Hakata Station area attracts people with new and old landmarks

Dec. 28, 2012

Hakata Station area attracts people with new and old landmarks

Hakata Station is the main land gate to Kyushu, southwestern Japan, but the station area and its vicinity are filled with not just modern structures but also old, scenic landmarks. Centuries-old Buddhist temples can be found on alleys just behind tall office buildings and hotels a few blocks to the west from the station.
Tochoji Temple is the most famous of more than 10 temples located in the area. The temple consists of a main hall, a building that houses a 10-meter-high wooden Buddha statue, a red five-story tower and a graveyard for the Kuroda “daimyo” family which ruled the northern part of Fukuoka from the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century.
Tochoji, whose history dates back to the ninth century in the Heian era, is a main feature of a tourist course which covers the old quarter of Hakata, the town which emerged from a port city more than 10 centuries ago. Hakata is also the name for the eastern half of the core Fukuoka City area. (A related story can be found in the post released on July 17, 2011.)
When visitors enter a quiet street next to Tochoji Temple, they can find the white long wall and the main gate of Shofukuji Temple, a temple built at an Emperor’s behest late in the 12th century. Shofukuji is also known as the first zen temple built in Japan.
The station building was completely renovated from 2007 to early 2011, in time for the full opening of the Kyushu Shinkansen bullet train services. A new station building, launched for business in March 2011, has 10 stories and three underground floors. As Hakata Station accommodates about 180,000 passengers a day, the building is a new landmark not just for Fukuoka City, with a population of about 1.5 million, but also for the western part of Japan. With 180,000 square meters of floor space for commercial use, the building has accepted one of Japan’s best known department store chains as its core tenant.
Various attractions and decorations are provided almost throughout the year to entertain visitors, passengers and passers-by, among them extensive night illuminations.
Because Fukuoka is geographically close to China and Korea, the city has made various efforts to attract many tourists from China and other neighboring Asian countries. Tourist businesses in Fukuoka have been hurt by a sharp decline in the number of Chinese tourists this year amid political tension between Japan and China over a territorial dispute, but the new station building, coupled with the old temples in the surrounding areas, is expected to make the city more attractive to tourists from now on.

(video8) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

(video7) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

(video6) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

(video5) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

(video4) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

(video3) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

(video2) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

(video1) School kids perform ritual dance for legendary princess

Nov. 28, 2012

Youngsters try to inherit centuries-old ritual dance in southwestern Japan village

Youngsters try to inherit centuries-old ritual dance in southwestern Japan village

Nov. 28, 2012

Residents of Yabe Village, a mountainous area in Kyushu, southwestern Japan, turn out for one of their biggest festivals in November, enjoying or personally taking part in performances, shows and other programs. A highlight of the 28th two-day Yabe Festival this year was the “Furyu” ritual dance and music performed by school children aged from eight to 15.
The Furyu dance, whose origin dates back to 600 to 700 years ago, is a rite dedicated to Yametsuhime Princess, a legendary figure venerated by local residents. It has been played every five years in front of the 1,300-year-old Yametsuhime Shrine in the Kaminoiwaya district. The event will not be formally performed until 2014. Students of Yabe Junior High School, joined by some elementary school pupils, play a slightly modified version as part of the Yabe Festival. They learn the traditional dance and music from people in the district who take care of the shrine every year.
The students practiced playing their respective roles very hard from summer, Hiroyuki Nagamizo, the school principal, said in an opening remark to the audience, most of them family members and school-related persons. For this year’s performance, the 22nd of its kind, “all our 39 students are here today,” the principal said. “The Furyu performance is important because they will be able to better understand our culture and nurture their passion for our homeland” by striving to inherit the tradition, he said.
The number of students at the junior high had been once far over 100, but it has decreased to one-third amid depopulation in rural areas throughout Japan. Yabe Village, with a population of about 1,400, became part of Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture, in February 2010. About 90 pct of its 80-square-kilometer area is covered with forests. (A related story can be found in the post dated October 30, 2012.)
The Furyu dance was planned to be performed in the open air, but the venue was changed to a gym because of chilly rain. The performance began on a slow, gentle rhythm when a procession of 57 persons, including drummers and gong and pipe players, entered the center of the gym, led by the “shinbochi” conductor wearing brown robes and a hood.
The performance opened with an oral statement by the conductor praying for a good harvest and continued around the two drummers bearing swords on their back, who played the drums while dancing to the accompaniment of gongs, pipes and voices of kimono-clad girls with floral hats and big fans. The boys and girls played the 20-minute performance in earnest in a rather tense atmosphere, but when they posed for photos after the end, they looked happy with beaming smiles and resolved to endeavor to inherit the centuries-old event.

Japan’s aging forests demand broader efforts for better use and rejuvenation by owners, traders and citizens

Oct. 30, 2012


Japan’s aging forests demand broader efforts for better use and rejuvenation by owners, traders and citizens

A team of five woodcutters was demonstrating their unique “sakubari” lumbering method before about 30 visitors in Yabe Village in southwestern Japan on a weekend in mid-October. The technique is used to carry felled trees down with overhead wires in steep areas, where heavy machinery cannot be brought in to gather woods cut down. One of the workers operates a line of wires, 18 millimeters in diameter, extended from a pillar tree to another pillar tree up on the slanting slope, while others tie the felled cedar trees,  60 years old and about 15 meters in height, to the wires one by one and let them go 50 to 60 meters down to the foot of the slope.
Unlike the widely used vehicle-based method, the sakubari technique is difficult to learn, because the direction and the angle for stretching the wires over trees to be cut must be carefully decided in view of the situation of a specific lumbering area.
Young fellers long to obtain the technique, which is friendlier to forests, according to Hironori Kurihara, the head of a local forest leaders and workers’ study group. But the technique is becoming less common because of its low productivity. This is just one of numerous challenges facing forest owners and related parties in Japan, at a time when Japan’s forest business is economically infeasible by and large.
The difficulties for Japan’s forestry industry reflect structural reasons. Japanese forest owners have been mostly small and their business remains to be modernized. In addition, Japanese house builders prefer to use imported woods, which can be procured in bulk at lower costs. As demand shifts to foreign woods from domestic woods, cedar trees sell only about 7,000 yen a cubic meter, one-fourth to one-fifth of 30,000 to 35,000 yen until the 1970s, Kurihara says.
Lumber mills in Japan have a processing capacity of 300 to 2,000 cubic meters each a year, far smaller than 10,000 to 100,000 cubic meters in major foreign lumbering countries, estimates Toshihiko Fukushima, a veteran forester who is well versed in the situation in Fukuoka Prefecture, including Yabe Village, and neighboring regions. He also notes that foreign woodcutters fell an average 50 cubic meters of trees a day, about 10 times that for their Japanese counterparts.
Japan’s forests cover an area of about 25 million hectares, two-thirds of its total land. Of this, artificial forests account for 40 pct or 10 million hectares. Japan’s forests in terms of area are unchanged over the past four decades, but their volume has more than doubled during the period.
Trees which are 40 to 60 years old, the ages which are suitable for felling, remain to be cut in many areas throughout Japan. The foremost reason is that if trees are felled, money can be hardly left for forest owners when woodcutting, reforestation and other expenses are drawn from their revenue. This makes them reluctant to fell and sell their trees. But if the situation is attended, Japan's forests will get older, warns Fukushima, 71.
His prescription calls for felling 40 to 60 year old trees, mainly cedars and hinoki Japanese cypresses, at an annual pace of about 40 million cubic meters, about double the current pace, and continue afforestation for a period of 150 years. Then, Japan’s forests should be rebuilt to an ideal condition, he says.
Fukushima, who joined the guided tour of Yabe Village as an adviser, says that Japan’s forests should be properly used and kept in a good condition. This is necessary also in order to attain a target for Japan to reduce its CO2, or carbon dioxide emissions by 6 pct from the 1990 level, he says. Of this target, 3.8 pct must be covered with CO2 absorptions by forests. If forests get old, their CO2 absorptions will decline, making it harder for Japan to achieve the internationally pledged target.
Kurihara’s study group, formed in 1962, cooperates in guided tours and workshops organized by nonprofit organizations in recent years to increase citizens’ awareness about the various roles of forests. The tour to see lumbering sites and plantations in Yabe Village, in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, was organized by the Fukuoka Citizens’ Forest Building Network, inaugurated in 2003.
The group’s activities are supported by a subsidy provided by the prefecture from its revenue collected in the form of the forest environment tax, as it is so called. Fukuoka Prefecture uses the revenue from the tax, estimated at 1.3 billion yen, with 500 yen to be collected from each taxpayer a year, primarily to finance projects to rejuvenate devastated forests, but a few percentage of the tax is provided as subsidies to NPOs to support their programs to enhance public awareness of various problems facing Japan’s forests.
Kota Komori, a key activist of the group, admits that the subsidy system is important, because “we have to increase the forest literacy among people” through various activities. But he is concerned that the tax may be only a temporary solution to the problems facing Japan’s forests.
The tax is used to revitalize forests which are devastated or poorly maintained for 15 years or longer. Komori, 36, says that the definition of forests which are eligible for the subsidy must be studied more carefully so that the tax may be used in an effective manner.
Japan’s domestic forestry business has been threatened mainly by an influx of cheap spruce woods in recent years. Their white laminated products have spread among domestic house builders since they were authorized in Japan in 1995, according to Fukushima. Compared with domestic cedar and other needle leaf woods, laminated spruce woods are used for various purposes because they are stronger and easier to use. But this problem will be solved if domestic wood traders and house builders use Japanese laminated woods actively for wide purposes, he says.
While admitting his simulation aimed at achieving an ideal forest in Japan is rather difficult to implement, Fukushima warns that if Japan fails to properly deal with the situation, it should not only see its forests in an even harder condition but also invite criticism from foreign countries that Japan is damaging foreign forests by continuing to import cheap foreign woods while keeping its forests intact. Japan should make serious efforts to encourage an appropriate use of domestic woods in order to overcome these problems, he says.
Kurihara, 54, who has his own forests, and his group receive guided tours of citizens once or twice a year. Their difficulties, particularly low domestic wood prices, are unlikely to be solved at least immediately. Their works sometimes do not pay, even including subsidies from the national and prefectural governments. But conversations with people through workshops and guided tours “encourage us to continue our jobs,” he says. "We can have a lot of information and hints about our business from them," Kurihara says.

Former coal town pinning hopes on historical assets to attract more tourists

Sept. 25, 2012

Former coal town pinning hopes on historical assets to attract more tourists

Iizuka, located in the central part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, stages a series of autumn festivals demonstrating its prosperous days linked to the defunct Nagasaki Highway, but organizers this year are more serious than ever about attracting tourists as two stations had been built on the road exactly 400 years ago in the area.
The former Iizuka and Uchino stations, both in the current Iizuka City, were among the six stages established in the Chikuzen region as part of the highway in 1612 by the Kuroda clan, which ruled the area during the Edo era.
Iizuka was once the core city of the Chikuho coal field, but Japan’s energy revolution from the 1960s to 70s triggered shifts to cheap imported coal and oil, forcing the city to find a new means of life. Since then, tourism has been a key resource for the city to earn money.
The Uchino stage used to have an officially appointed hotel for the use of “daimyo” warlords, two inns for samurai and about 50 inns for ordinary travelers. The stage consisted of a 600-meter main street hemmed by the east and west gates and a branch street extending from a T-shaped junction in the middle of the main street. The old Iizuka stage was much larger, about twice as large as the Uchino stage, but the landscape in those days is better preserved in Uchino, said a staffer at an exhibition hall in Uchino. After the end of the Edo era, the Iizuka stage became a shopping area as Iizuka flourished with an influx of people related to the coal mining industry, while Uchino was left out of development after the Nagasaki Highway was deserted toward the end of the 19th century.
Nagasaki was at the western end of the 228-kilometer highway, which linked it to regions in the main island of Honshu through the northern part of Kyushu. Nagasaki is known as one of Japan’s two A-bombed cities, but it also has a history as the sole “window” open to the Western world in the years of the Tokugawa shogunate government’s isolation policy from the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century. The highway was also dubbed “the Sugar Road,” because various sweets and other imports spread from Nagasaki to the rest of Japan via the road. Items conveyed through the road were not limited to foods. Westerners traveled with many kinds of technology, books and documents from Nagasaki to Edo, currently Tokyo. A record says a Dutch emissary passed Uchino with an elephant as a gift to the Tokugawa shogun in Edo.
The highway had been partially paved with stones. “There used to be stone pavements at two places, but they were washed away with a flood which hit this town in 1953 when I was a high school student,” a local old man said.
Visitors can find a few preserved houses on the highway in Uchino. Nagasakiya Inn, which accommodated samurai travelers, is one of the preserved houses. The current building of the inn, which was built early in the Meiji era, is open to tourists, who can enjoy the same dishes as those served to travelers in the Edo era. Visitors should be recommended to try menus with “shiro-okowa” glutinous, white steamed rice, a local specialty, among other things.
The old man, who introduced himself as Mr. Ohba, formerly worked as a public employee. At present, he visits a local elementary school from time to time and talks about the history and culture of Uchino for pupils. When the Kuroda clan was ordered by the Tokugawa government to lay a road toward Nagasaki, the apparently easiest way was considered to be a route through the twin city of Fukuoka-Hakata, the home to the Lord of Kuroda. But this was not adopted and instead, the highway was built through a remote mountainous area so that Tokugawa spies may not infiltrate into the city, said the old man. It is unknown if this is true or not, but this kind of oral traditions is no doubt expected to make the time-honored town and the whole of Iizuka City more attractive to today’s travelers.

Volunteers join efforts to preserve scenic highland moor in Oita

Aug. 30, 2012

Volunteerｓ join efforts to preserve scenic highland moor in Oita

Bogatsuru is a highland moor on a basin surrounded by the Kuju Mountains in the western part of Oita Prefecture, Kyushu, southwestern Japan. The 53-hectare moor is also one of the 47 internationally protected wetlands under the Ramsar Convention in Japan.
In early spring, local people burn off dead grass to preserve the floras in Bogatsuru, but they are not the only persons who maintain the ecological system in the area, which has an elevation of about 1,200 meters. Citizens volunteer to pick up introduced species mainly in summer so that inherent species in the moor may not be expelled by foreign plants.
“We come here a few times in the summer season to remove introduced species,” a volunteer said while working in the grass with his friend. Their efforts make it possible for hikers and campers to enjoy the beauty of wild azalea, gentian, dandelion, polygonum and other small flowers in the moor throughout the year, except the winter when the surrounding areas are covered with snow.
Foreign species, actually seeds, are carried in mainly by being stuck to visitors’ clothes and shoes. "Because they (introduced species) can spread quickly, they have to be eliminated to preserve the original plant community here,” the volunteer said.
The Bogatsuru moor is watered by Naruko River, which meanders through the wetland north to south. The river is one of the headwaters of Chikugo River which cultures broad farming areas in the northern part of Kyushu . Wood trails extend to both sides from a main road in the middle of the moor, enabling people to have a close look at the floras there.
The natural beauty of Bogatsuru is depicted in a song which had been originally sung among mountaineers. The moor became famous across the country in the 1970s when the song was nationally aired on TV.

When everyone is charmed by spring flowers,
the woodsman enters the mountain
longing for the remaining snow.
Then he sheds tears and
sees melted snow that tells him the arrival of spring.
(A personal translation)

Hokkein Spa Sanso is a mountain villa which stands on the northwestern edge of the basin. The building, which becomes a "base camp" for those climbing the Kuju Mountains, has about 20 guestrooms, but its hall can be converted to accommodate up to 120 people when the rooms are occupied.
An employee at the villa, in his 30s, was repairing the base of the signboard built in front of the villa. Topsoil around the signboard was washed away by heavy rain in July, he said. “We will restore the base and the signboard, but we also hope to place big, stone-made mountain climbing boots as an object here to better welcome mountaineers,” he said.

Preciousness and awfulness of water to Japanese confirmed in waterfall tour

July 30, 2012

Preciousness and awfulness of water to Japanese confirmed in waterfall tour

Oita Prefecture, Kyushu, southwestern Japan, attracts tourists for its beautiful mountains and hot springs, notably the Beppu and Yufuin spa resorts, but not a few scenic waterfalls can be found at valleys in the mountains or on the riverside.
Some of them are designated as part of Japan’s 100 most beautiful falls. While enjoying various types of falls, visitors can obtain fresh air, cooling their heated body. The Higashi-shiiya Waterfall stands in a dynamic landscape in the deep forests. The fall has an elevation of 85 meters down to the basin while its vertical point is on the top of a lava cliff. The Fukino Waterfall entertains viewers with its gentle shape as they watch long white streams falling straight down into a valley far from an observatory. The Ryumon Waterfall is a cataract with a broad two-tier stream, while the Jion Fall is unique as its backside can be seen from beneath the cliff.
The most parts of Japan are abundant in water, but sometimes, droughts occur, and conversely, floods triggered by typhoons and rain fronts damage rice paddies and fields every year. The series of natural disasters tells its habitants about the preciousness and at the same time, awfulness of water in their life.
Actually, heavy rains played havoc with rural areas in Oita and in the neighboring prefecture of Kumamoto from early to mid-July. Floods and landslides washed away hundreds of houses and claimed about 20 lives in the areas. Precipitation in a certain remote village reached about 1,500 millimeters in less than a week, almost matching the annual precipitation in Tokyo.
A party of about 40 mostly senior tourists one time considered canceling their tour of seven waterfalls in Oita following the heavy rains. But, as it was clear on the day of departure, they decided to carry it out. “As we can be here today, they all look happy,” a guide said. Because of the heavy rain in the past few weeks, the amount of water has rather increased and this has made the falls look more dynamic, the guide said.
Some paths, trails and facilities for tourists in the affected areas remain to be repaired. But at a time when small towns and villages in Japan pin hopes on eco-friendly tours, more people are hoped to visit rural areas, not only helping the local economy but also reconfirming the importance of the nature for themselves.

Philanthropy expected to work more for Japan in low-growth era

June 28, 2012

Philanthropy expected to work more for Japan in low-growth era

Kurume City is just one of medium-scale towns in Japan, but its citizens are much luckier than those of other cities, because they can enjoy their time at cultural and other facilities contributed by a self-made businessman linked to the city.
The Ishibashi Cultural Center, which is the biggest one of those contributed by Shojiro Ishibashi and his family, is located on a 42,000-square-meter site in the heart of the city. It is actually a complex of buildings and houses, including an art museum, a library, a concert hall and an amusement park for kids. Around a pond in the center of the site are many kinds of flowers and trees, which entertain citizens throughout the year. In spring, visitors can view cherry trees, roses and flowering dogwoods and in summer, irises and water lilies, and in autumn, colored leaves and again, roses.
In  the middle of June, a festival featuring some 10,000 purple and white iris flowers planted on the edge of the pond attracted tens of thousands of people not just from the city, which has a population of 300,000, the third largest in Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but also from neighboring areas.
On a sunny Saturday during the festival, visitors were enjoying their time strolling around the pond and in the gardens as.meals and drinks as well as attractions were provided in the open air. A group of three women, in their 50s and 60s, were having a chat on a bench near the pond. “We’ve just come on a very good occasion,” said one of them. Some people were taking pictures in front of the irises, while other people, young and old, were watching water birds and creatures down from a bridge over the pond. After spending their time around the irises, some visitors also enjoyed themselves at the art museum, which boasts of a big collection of modern Japanese paintings, some of them designated as national cultural assets. The collection has also been donated by the Ishibashi family.
Shojiro Ishibashi was born in 1989 as a small merchant's son in Kurume. He started his career with his family, but he later became independent and his rubber footwear business made a big fortune to him. After his death in 1976, his family continued the business and it has become the world’s largest automobile tire manufacturer, called Bridgestone Corp.
Many local Japanese cities are struggling amid Japan’s long-drawn-out economic difficulty. Kurume, which is home to Bridgestone, is relatively in good shape compared to other cities of similar scale. The city hosts one of its key tire manufacturing plants.
Bridgestone has also been active in philanthropy for the city and its citizens. Some other major Japanese companies also support social and cultural activities to demonstrate themselves as good corporate citizens. But Japan’s business community has not necessarily been serious about philanthropic activities.
Japan is expected to remain in a low-growth period in the years to come because it is faced with the aging of society and in addition, a time-consuming task of rehabilitating the areas extensively devastated by the earthquake-triggered killer tsunami waves in March 2011. The low growth society will not allow any companies to be successful singlehandedly. It should urge greater efforts to boost the bottom of Japan’s economy as a whole by mobilizing all energies and wisdoms to that end. This means that companies’ philanthropic activities will become even more important than ever for Japan’s society in the years ahead.

Young Japanese architects looking for new housing style for communication-thirsty Japan

May 31, 2012

Young Japanese architects looking for new housing style for communication-thirsty Japan

Japan’s society is flush with information amid the fast spread of new communication tools, but residents of the rich, advanced country, particularly young people, appear to be thirsty for truly satisfactory communication with someone else.
Solitary persons’ unnoticed deaths have continued to draw media attention in Japan. This reflects weakening human relations mainly in urban areas following the aging of society and the trend toward the nuclear family.
Until a few decades ago, Japanese tended to choose trouble-free, privacy-oriented urban life, hoping to live in condos and apartment houses, but they have become aware of the demerits of the conventional housing styles, Hiroyasu Sawa, a young member of the Fukuoka Association of Architects and Building Engineers, said in a recent interview.
Architects’ jobs are basically to provide hardware for customers, but “we have to think about changes in society, too,” in order to propose new housing styles and software, such as management, to meet people’s diversifying housing-related needs, he said.
Sawa and Yukari Fujita, another member of the association, are key organizers of a workshop to introduce “collective housing” projects in Tokyo and other parts of Japan as an influential new living style aimed at better communication among dwellers. The workshop is part of activities by a team of 15 or so young architects who belong to the association. It was initially launched in 2004 and after a four-year interval, restarted in September 2011.
Collective housing is an innovative housing style in which residents share part of their life while having common space for meals and other purposes. The communication-oriented housing style was proposed in a “paradigm shift” in studies about the way of housing and living amid the changes in the social situation in Japan, Sawa said. “This may not be a general solution to the problems facing us, but it should be an occasion to study about a desirable housing style for today’s Japan,” said Sawa, who served as the moderator at a recent workshop about collective housing, the fifth in the current resumed round.
Collective housing initially started in Sweden in the 1970s to enable residents to share child care, housekeeping and other jobs following an increase in working women. In Japan, collective housing has been expected as a solution to various problems facing Japan’s society, such as increases in families of elderly couples, single mothers and independent working women.
There are a variety of communication-oriented housing units according to the extent of common space to be shared by residents. “Shared houses” are so designed as to have individual single rooms for residents but have a common dining room to have meals together. This compares with “collective housing” in which residents have independent rooms with kitchens and dining space but they also have common space to have meals together periodically or a lounge to have a chat with each other. There are various other examples, for rent and for sale, with many generations or not, between shared houses and collective housing in light of the specific needs among the residents involved. The importance of ensuring communication and mutual support among dwellers began to be felt strongly after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, which claimed about 6,000 lives in Kobe and neighboring regions. People’s awareness of the need for mutual support became even stronger after the devastating earthquake and tsunami waves which extensively damaged the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan in March 2011.
The Tohoku earthquake left approximately 19,000 people dead or missing and caused various changes and scars in Japan’s society, among them an increase in the number of marriages, not just in affected regions but elsewhere, too. This reflects young people’s desire to have bonds or links with someone else in today’s uncertain society.
“Young people hope to be tied to somebody or something,” Sawa said. "They just want to feel the same things together and feel their goodness together." They can communicate with each other easily with such tools as the twitter and the facebook, but actually, they rather lack communication in the true sense of the term, he said. People, young or not, are seen to be lured to a housing style in which communication is ensured and various values are shared among residents, Sawa said.
Shared houses are rather popular among young people, but collective housing can better provide a sense of communication and mutual support to residents, according to Fujita. In shared houses, people have common things together and take them back to their respective rooms, while collective housing is designed for people to bring together and share things. This allows people to feel the common space more closely to them.
The collective housing workshop was initially proposed mainly by female architects. Women must be thinking about their way of living “more realistically” when they get old, Fujita said. Women prepare meals every day and how their life should be after their partner passes away is expected to be an issue of strong interest for them, she said.
There must be needs for collective housing as a communication-oriented housing style in Fukuoka, but there are none at present. Fukuoka, the most populous city in Kyushu, southwestern Japan, is known as an area that accommodates many students and single-member families. People in the related circles “are just unaware that collective housing will be a feasible business” in Fukuoka, Sawa said. “We have to do more to disseminate information about collective housing in this city,” he said.

Japan’s first retirement village redesigning itself amid new realities

April 8, 2012

Japan’s first retirement village redesigning itself amid new realities

Yayoi Hattori and Masumi Kawamura continued to run their activity circle at the Minaginomori retirees community in southwestern Japan for almost 10 years, but they hope now that somebody will come forward to succeed their activity.
The Society of Nidowarashi, which means the second childhood or the return to the childhood, was inaugurated mainly by the two women and their husbands in 2002, six years after the community was launched for sale in 1996 as Japan’s first retirement village. The group was so named by Shinji Hattori, who thought that residents can enjoy their new life in the town by returning to their childhood. “Children have a quarrel with each other, but they make it up when they meet the following day, you know,” he said. The society had no rules and no membership fee. “Anybody can come and enjoy whenever they want,” Yayoi Hattori said. (The last photo shows Ms. Hattori speaking at a luncheon.)
The Nidowarashi group suspended its activities at the end of 2010. Hattori and Kawamura agreed to do so, considering their physical strength toward the future. This has come at a time when the new town is trying to adapt itself to a series of new changes, including an increase in younger dwellers and Japan’s continuous economic downturn.
The first activity circle launched by residents by themselves organized parties and tours mainly on the occasion of seasonal events, such as the cherry blossom viewing party, the “Hina” doll festival on the Girls’ Day and the Christmas party. The group invited a semiprofessional male vocal group last year to play before residents. The purpose of its activities was to enable residents to well understand each other and have fun in their new life while breaking with their previous titles and positions.
Because Shinji Hattori, who was an executive at a major general trading house, likes to craft models, the first event by the group was aimed at flying paper planes at an open space. The event continued in a bigger scale for a few years. Male participants got exited about flying their paper planes, while women prepared meals, and they ate together in a break. “This told us the joy of having meals together,” recalls Yayoi Hattori, who worked with a major house builder as an architect.
The new town spreads over two hills north of the central part of Asakura City, Fukuoka Prefecture. The site has a total area of 126 hectares, including a golf course. The town is divided into three districts which cover an area of 76 hectares, but there are no gates or barriers around the community. At present, there are about 30 activity groups and circles, including golfing, tennis, trekking, aerobics, yoga, pottering and Japanese calligraphy. Lectures mainly about current topics are also provided from time to time.
The average age of dwellers was 59.2 at the end of March 2012, against 59.9 six years ago. The reduced average age reflects an inflow of relatively young families. Declines in land prices across Japan in the past years have made residential lots in the town affordable to less wealthier, younger families.
The number of dwellers in the community came to 535 at the end of March, about 35 pct of the projected level, and the number of households was approximately 320, or about 40 pct. The number of residents is increasing 20 to 30 every year. This is the highest growth in percentage among the 19 administrative districts in Asakura City, which has a population of about 57,000.
An inflow of younger families itself is rather welcome, said Yukiyasu Maeda, the head of the town committee. But he also noted that a gap has emerged between the original concepts for the town and the current situation. Specifically, medical and transportation services in the community are said to be insufficient, while there are no stores or eating places.
“We must explore a new community design so that our town can be adapted to the current realities,” Maeda said. As part of initial steps toward a new community design, the town committee envisions introducing a mobile shopping service for residents who are unable to go to downtown for shopping.
The Minaginomori project was launched after 10 years of preparations. The run-up for the ambitious project proved to be longer than expected mainly because of slow progress in land purchases. The developers involved, led by a local bank group, initially expected to sell all residential lots in about five years. But the target failed to be met, because Japan’s economy had fallen into the doldrums early in the 1990s.
The town started with a variety of facilities, including a clinic, a restaurant and a small convenience store. But the restaurant and the store were closed later, while the clinic suspended its business from time to time.
While admitting there are many challenges for the community and it is not easy to solve any of them, Maeda expects to take various measures on the dwellers’ side to improve the situation. The developers are burdened with loans on their past investment, while the local authorities are busy improving their own fiscal house. “That is true, but unless the situation is attended, this town may be a marginal community,” Maeda said. A marginal community, the concept proposed by a Japanese researcher, denotes an area which is difficult to function as a community with half of its population aged 65 or older.
At least some residents are concerned about the future of the new town and the future of their own life. Their fears are linked mainly to the absence of medical or nursing care services that inhabitants need when they become unable to take care of themselves. The developers initially planned to build three condos to provide nursing services in the community, but they were not realized. Nobushige Abe was a key member of the town committee when it was inaugurated in 2002. He worked with other members for four years to try to persuade the developers to meet their pledges to improve the living environment. Some plans were realized, but services for residents remain insufficient, according to Abe. The unsatisfactory situation has led not a few people to leave the town, he said.
“The situation has rather deteriorated in the 12 years since my family came here,” Abe said. “It might be said that this project had been too ambitious,” he said. Abe also said that whether a retirement community itself was necessary in Japan should be considered again.
The developers hope to invite businesses from outside to activate the new community by, among other things, building a residence-style nursing care facility. They intend to continue the current services for residents, and they have no plan to withdraw from the project.
The series of challenges lies for the 16-year-old town, but the Hattoris are satisfied with their decision to live in the town. Kawamura, the other founding member of the Nidowarashi group, and her husband also think so. “I love this town, because we can make friends with various people,” she said. “We also know that some sick persons recovered their health since they came here.” Men are usually less enthusiastic about community activities in Japan, “but husbands in this town are active in solving our problems,” she said. “I think this is great,” Kawamura said.
After Nidowarashi suspended its activities, Hattori and Kawamura talked to each other and agreed to hold a party once again, this time by seeking support not only from former Nidowarashi members but also from fresh female residents. The luncheon party, which was timed to coincide with the doll festival on the Girls’ Day, attracted about 40 people. Hattori and Kawamura thought that the event was a success as participants enjoyed meals prepared by the supporters.
Hattori thinks that the new town can be used as an experimental zone for researches to realize a better living environment for the elderly. Specifically, data may be collected for these studies by setting a lower speed limit for vehicles and introducing less stringent application standards for nursing care insurance.
Maeda sounded cautiously optimistic about the future of the community. The population in this town will increase from now on, he said, “because we will take various steps to activate our community.” The town committee expects to draw up a new community design in a study with the developer side.
The committee will collect residents’ opinions in a questionnaire for the study. “The bottom line is not money," Maeda said. “We must do more to strengthen our bonds by enhancing communication and mutual understanding,” he said.
A key concept in the new community design is expected to call for building a safe town for slow but active life in which many generations of people live in harmony. By drawing up the new design, “we would like to be a top model” in efforts to solve the problems for Japan amid the aging of society, Maeda said.

March 2011 catastrophe links 2 young men to launch mutually complementary relief activities

March 24, 2012

March 2011 catastrophe links 2 young men to launch mutually complementary relief activities

Hiroki Saijo, a native of Minami Sanriku Town, Miyagi Prefecture, and Kotaro Ohgami of Fukuoka City of Fukuoka Prefecture did not know each other before the catastrophe of March 11, 2011. But a piece of information Saijo placed on a website after the disaster to seek help for affected people in his home town caught Ohgami’s eye. Saijo had nothing to provide to affected people in Minami Sanriku, but he had knowledge about the situation in the town--that it, where the survivors are and what they need.
Ohgami, who leads a volunteer group based in Fukuoka, was thinking about how to start relief activities for the evacuees when he found Saijo’s message on the Internet. His group, called Fukuoka Front Line Support, hoped to supply relief goods to survivors in small and remote communities who tended to be left out of relief activities by public and big organizations. So, specific information provided by Saijo was helpful for his group. (The photo at the top shows, from left to right, Mr. Ohgami, his daughter and Mr. Saijo.)
Saijo works with an Internet service company in Tokyo. His family lives in an inland city west of Minami Sanriku, but some relatives and friends were in the affected town. He hurried home from Tokyo and then entered Minami Sanriku five days after the disaster. While staying at his uncle’s house, which had been unaffected, Saijo continued to support relief groups from other regions, including Ohgami and his staff, who were unfamiliar with the local situation. The mutually complementary activities by the two young men started in May and continued every time when Ohgami’s group visited Minami Sanriku.
When the earthquake-triggered tsunami waves began to hit widely scattered areas on the Pacific coasts from the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan to eastern Japan, Saijo’s grandmother was attending a party for a club of elderly people at a building in the town.
After the first attack of the earthquake hit the area, some participants fled out of the building, for fear that it would be flooded with tsunami waves. But employees at the building persuaded other people to stay while warning it would be rather dangerous to go out. His grandmother escaped from the third floor to the fourth floor and then to the roof. Those who were at the roof of the building survived, but those who had gone out for safer places were mostly dead, Saijo recalls.
His mother worked as a nurse at Shizukawa Hospital, located in the heart of Minami Sanriku, for about 30 years until a few years ago. After the debris was removed from around the damaged hospital building, a corner was set up near its entrance to receive flowers for about 70 victims there. Saijo told his mother, “Why don’t we go to the hospital?” But she never wanted to go there. “Maybe, it (the hospital) was no more a place for her to see,” he said, “because patients whom she knew and her former colleagues were among the dead.”
Ohgami organized a charity bazaar in Fukuoka along with other volunteer group leaders on the first anniversary of the March 11 disaster. He invited Saijo to come and help volunteers at the event. The Rainbow Square event included performances and shops of foods and goods as donations to affected people. The event was supported by members of about 10 different activist groups, who cooperated with each other across the walls of their organizations. The cross-organizational event style "will help them (the members) to increase their motivations for volunteer activities and make our entire relief activities more successful," said Masakatsu Hiyakawa, a key member of the Fukuoka Citizens' Network for Support to the Disaster Areas.

-"We will continue our activity for survivors for at least 10 years"-
Ohgami stressed the uniqueness of a paint art corner in which visitors paint a big rainbow with their hand prints together on nine separate panels one by one. The panels, when completed, were put together and displayed on the performance stage. “We will continue this rainbow painting activity” in the years ahead, Ohgami said. He hopes that the completed rainbow art panels will be displayed at a public place. He believes that activities for the tsunami-affected people and regions must be continued over the years. Saijo agreed. “We will continue our activities for at least 10 years,” Ohgami said.

-Fukuoka citizens form human chain to mourn disaster victims-
One block away from a shopping mall corridor as the venue of the Rainbow Square bazaar was a much bigger event organized by the Fukuoka city government with public and private organizations. The event was designed to mourn the disaster victims and increase people’s awareness about the importance of extending support in various styles to the survivors.
With about 30 booths set up at a square in front of the city hall building, volunteer and other groups introduced their relief activities and charity goods for the affected people. The “Never Forget March 11” event culminated into one minute of silent tribute for the disaster victims by about 1,500 Fukuoka citizens, who braved a piercing wind to form a big human ring hand in hand at 2.46 p.m., the exact moment of the unprecedented earthquake a year ago.