Daibutsu, Kamakura

Daibutsu, Kamakura
Daibutsu in Kamakura, June 2010. There were thousands of school kids visiting that day. It was still great fun.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

In Japan, little towns fall off the map

Below is an interesting but somewhat depressing article from the Los Angeles Times about the thousands of dying towns throughout Japan. Shockingly, the Japanese government designates about 62,000 towns as "government-designated dying villages." The small town of Kanna below is one of them. The reason there are so many dying towns in Japan is due to the rapidly aging and shrinking population. There are towns like this in the United States but the problem is not nearly as acute in the US, partly due to America's growing population.


The city of Kanna, once a busy lumber and agricultural center, has seen its leading businesses close and its population plummet from 20,000 in the late 1970s to 2,600 today



In the last decade, about 200 small Japanese communities have fallen into oblivion, and on Hokkaido island, almost 10% are headed there. Economics and a declining population are to blame.

By Catherine Makino

September 30, 2009

Reporting from Kanna, Japan


Shop owner Hideo Sakamoto knows this sad truth about his dying town: When he retires, no one will be left to take the reins of his tiny business selling eyeglasses and clocks.

His two children have fled to big cities and his mother is bedridden. "It's a sad story," says the 57-year-old, "because I will not be passing down my business to my children."

And not just that, he says. He and his wife, Mariko, are "so lonely."

Almost every day, this Japanese town surrounded by streams and mountains is eerily quiet, with only a few elderly people walking down its narrow streets.

Once a busy lumber and agricultural center, Kanna has seen its leading businesses close and its population plummet from 20,000 in the late 1970s to 2,600 today.

More than 60% of its residents are older than 65. Only about 80 children attend the two elementary and two junior high schools. For high school, most youngsters are sent to larger communities, and don't come back to live here.

Six years ago, the towns of Manba and Nakasato merged to form Kanna in an effort to save the traditions and rich cultural heritage of the area. The town is about three hours northwest of Tokyo, and one of 62,000 government-designated dying villages.

In the last decade, about 200 communities in Japan have indeed vanished. And on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost large island, almost 10% of the towns are endangered, with half of those expected to disappear in the next 10 years.

With few jobs or social opportunities, towns like Kanna have little to offer the younger generation. Meanwhile, throughout Japan, women are marrying at a later age and fewer are choosing to have children. If the current fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman continues, the International Organization for Migration says, Japan's population will fall to 100 million from more than 125 million by 2050.

Japan now has one of the world's biggest populations of people older than 65 -- 22%, compared with 13% younger than 15. More than two in five people living in rural villages are older than 65, and older people make up more than half the populations of about 8,000 towns and villages.

In Kanna, the older adults are left to take care of the very old. For example, Kiyoshi Arai, 66, who along with his wife owns one of the few remaining restaurants in the village, watches over his 88-year-old mother, Kaoru.

And, he says, "my daughter has already left and doesn't want to come back."

The only jobs now are in schools, the town hall or public services, says former Mayor Motoo Kuroda, 78.

"We used to have a successful lumber and farming industry, and our children followed what we did," Kuroda says. "But the price of lumber dropped when timber became available from overseas. The huge farming enterprises undersell us."

The town, he says, has changed a great deal. "There used to be so many people here. They would come for the lumber. But today the government for environmental reasons protects the forest. But even if we did cut the trees down, we couldn't make enough profit."

There are no clubs, cinemas, cafes or video shops to entice young people to stay, Kuroda says.

His four children have left. His eldest son, who just retired at 60, promised to come back and take care of him and his wife when they need him to.

"But we don't wish to give him any trouble," Kuroda says.

The elderly, who are holding the town together, spend their days playing gate ball, a Japanese form of croquet, and participating in the few other community activities.

Residents say the national government isn't doing enough to prevent Kanna from disappearing. The government gives towns low-interest loans to maintain the infrastructure, but that's it.

Kanna's 69-year-old mayor, Tetsujuro Miyamae, believes there's still hope for the town.

In a scheme to attract more tourists, Kanna is expanding its dinosaur museum. Opened a decade ago, it holds bones from Utah and Mongolia, as well as a newly purchased Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton from Montana. At the museum's theater, children and their parents watch man-made dinosaurs roar across the stage.

Visitors can also hike up the mountain behind the museum and dig for fossils, though none have been found in Kanna. More than 50 footprints believed to be of dinosaurs have been discovered over the years, however.

The town is also hoping to attract manufacturers.

On Hokkaido, one town tried, with little success, giving away plots of land to people who agreed to move there and register as official residents. Another Hokkaido town was pressed this year to advertise several of its schools on Yahoo's auction site owing to the drastic decline in enrollment. One school was converted into a nursing home for the elderly.

Kanna hopes to avoid such a fate, and some residents say they'll stay put. Yushi Kanbara, in his 20s, was born nearby and works at the town hall.

"I love it here," he says. "The nature, the clean air and the fishing."

Makino is a special correspondent.


Copyright © 2009,
The Los Angeles Times

10 comments:

  1. I think the small towns may see a resurgence as people who live in the big cities will leave them for a quieter aspect of life if they can.

    The small towns in Japan are beautiful and charming.

    There is still a strong tradition of the eldest son's family moving in and taking care of his parents, if he wants to inherit everything.

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  2. I agree about the small town atmosphere. It would be great if the tradition of the eldest child moving back home continues. However, even if it did, I don't think it would be enough to maintain the populations and prosperity of the towns.

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  3. Anonymous4:34 AM

    Unfortunately, most of the checkable facts in this article are lies. There is no way Kanna had a population of 20,000 in the 1970s - Wikipedia Japan, which has very reliable population data, has the population at a shade over 5,000 in 1980. Did 15,000 people suddenly leave the town in the late 1970s? No. Nor is the elederly population over 60% - the town's own website puts it at around 50%.

    I could go on, but you wouldn't believe that the LA Times and Catherine Makino were lying to you, would you? Would you?

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  4. I believe all newspapers often make mistakes, stretch the truth or even lie. I also don't trust Wikipedia. The Times statistics may be off. However, I don't think they are that far off as far as what is happening in the entire country. The fact is is that Japan's population is falling fast and yes, the fact is is that many young people are leaving the small towns and the small town populations are falling. That is a fact.

    I am very happy for other points of view. I welcome them. But what I don't understand are other points of view coming from someone who posts anonymously.

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  5. Anonymous4:26 AM

    I believe all newspapers often make mistakes, stretch the truth or even lie.

    Surely.

    I also don't trust Wikipedia.

    Fine, but just maybe you don't have that much knowledge of the Japanese side of Wikipedia in general and its population data in particular, which are sourced from official census data and in my extensive experience cross-checking them, never wrong.

    The Times statistics may be off
    However, I don't think they are that far off as far as what is happening in the entire country.

    It's not about "the entire country", it's about one town. The LA Times seems to have taken down the Makino piece - I wonder why.

    The fact is is that Japan's population is falling fast

    No, this is not a "fact" at all, it is a lie, go check your population data. I have the very latest data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in front of me, which estimates that Japan's population in 2008 declined by 79,000, or 0.06%, of which only 34,000, or about 0.03% was due to natural decline, the rest down to movement in and out of the country. That is not "fast" by anyone's measure.

    and yes, the fact is is that many young people are leaving the small towns and the small town populations are falling. That is a fact.

    This indeed is a fact.

    I am very happy for other points of view. I welcome them. But what I don't understand are other points of view coming from someone who posts anonymously.

    Who cares whether I'm anonymous or not? It's all about the "facts". I just can't be bothered to go through your self-important Google Identity nonsense.

    May the lord preserve us from the conceited and ignorant.

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  6. Thank you for your comment anonymous. Your welcome to your opinion. My opinion doesn't change on this. Thank you.

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  7. The Kanna official website talks about the severe depopulation and I believe even mentions that it used to have a population over 20,000. If my translation is not correct, then I apologize. Here is the link:

    http://www.town.kanna.gunma.jp/gappei2/index.htm

    Anyway, as I mentioned in my post, my point was Japan's sever depopulation. If you felt there was an error in the article, then by all means point it out. However, you comments are clearly defensive. Are you Japanese? If so, as you can see from my blog, I love Japan. So don't take my post personally.

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  8. You're right, your translation is not correct, although well done for finding it:

    かつて1万人以上いた両町村の人口も、現在3,200人にまで減りました

    The population of both villages, while once above 10,000, has currently fallen to 3,200.

    Note the “once”.

    I went to the trouble of finding the historical population data for Kanna today. You can access it here:

    http://toukei.pref.gunma.jp/gtoukei_kensaku_sub.htm

    If you know which buttons to press and can read csv files.

    So here is the combined 1960-1985 population data for the two villages that now constitute Kanna:

    1960: 8,766
    1965: 7,799
    1970: 6,878
    1975: 5,982
    1980: 5,479
    1985: 4,746

    Hmm, no population around “20,000 in the late 1970s” I can see there. And guess what? The last two population data-points accord to the last person with Wikipedia!

    http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A5%9E%E6%B5%81%E7%94%BA

    Surprise!

    So either Gunma Prefecture has got its own population data wrong or Catherine Makino has. This is not “my opinion”, it is cold hard fact.

    I spoke to Catherine this afternoon. She wasn’t very interested in the difference between an elderly ratio of 50.2%, which is clearly what the town thinks it has:

    http://www.town.kanna.gunma.jp/home/index.htm

    (Scroll down on the left)

    and her 60% assertion, although the difference is between being one of the top 5 oldest villages in Japan and an also-ran. “That’s what the mayor said”. Maybe.

    She wasn’t very interested, either, in accurate historical population data – “there was a sign in the town hall, I took a photo”. (Which I await with interest).

    Once these relatively easy to check foundations of the article are pulled away, what are you left with? Nonsense like this:

    “The town is about three hours northwest of Tokyo, and one of 62,000 government-designated dying villages.”

    How is a town a dying village? I just don't get it. There’re so many things wrong with this sentence I can’t even begin to cover them here.

    “my point was Japan's sever depopulation”

    How many times do I need to exclaim, in bold, THERE IS NO SEVERE DEPOPULATION occurring in Japan as a whole. Not yet. Look at the statistics!

    Hilarious that you think I’m Japanese. I’m just a part-time crusader after journalistic truth, aiming to put a stop to the sensationalism, inaccuracy, and dissimulation of the ignorant foreign press corps. I’m not remotely disputing that rural Japan has a serious depopulation and aging crisis—in fact, it’s one of my main themes.

    In fact, it’s been my experience this year in Kanna’s neighboring village of Nanmoku, which I’ve visited five times, that allows me to pick up so fast on journalistic inflation and distortion.

    My key point is—don’t believe what the foreign press writes about Japan, because by and large they can’t speak Japanese, can’t read Japanese, and are no longer paid well enough to care.

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  9. "May the lord preserve us from the conceited and ignorant."

    Very appropriate sentence Mr. Spike. Thank you for your information.

    ReplyDelete
  10. http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spiked-kanna/

    ReplyDelete