall of Buzen (Fukuoka Prefecture).
Trải qua 8 năm làm việc và học tập tại thành phố Fukuoka – một thành phố trẻ và năng động, tôi đã tới thành phố Buzen làm việc tại đây. Buzen là một thành phố nhỏ với dân số 24,642 người. Như mọi người đã biết Nhật Bản đang đối mặt với tình trạng già hóa dân số được biểu thị rõ rệt. Trên khắp nước Nhật thì dân số hàng năm giảm trong đó có thành phố Buzen. Tình trang dân số giảm làm cho rất nhiều ngôi nhà bị bỏ trống. Để xử lý những vấn đề này, chính quyền Nhật Bản đã có những chính sách ưu đãi và thu hút người di cư (nhập cư) tới sinh sống và làm việc, đặc biệt tới các thành phố nhỏ như Buzen. Người di cư và nhập cư tác động rất lớn tới xã hội Nhật, giúp làm trẻ hóa dân số và giải quyết vấn đề thiếu lao động.
After eight years living and studying in Fukuoka City – a young and dynamic city, I decided to work in Buzen. Buzen is a small city with a population of 24,642 people. As you may already know, Japan is currently facing the issue of population aging. Localities around Japan, including Buzen, are trying to deal with the effects of population decline. Also, due to population decline many houses and buildings are left abandoned. In order to tackle such issues, the Japanese government has implemented numerous policies to support and attract migrants (immigrants), especially to small cities like Buzen. Migrants and immigrants have a very important impact on the Japanese society. They are the younger generations who can help tackle Japan’s labor shortage.
Để tạo điều kiện thuận lợi cho người nhập cư cũng như cho sự phát triển thành phố, và nhằm giải quyết các vấn đề còn tồn đọng, tôi đã được chọn làm một thành viên chương trình Chiiki Okoshi Kyōryoku Tai. Chương trình Chiiki Okoshi Kyōryoku Tai là một mảng rất lớn trong những chương trình phát triển đô thị của Buzen. Trong đó tôi chịu trách nhiệm cho việc điều phối về các hoạt động truyền thông; lên kế hoạch giúp tăng cường hợp tác với các nước có quan hệ chặt chẽ với thành phố Buzen, nhằm làm rõ tiềm năng cũng như sự thu hút của Buzen; tổ chức các hoạt động giao lưu văn hóa và giúp đỡ người nước ngoài tại thành phố, cũng như tạo cơ hội cho cho người dân địa phương tiếp cận và hiểu hơn về người nước ngoài. Mặc dù vậy, do ảnh hưởng của dịch COVID nên mọi hoạt động liên quan hiện nay vẫn chưa được diễn ra nhiều. Mong rằng dịch nhanh chóng sẽ qua đi để mọi họat động cộng đồng sẽ được dẩy mạnh hơn nữa. Tôi cũng mong rằng sẽ góp được một chút sức nhỏ của mình cho Buzen ngày một trở nên phát triển hơn trong tương lai.
In order to support immigrants and the development of Buzen, as well as to help tackle various unsolved challenges, I was selected to join the Chiiki Okoshi Kyōryokutai. The Chiiki Okoshi Kyōryokutai is a highly important part of Buzen’s plans to revitalize the city. As a member of the program, I’m responsible for conducting public relations activities; making plans to facilitate the partnership with countries that have a close relationship with Buzen, and to highlight Buzen’s potential and attractiveness; planning cultural exchange activities and supporting foreign nationals in Buzen, as well as creating opportunities for local residents to get to know foreigners better. Despite that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many plans have yet to take place. I hope the pandemic will soon be over, so that we can further promote our communal activities. I also hope to contribute my humble part to the development of Buzen in the future.
Ngoài ra, để giới thiệu thêm về Buzen, Buzen là môt thành phố không quá lớn, không quá phát triển, nhưng lại là một thành phố có nhiều cảnh quan tự nhiên và là nơi chúng ta có thể vừa làm việc, sống chậm lại và cảm nhận cuộc sống nhiều hơn, với không khí trong lành và trị an tốt. Nằm ở vị trí giáp biển và núi do vậy các món ăn ở đây ngon và phong phú đặc biệt là hải sản tươi và lợn rừng, nai. Hơn nữa hàng xóm rất là tốt bụng và thân thiện rất nhiệt tình đã giúp đỡ và hướng dẫn lúc tôi ngay từ lúc mới đến. Buzen có nhiều lễ hội địa phương, do đối với người nước ngoài là những cơ hội để trải nghiệm văn hóa, giao lưu và học hỏi. Hơn nữa còn rất nhiều điểm tham quan có thể đến và giữ chân du khách khi đến tại Buzen. Rất mong ngày gần nhất tôi sẽ được gặp và đón mọi người tại Buzen.
Moreover, I also want to add a few lines of introduction about Buzen City. Buzen is a city that is not so large or developed, but it has plenty of natural amenities and fresh air. It is also a safe place to live in. In Buzen, we can work while being able to live and experience a slow-paced life. Located between the sea and the mountains, Buzen has diverse and delicious cuisine, such as fresh seafood, wild boar or deer meat. Furthermore, my neighbors are very kind and friendly people, and they have helped me greatly since I moved here. Besides, Buzen also has many local festivals; and thus, can provide many opportunities for foreigners to experience and learn more about the Japanese culture. Additionally, the City also has many tourist attractions that can charm visitors. I really hope to welcome everyone in Buzen in the near future.
On 16th July 2020 at 9 am, I received an email from Professor Reiher, welcoming me to join the Japanese Studies department at FU Berlin as a research assistant on the project Urban-rural migration and rural revitalization in Kyūshū. A couple of hours later, a £8 Clear Blue test displayed the word “pregnant” on its digital screen.
Before that day, I would have never thought that pursuing a PhD and having children at the same time was even possible. Since I started a doctoral degree later than usual, I saw my friends going through 3, 4 years of doctoral formation. Most of them struggled with late night work, everyday anxiety and occasional frustration. I could not imagine how adding a crying baby to the equation would be a wise thing to do. However, I soon realized I was only seeing half of the picture. I was in need of other points of view, and so I asked for advice. To my surprise, those very same friends helped me realize that this could actually be a great time to have children. Your timetable is flexible; most of your work can be done at home in front of a computer; and you have at least 3 years of assured salary, which, sad truth, is among the longest period of stable job a researcher could aspire to today. Moreover, my contract as a research assistant provided me with a paid maternity leave. I will always remember what Prof Reiher told me when I announced her the news before signing the contract: “If we as researchers would wait a wise time to have kids, we would never have them!”.
So, the day of my 32nd birthday my partner and I moved to Berlin, 4 months pregnant and with an exciting job waiting for me at Freie Universität. I was enthusiastic about this new beginning, and everything was going very well with my pregnancy. Despite all of this, I will not deny, it has been a hard long semester. The loneliness imposed by Covid-19 second wave, the isolation that kept us away from our families even during Christmas time, and the long dark winter in Berlin was a lot to take. At work, I was very happy and excited to collaborate with my colleagues and supervisor but at times, I felt very nervous and anxious about the future. What I did not realize yet was that becoming a mother and starting a family would be a great opportunity for my PhD research.
How so? I only started to think about this recently because I have to find a new way of doing and organizing research. I now believe that being a mum makes me more indulgent toward myself and the people around me; it gives me a great dose of empathy which is very useful for an anthropologist heading to a long-time fieldwork; it opens new perspectives on my profession and helps me questioning my views on other people’s choices.
Right now, I focus on navigating through every single week as good as I can. Every morning I wake up not knowing what time I will be able to take my coffee, if my son’s naps will be long enough to send a couple of emails from home; and at what time I will be able to get to the office. I often think about how to organize the ethnographic part of my project with him, but also about the future in general. How will we manage to keep living in the same place with my partner, who is a researcher too, while our son is growing? Will I find the time to bring him to swimming classes and to write my thesis at the same time?
Once Japan will reopen its borders for foreign researchers, the three of us will leave for Kyūshū where I will start my fieldwork. Bringing family to the field is not new to social anthropologists[1] in Japan[2]. However, I am very anxious about having my family with me on what is supposed to be the most intense and introspective period of my research. At the same time, I believe research can and should be gentler, and we will find new sources of inspiration for doing this job differently along the way.
[1] Levey, H. (2009). “Which one is yours?”: Children and ethnography. Qualitative Sociology, 32(3), 311-331.
[2] Allison, A. “Japanese mothers and obentōs: The lunch-box as ideological state apparatus.” Anthropological Quarterly (1991): 195-208.
The consequences of declining birth rates and population ageing in rural Japan are significant. Accepting more foreign talents to rural areas has been one of the strategies that have been proposed in the Comprehensive Strategy for Communities, People and Work (Machi, hito, shigoto sōsei sōgō senryaku), the first holistic policy package for regional revitalization in Japan. More specifically, the national version of the Comprehensive Strategy directly puts forth that municipalities should accept foreign members to join the Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai (Community building support staff program). In line with this strategy, earlier this year, Ngo Thi Nhung, a Vietnamese graduate from Kyūshū Sangyō University was accepted as the first foreign member of the Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai in the city of Buzen. The acceptance of Nhung was widely reported by news outlets such as Asahi Shinbun and Nishi Nippon Shinbun [1].
Interested to find out what she does at work, I contacted her and got an opportunity to do an online interview with Nhung and the head of Buzen’s Sōgō seisakuka [Comprehensive planning department] on September 01, 2021. Nhung explained to me that she has been living in Japan for 8 years and deliberately chose to move to Buzen after finishing her master’s degree in Fukuoka City this year. Joining the Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai, Nhung currently works as a coordinator for tabunka kyōsei (multiculturalism) for Buzen City. In particular, her tasks involve translating pamphlets, organizing cultural exchange events, disseminating information, and supporting foreigners who live in Buzen. Throughout the interview, Nhung repeatedly stated that she wants to connect foreigners and locals in Buzen, and this is also where she believes her role in rural revitalization lies.
Why is there a need to bring foreign and local residents closer together in a small rural city like Buzen? The head of Buzen’s Sōgō seisakuka explained that one of Buzen’s main strategies to counter its declining labor force is to attract international workers, who account for 1.5% of Buzen’s population. The majority of foreigners living in Buzen are young ginō jisshūsei (technical intern trainees), who are not yet used to the Japanese culture and have limited Japanese proficiency. For this reason, Buzen seeks to conduct activities to help foreigners integrate, i.e. by holding Japanese language courses, or explaining the rules for transportation and waste disposal to them. The head of Buzen’s Sōgō seisakuka also stated that he believes that young foreigners can play an important role in maintaining Buzen’s vitality, community life, events, and festivals. For this reason, he hopes that more foreigners will come to the city in the future. He also shared with me that Buzen had just recently concluded a partnership with the Taiwanese Consulate General to attract students from Taiwan, and that the city is currently exploring ways to proceed with the new partnership.
The interview with Ngo Thi Nhung and the head of Buzen’s Sōgō seisakuka, as well as the employment of Nhung as a publicly financed COKT member gave me the first impression that Buzen City has a positive view of foreigners’ role in rural revitalization. As for Nhung, she clearly asserted that she was motivated to contribute to Buzen’s revitalization efforts and had been receiving plenty of support from her colleagues. However, she also added that although she had not encountered any problems thus far, there might be challenges ahead. Hence, I really look forward to following up on her once we can go to Buzen for our upcoming fieldwork to see whether things will have changed by then.
[1] Hamaguchi, T. (2021) ‘Buzen-shi kyōryokutai’in ni betonamujin josei “Dare mo ga tanoshiku kuraseru kankyō o”’, Nishi Nippon Shinbun. Available at: https://www.nishinippon.co.jp/item/n/741949/ (Accessed: 15 August 2021).
Hi there, my name is Josko. I live in Yokohama, and I am currently conducting research for a PhD thesis about contemporary Shugendo, a Japanese religious tradition focusing on mountain worship. I would like to give you some insights into my recent fieldwork in one of Japan’s least populated places: the Sanin region and Tottori in particular.
Tottori is famous for its vast sand dunes, beautiful emerald-green coasts and its huge Mt Daisen. The region also has an abundant agriculture with seafood and vegetables being the main products. Additionally, Tottori has several Sake breweries and indigo plantations used for traditional dyeing. Often, they are located in old and cozy post-station towns (shukuba machi). Apart from this, people in Tottori are proud of the prefecture’s deep and wide forests, mainly consisting of cedar, cypress and breech trees (buna). Hidden inside these forests, there are countless waterfalls with some of them ranked as Japan’s most beautiful.
Whenever I travel to the area, I like to make a stop at a michi no eki, government-designated rest areas including shops selling regional products. It was at one of these shops where I first stumbled upon pamphlets promoting rural life and agriculture in Tottori. After doing some research online, I found out that many communities have their own websites and offer online talks providing information on how to resettle and start a life there. I realized that the image and promotion of rural life through online and print media is changing and rural life has become a popular subject in recent times.
During my stay in Tottori in spring 2020, I approached the biggest agency directed at people considering relocation to the prefecture, providing them with advice and basic information. This agency called Furusato Tottori-ken teijū kikō is a public interest incorporated foundation (kōeki zaidanhōjin) and welcomed me at their bureau, kindly providing me with detailed data collected over the last few years about U- and I-turners who moved to Tottori prefecture in the past. They also gave me a ”Tottori Guidebook” with a vast overview of all towns and districts of the region, including interviews with new settlers and locals, promoting Tottori as the ”kingdom of child-rearing” (kosodate ōkoku). One of the staff members in charge told me that, while there was no remarkable impact on the numbers since the pandemic (interview held in January 2021), things still could be changing drastically soon.
I chose the charming mountain village of Chizu for further investigations, since the place aroused my interest for its self-promotion as an officially approved designation for ”forest therapy”. Chizu has a large number of lush, green forests and almost-abandoned settlements, such as the enchanted village of Itaibara the town proudly promotes as a ‘primeval landscape’ (genfūkei) in their pamphlets. At the municipal office of Chizu town, I had an appointment with a young member of the planning division who handed me several pamphlets and information about upcoming online events where topics like moving to, living and working in rural Japan were explained. I instantly connected and followed all the mentioned pages on social network platforms such as Instagram or Line to get a better understanding of how several options for resettling are being communicated. Up to this day, I constantly receive news and updates concerning settling and living in Tottori. The person in charge at Chizu’s municipal office also introduced me to their special facilities where people can stay for a ‘trial living in the countryside’, while being accommodated in houses and lodges which are administrated by both the town office and by the locals.
Tottori city’s big relocation agency as well as Chizu town’s municipal office show great effort in promoting their regions as places worth to live in. However, their focus lies predominantly on recruiting young couples who they consider as settlers most likely to contribute to the local communities. Keeping in mind depopulation, it makes sense for communities to prefer young families. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that in the course of my research so far, I have met several U- and I-turners who resettled as singles without getting married or giving birth to children, but who contribute to their communities nonetheless.
It remains to be exciting to observe the ongoing tendencies of promoting rural-life in Tottori and I am looking forward to share further insights with you soon.
Josko Kozic (MA) moved to Japan five years ago after graduating in Japanese & Southeast Asian Studies at Goethe University in his hometown Frankfurt. He currently resides in Yokohama while working on his PhD thesis about contemporary Shugendo (a Japanese religious tradition). He is affiliated with the faculty of Religious studies at Heidelberg University.
