Walkabout - Yame

   If you live in Fukuoka City, Yamé is one of those outlying rural towns you can’t quite ignore. Famous for its green tea, known as Yamé cha, the region is Japan’s sixth largest producer of tea and the nation’s number one source of gyokuro (玉露), green tea of the highest quality. Yamé is also famous for its Yamé Ningyô (人形, dolls), commercials for which are aired on TV every year just after New Year’s.

   And so, after living in Fukuoka for as long as I have and constantly hearing about Yamé—I can even sing the Yamé Ningyô Kaikan jingle—I decided to finally go and see for myself if the town had anything worthwhile to offer.

   My first impression was no. Yamé was just another sad little town with the same miserable prefab constructions housing the same chain drugstores and discount shops you’d find just about anywhere. There was also the all too common monstrosity; in this case, a “traditional craft” center, an eyesore that was not very “traditional” or “crafty” looking. The Yamé Dentô Kôgei Kan had been constructed with the same bureaucratic zeal and desperate hope that if we build it they, the great busloads of tourists, will come.

   It always makes me wonder what the city officials and local politicians must think when, in spite of their gleaming, yet austere, monuments to local culture, no one comes. If I were one of them, I would slip out of town in the middle of night, embarrassed by what I had done. I doubt that’s what happens though. Most likely, they slap each other on their backs and say, “Look what we did!” and start making arrangements to build the next monstrosity. Meanwhile, the city going deeper into debt.

   One other thing I find odd about sleepy little towns like Yamé is how good the infrastructure looks. The roads are immaculate, beautifully paved and maintained, and yet the houses and buildings lining the streets are crumbing or shuttered. You’d think those city officials and local politicians would notice the incongruence, but, no, they’re too busy slapping each other on the back and saying, “Look what nice roads we have!”

   That said, if you were to venture into the center of Yamé, into the heart of its old town, you’ll be rewarded with an unusual sight in Japan today: long rows of traditional Japanese houses, dating back a hundred, two hundred years or more. A few of these homes are nicely maintained: the ugly metal siding has been removed to reveal the white-washed clay walls, called shirakabe (白壁), the shabby aluminum doors from YKK are gone, and the glass in the windows is original, having warped over time.

   When I traveled to the town of Kitsuki, Ôita prefecture last autumn (still meaning to write about that trip), it occurred to me that the places that were the most beautiful in Japan were those which had been passed by or overlooked during Japan’s boom years when whole neighborhoods of traditional houses were bulldozed in order to make room for shabby condominiums, ugly prefab buildings, and gaudy pachinko parlors or love hotels. Thank God the real estate bubble burst before the cancerous “development” could spread to Japan’s more rural towns.

   Yamé’s old town has potential and needs more investment in protecting and improving the appearance of the old houses. The metal siding has got to go, the aluminum doors need to be replaced with traditional wooden doors. There need to be regulations, like those in England protecting cultural assets. A tax on Yamé’s famous tea might help create a fund to do just this, but local governments are often prevented by the central government from levying such taxes. Ôsaka’s firebrand mayor, Tôru Hashimoto, has argued for more autonomy in this respect and it remains to be seen if his party Ishin no Kai will, one, be able to win enough seats in parliament, and, two, have the power to take on Japan bureaucracy and begin making the radical, yet necessary changes to the way business is done in Japan. 

Noooooooooooo!!!!

The "Problem" with Japan

   Whenever I hear politicians and commentators fret over Japan’s low birth rate and its implications for the viability of the pension system, I can’t help but ask the hell the country’s “leaders” have been doing for the past thirty years. When the pension system was set up, Japan still had a relatively young population where each retiree was supported by half a dozen or so workers paying into the pension scheme. As Japan developed and become wealthier, however, life expectancies were extended and the birthrate fell. In the mid ‘70s, the fertility rate fell below 2.0 for the first time, and the time implosion bomb started ticking. Although they knew the greying of Japan was going to become a major issue in the not so distant future, politicians—and I put most of the blame on the Liberal Democrats (LDP), today’s opposition party—did nothing to address it, letting the problem fester and worsen.

   At the wedding of my sister-in-law a decade ago a number of LDP bigwigs attended as the groom’s father had once been a Diet member back during the LDP’s heyday and was still active in local politics.

   Japanese wedding receptions are usually kicked off with a number of dull speeches given by bosses and other friends of the couple before the drinking begins, but at this particular reception a local politician made a long-winded speech in which he said, “We have put in place a number of policies such as the fūfu bessei (夫婦別姓), allowing you women to keep your maiden names after marriage, so what’s stopping you? Get married and have lots of children!”

   As if an attachment to one’s maiden name was the root of the issue. Feckin' eejit.

   If the politicians really want to address the issue they’ll need to do a number of things:

   One, support women who have more children by

      ◉ getting the economy back on its feet. There’s nothing like economic uncertainty to prevent a family from having a second or third child.

Triumph's "Dwindling Birth Rate Countermeasure" brassiere (少子化対策ブラ). Don't know about you, but it works for me!      ◉ improving the access to affordable daycare for working mothers. Daycare for anyone but the coddled civil servants and public employees who can enroll their children into publicly run day-care institutions more easily than others tends to be rather expensive. It can cost as much as ¥60-80,000 per month, or a quarter to half of a working mother’s salary.

      ◉ giving long-term financial support to families with young children, such as free healthcare, larger tax credits for those with children, grants for education, and so on. France did this, and has the highest birth rate among EU nations (save randy Ireland). It took twenty years, however, of continued support to get that birthrate up.

      ◉ encouraging Okamoto and other prophylactic makers to produce defective condoms that leak or tear easily, thereby increasing the number of unplanned pregnancies. In the event that these companies refuse to cooperate, then government officials should be armed with fine needles and discharged to neighborhood convenience stores where they will tamper with the condoms.

      ◉ encouraging immigration, yes, immigration. Real, long-term, permanent immigration. (More on this in a follow-up post)

   Two, get the country’s financial house in order by

      ◉ raising taxes on the wealthy and inheritance.

      ◉ raising the consumption tax gradually over the next ten years or so.

      ◉ raising the retirement age and age at which benefits kick in, and cutting benefits to the wealthy.

      ◉ reducing governmental waste (more on this below)

      ◉ lowering corporate taxes which are comparatively high and creating other incentives to encourage companies to keep manufacturing and jobs in Japan.

      ◉ scaling back on Koizumi reforms that made it easier for companies to rely on part-timers and contract workers and has brought down wages and standards for many in Japan. You can’t expect consumers to buy the crap your company produces if they don’t have the money to buy it or the security to plan for it.

      ◉ lowering property taxes to encourage the purchase of homes and condominiums.

      ◉ giving more autonomy to regional and local governments.

   Three, reduce government waste by

      ◉ eliminating the todôfuken (都道府県) system which divided Japan into prefectures that had been based loosely on the feudal system of the Edo period. The prefectures ought to be combined, creating half a dozen states or shû (州) or regional administrative blocks, such as Kyûshû-Okinawa, Shikoku, Chûgoku, Kansai, and so on. This will prevent much of the wasteful duplication of projects that have blighted the Japanese countryside with airports that are seldom used and museums that nobody in their right mind would ever visit. The mayor of Osaka, Tōru Hashimoto, and his Restoration Party (維新の会, Ishin no Kai) has been trying to do this with Ōsaka.

      ◉ giving these new regions more autonomy in and responsibility over how public money is raised and spent.

      ◉ breaking up the all too powerful and often inept bureaucracy.

      ◉ reducing the number of Diet members by at least half and putting in place term and age limits.

      ◉ ending the practice where a politician benefits financially for projects that he brings to his constituency. I am not a fan of pork barrel politics and think that politicians should be forbidden from voting in favor funding projects for his constituency because of conflict of interest. The politician should, however, be able to vote against those projects which go against the wishes and needs of his constituents.

   I could go on and on, but then, what does it matter to me? I’m just a stupid gaijin.