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Back-Tracking: A Path tothe Future in Regional Japan

By Adam Fulford

I periodically lead a “mindful tourism” activity in Tokyo called theWalkshop (www.walkshop.org). Participants typically gather at theentrance to Meiji Shrine, and over the course of about 45 minutes,
referring to some East Asian ideas about the “path” or “way”, westroll through human history in the direction of a better future.
The Walkshop can be held in any location where participants areable to move around together (which is why this workshop is calleda Walkshop), but a place commemorating the Imperial couple who
presided over the transformation of Japan in the 19th century does
offer excellent opportunities to reflect on the march of humanprogress as we proceed on our journey to the shrine.
By the time we reach the main shrine buildings we have covered a
lot of ground, both spatially and conceptually. We have discussed theemergence of language, agriculture, and civilization; consideredvarious tools and forms of guidance that enable us to achieve ourobjectives; reflected on good and evil, war and peace, nature andculture. And we have contemplated the essential need for a sincerecommitment to truth at every step on life’s journey.
It was 1981 when I embarked on my own personal andprofessional journey in Japan. Along the way, I have formed an ideathat Japanese behavior is shaped by what I call “a mind for theother”. This is not to be confused with altruism. There are countless
instances of ostensibly altruistic behavior all over the world. In
contrast to altruism, “a mind for the other” is based on a strictly
utilitarian awareness that it is easier to get something done if you
have access to relevant expertise and experience. If we are sensitive
to, and can draw freely on, diverse kinds of wisdom, we will be better
positioned to identify ways to move efficiently and effectively
towards our goal.
I started thinking seriously about the community value of “a mind
for the other” in 2014, when I first went to Nakatsugawa, apicturesque village of 280 people in the mountains of Yamagata
Prefecture, as a judge for a “beautiful village” contest. Since then I
have been working to identify new paths to a thriving future withlocal residents, and I have come to see regional communities suchas Nakatsugawa not just as hidden gems for international visitors,
but as points of departure on the path to a future of greater resilience
for all of us.
On my walks to Meiji Shrine, I have noticed that people like tokeep moving towards a destination. If you come to a dead end on
any path, you have to retrace your steps and find a new way forward.
But when we perceive that the path to our destination lies open
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/

Author Adam Fulford

before us, we resist the idea of going back.
So your first reaction to my main proposal in this article may be tofeel that you are being asked to take a step in the “wrong” direction,
but I would like you to consider that “back-tracking” in the Japanesecountryside is actually a great way for us all to move forward. By
retracing our steps — from past to present, from village to city, and(in the case of rural Japan) from sustainability to decline — I think
we will discover something of priceless value: a path to a better
future.
Who can serve as our guides? Often, it will be elderly men andwomen, people whose stories do not generally attract muchattention. Accordingly, very few people know the Japan that theyknow: Japan at its cultural source.

The Death of Japanese Culture
The Japanese population is shrinking by hundreds of thousands ofpeople each year. Not enough babies are being born to make up forthe annual population loss that results from death, and many small
communities around the country now have few or no children. One
telling statistic: Japan has more cats and dogs than children under
15.
Hand in hand with that, Japan’s population is increasingly elderly.
Already, more than a quarter of the people in Japan are aged 65 andover. Another telling fact: the market for adult diapers in Japan is
now worth more than the market for baby diapers.
Meanwhile, Japan’s younger people are generally attached tourban lifestyles. Tokyo is one of the few areas in Japan where thepopulation is (for now, at least) still rising and the economy isstrong.
One reason why Tokyo is still so lively is the growing presence of
foreigners. Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward is an extreme example of thecity’s internationalization: in January 2018, the percentage of foreign
nationals among new adult residents of the ward (those reaching age20) hit 45.8%. For Tokyo as a whole the figure was roughly one ineight new adults.
Should this demographic trend continue, in a few decades Tokyo
will be an East Asian equivalent of London or New York. In such afuture, Tokyo may continue to be an outstanding place to live andwork — but perhaps only if Japan’s standout qualities, including its
excellent service culture, safe streets, low crime, cleanliness, public
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be conserved as well.
Where do these qualities come from? I suspect they are modern
urban manifestations of behavior that emerged many years ago inregional Japan. But aging and depopulation now threaten thecommunities that I regard as the wellspring of Japanese culture.

Local Wisdom
Regional Japan showcases tremendous ecological, biological,
agricultural and other forms of variation in a compact land area.
Around the country, communities large and small also cope withcapricious weather, dramatic seasonal contrasts, natural disasters,
climate change, policy decisions and demographic upheaval.
Such kaleidoscopic variety has come to define Japan for me. It is aland of extraordinary regional diversity. Places like Hokkaido andOkinawa stand in obvious contrast to each other. But Hiroshima isalso very different from Yamagata. And both of these prefectures arequite distinct from Kumamoto. Kumamoto’s Mt. Aso is utterly
different from Mt. Fuji. Even within a prefecture, the scenery may
change greatly from one area to another.
Depending on where you live, wild boar, deer or rabbits might be
the main threat to your crops. In Nakatsugawa, it’s monkeys. But just
10 years ago, they had no problem with monkeys.
Seventy years ago, children in Nakatsugawa were still going into
the mountains twice each morning to gather hay for the cow that
produced manure for the family’s fields. By 40 years ago, the cows
were gone, the mountain paths were overgrown, and people wereusing commercial fertilizer on their fields. An understandable change,
since that eliminated very hard work. Fast forward to the present day,though, and I find myself wondering if convenience may also haveeliminated local identity, or at least undermined it.
The need to clear deep snow in a place like Nakatsugawa makes
winter a very demanding season even now. But all over Japan, thetoughest parts of everyday life have disappeared as convenience has
spread. Professor Ryuzo Furukawa of Tokyo City University seescause for concern in the fact that people have grown accustomed toever-greater levels of convenience in everyday life, not just in Japanbut in many parts of the world.
Looking at various danger signs for the human race, Furukawa
came to think that one day we might all have to cope with lessconvenience. He decided to find out more about how people once
lived without today’s conveniences, and realised that in Japan he wassurrounded by experts. He asked hundreds of men and women aged
90 and over about their childhood years in the Japan of the 1930s,
when typical life circumstances were anything but convenient.
Through their stories, he was able to identify some key factors inmaking a tough life not just bearable, but even enjoyable.
Furukawa distilled 44 hints for coping in the absence of
convenience, and I’ve found that when I show one or two of theseideas to an older person in a place like Nakatsugawa, he or she will
52 Japan SPOTLIGHT • January / February 2019

start talking about what the community has lost. One example:“Ways to help each other”.
All over Japan you will find elderly people who can speak about
dying customs that once contributed significantly to local community
resilience. These customs could be valuable to the future resilienceof the global community, and to our understanding of how we should
behave as members of that community.
As of 2018, Japan has roughly 70,000 people aged 100 and over,so there is no shortage of people to approach. But we have a windowof only perhaps 10-15 years to gather the most valuable information.
This window of opportunity is short for two main reasons. Firstly,
people belonging to generations born after World War II grew up ineconomic, political and social circumstances that were entirely
different from those experienced by the generations born before thewar. Many took advantage of new opportunities to move away fromtheir home villages in regional Japan, and few returned.
This leads to the second reason: even if some younger membersof a community have picked up the torch and become experts on
local practices, the villages themselves are disappearing. The
merging of municipalities and a drop in tax revenues associated withaging and a decreasing population are making it less and lessfeasible for local governments to serve small, remote villages.

Decline of Japan, Inc.
Here’s what one woman in Nakatsugawa wrote (in English) on a“map to the future of the village” that she had drawn: “No people, noleaders, no capital”. Nowadays, those words echo in my head as I
engage with local communities and explore possible future paths
with them.
But those challenges are by no means confined to remotevillages. Companies of every size in Japan are finding it increasingly
difficult to attract, and then keep, appropriate employees. They havetheir own “no people” headache, and that pain is likely to intensify as
the years go by. With the population decreasing, it ought to berelatively easy for young Japanese men and women to find a job thatsuits them. But automation and digital solutions are not the only
contemporary factors working against that optimism.
Many young Japanese these days are relatively uninterested instudying abroad. Paradoxically, this has come at exactly the time
when international experience would seem to offer a huge potential
payoff in the context of employment. There will always be room in
any Japanese company for graduates of top institutions, but asJapanese markets shrink, and more companies seek profitable ways
to engage with markets outside Japan, home-grown employees will
increasingly find themselves working alongside (and competing forattention with) cosmopolitan individuals who understand how to getthings done in an international business context.
From the viewpoint of company and employee alike, there would
seem to be an urgent requirement for expertise in cross-cultural

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Article 3communication. This is a massive topic with many facets, but here I
would like to focus on just one: English language ability. A person
who feels comfortable speaking English with people from around theworld is ticking off one of the basic requirements of a firm seeking
staff who are creative, resourceful, versatile, and sensitive toinclusion.
Wouldn’t any company want to hire people with those qualities?
Especially as employees of that kind might help to address thesecond challenge: no leaders. The “no leaders” problem seems
almost ubiquitous across Japan. Based partly on what I haveobserved in the regions, I suspect that this phenomenon may arise
when the most competent members of a shrinking community
become too busy. It’s a business truism that if you want to getsomething done, you ask a busy person — the idea being that busyness is an indicator of competence. But beyond a certain point, evenan extremely competent person can become so busy that they end
up overloaded and incapacitated.
If the “no people” problem could be solved, maybe the “noleaders” problem would be somewhat alleviated. But the “no capital”
problem is more intractable. While small communities desperately
need new businesses, if no one is willing to invest in a start-up there,
the barriers to its success may be insurmountable.
This reluctance to invest strikes me as one surface manifestationof a nationwide fear of risk, and I believe this fear is actually aby-product of the very same “mind for the other” that once served asa solid foundation for community resilience. I will return to thistheme later.

NowHow & Win-Win
What circumstances drove so many people in Japan to live inharsh environmental circumstances in small isolated communities?
It’s a difficult question to answer. But the fact is they did, and inmany cases the communities functioned sustainably for centuries.
In a place where snow would fall all winter and starvation was aconstant threat, it was vital to know what each member of thecommunity could offer that might boost your own chance ofsurvival, and to identify anyone whose actions or attitudes could
potentially jeopardize the interests of the group. I suspect that “amind for the other”, both its positive and negative aspects, originatedin this pragmatic outlook.
During the Walkshop, I explain that the phrase I use in Japanese
for the concept of “a mind for the other” is aite-wo omou kokoro. I
suggest to Walkshop participants that this thinking has nurtured
much of what the world perceives as “the Japanese national
character”, and I urge them to get off the beaten track and explore
regional Japan for themselves. And yet increasingly these days I am
finding that they need no encouragement from me; they already haveplans to go there. In fact, more and more free independent travelers
are venturing beyond Tokyo and Kyoto in search of unique andrewarding experiences.
It has been estimated that it takes eight foreign visitors to Japan togenerate the equivalent consumer spending of one Japanese
resident. This makes foreign visitors a vital avenue for generating
new flows of money. In many cases, English speakers are in thevanguard of “deep Japan” explorers. This is an especially welcome
development for the government and host communities, because
long-haul Oceanians, Europeans and North Americans tend to spend
more time and money in-country than do travelers making theshorter hop from Japan’s neighbors in Asia.
A frequent challenge for visitors to a remote community is thelanguage barrier. In a small village, almost no one will speak English.
Moreover, residents of remote locations often find it difficult to knowwhat foreign visitors might want to do in the local area. What many
visitors do in fact want to do is go beyond conventional touristy
experiences and engage more meaningfully with the hostcommunities. Community-based tourism and “voluntourism” areincreasingly valuable aspects of the travel business.
This is where another initiative of mine comes in: it’s called
NowHow. NowHow is an expression that I came up with to convey inEnglish another deep Japanese cultural value: ichigo-ichie. This is aconcept from the tea ceremony, and reflects the idea that now is the
only time when we can do anything; each moment represents a
unique opportunity, and so we should aim to make the best possible
use of it.
NowHow is an event and an encounter, bringing together threeconstituencies: local communities seeking access to new ideas thatmight help them to address the debilitating effects of “no people, noleaders, no capital”; companies seeking employees who areinclusive, resourceful and speak English; and English-speaking
visitors seeking rewarding interaction with members of a local
community.
NowHow is designed to satisfy all of those requirements. In its
simplest form it is a three-day weekend in Nakatsugawa, with acorporate sponsor paying for promising young Japanese employees
to learn how to communicate more effectively in English.
On Day 1, the trainees learn what Nakatsugawa has to offer. This
involves speaking with members of the community, an activity that
also adds to the database of local knowledge that I am building. At
the end of Day 1, trainees stay at farmhouse B&Bs, where they learn
more about local culture and cuisine.
On Day 2, foreign visitors arrive. So far, I have found various ways
to bring English-speaking visitors to Nakatsugawa, but in the future I
am hoping that a company such as Terrie Lloyd’s Japan Travel will behandling this part of the business. The trainees show the foreign
visitors around in English.
Then on Day 3, the trainees and the foreign visitors brainstorm thefuture of the community. To get a sense of what these weekends are
like, please access the video via the QR code under the photo of the
trainee (Photo 1). This still image is from Day 1, when the trainee
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Photo 1: Matt Schley (image from video)

Photo 2: Adam Fulford; illustration: Jasmine Fulford

A nervous trainee on Day 1 of NowHow. (Please use the QR code to see a 5-minute video about
the event.)

Video: Matt Schley

seemed convinced that he could not communicate in English. In thevideo, however, you will see that within two hours of meeting theEnglish-speaking visitors on Day 2, he is confidently showing themaround the local biomass plant.
Local festivals are one focus of the Day 3 brainstorming sessions.
Nakatsugawa has snow festivals in the summer and the winter. The
winter festival in particular involves a lot of lifting, assembling anddigging — activities demanding the energy and stamina that young
people typically have in abundance. So for the last two years I havebeen arranging trips for groups of about 10 university students from
Tokyo to take part in the winter snow festival as volunteers. (Theyalso spend several hours clearing snow from around an elderly
person’s home.)
NowHow activities and brainstorming sessions have resulted invarious ideas for souvenirs and local products that can be sold togenerate travel funds for these students. One popular item thesedays is coffee that has been matured in Nakatsugawa’s snow
storehouse (Photo 2).
My aim in 2019 and beyond will be to continue to use
Nakatsugawa as a springboard for the nationwide implementation of
the NowHow initiative. What I have done there has already made it
possible for me to start considering similar activities in Kumamotoand Hyogo prefectures, but my ultimate aim is to access knowledgeof practices that will help us identify new paths to regional well-beingaround Japan.
I believe this knowledge may one day benefit people incommunities around the world and also in larger Japanesecommunities, such as Tokyo. Since WWII, urban Japan has come tosuffer from a negative aspect of “a mind for the other”. Many
sedentary Tokyoites dwell on how they are seen by others, a
54 Japan SPOTLIGHT • January / February 2019

Limited edition coffee (coshall.stores.jp) that has been matured in a snow storehouse in
Nakatsugawa. Profits help to cover the travel costs of student volunteers supporting the winterSnow Festival.

tendency that may have been exacerbated by social networking
platforms. The result, however, is that people end up choosing thepath of (perceived) least risk and greatest group conformity, rather
than taking active steps to engage with others and improve life foreveryone.
In the years ahead, Tokyo will almost certainly become a cultural
melting pot. But by then, the locations where the true diversity within
Japanese culture can currently be experienced will mostly be gone.
We will have only big cosmopolitan cities and a number of bland (butalso increasingly cosmopolitan) regional cities and tourist resorts
where the unique life experiences and practices that used to exist ineach area have faded to vague memories. The smallest communities
may no longer exist.
This is why, in a related initiative that I plan to advance beginningin 2019, I will be aiming to showcase in the heart of Tokyo the
distinct identity of different regions of Japan, a city that I am hoping
will one day be regarded as the world’s top destination for local
cultural conservation and global cultural interaction.
But to reach that point, first we must back-track to the Japanesecountryside and explore the many opportunities there to access thepast, present and future. There are very few risks on this path andnumerous potential rewards, so let’s get walking. Now.

Adam Fulford is CEO of Fulford Enterprises, Ltd., and has lived in Japan for
37 years.