After a couple of jam-packed days in Tokyo, I took the opportunity to make a trip up to Aomori, the northernmost prefecture on the main island of Honshu.  I have a strong personal connection to Aomori, as it is where my wife was originally from and where both of our children were born.  It felt a bit weird visiting her hometown without them all in tow…but it did made for a very peaceful and enjoyable 3.5 hour Shinkansen ride.

I wanted to get a bit of a perspective on Japan’s changing demographics from somewhere that is being more adversely affected by it.  Tokyo was clearly chugging along quite well on the back of a huge construction boom in the lead up to the 2020 Olympics, and was attracting much of the young talent from across the country, so I couldn’t sense any real concerns about population decline.

Aomori Prefecture is a very mountainous and heavily forested part of a Japan.  The name in fact translates directly to ‘Blue Forest” (For some reason Japanese often use the colour blue to describe the colour green…I’ve never worked that one out…though I guess we do have the Blue Mountains near Sydney!)

Anyway, I made my way to the small town of Ottomo where I spent the night with my in-laws.  Ottomo is a rural community that was founded on the back of the post war foresting industries, though as with most parts of Japan no doubt has some human history dating back thousands of years.  It is one of a number of townships that make up the collective local government area known as “Tohoku Machi”.  The total population of Tohoku Machi is currently around 18,000.  The municipality itself was formed through a merger of 4 smaller municipalities around 13 years ago when the collective population was about 23,000.  This of course was in itself a symptom of a shrinking population and rising costs making it unsustainable for the smaller municipalities to continue to operate independently.  

As with most parts of Japan, there has been a steady decline in population for many years now.  This is mostly through the migration of younger residents to other parts of Japan (like Tokyo), coupled with families having fewer children.

While the average population decline of 384 people per year since 2005 may not seem too horrible, it is very consistent and is having visible effects on the community, which are starting to snowball.

The number of vacant shops is gradually increasing, as too is the phenomena of ‘Aki-Ya’ (literally vacant or abandoned houses).  With less children, there is less capacity to provide services for them the way they have in the past, which compounds the problem of people growing up and wanting to get out of there as fast as they can.

The biggest thing evidencing this was a project to merge 4 small primary schools into one larger one.  The positive element of this is a large construction project and some modern facilities for the children to utilise.  It will also co-locate the new primary school next to the relatively new junior high school that went through a similar process a few years ago.

The negative is that there will be longer commuting times for many children and their families and for the small communities where the schools will close, there will be one less key local  facility.  More importantly, it is a direct cut in the lineage that helps connect many people to their hometown.  Knowing the Japanese, there will be great efforts made to keep the connection, but it is still a very tangible and visible disconnect.

I had a good yarn to my in-laws (Ken-san and Keiko-san) over a lovely meal of assorted sashimi (and a few cheeky beers to help loosen the communication channels a bit).

They were both born and bred in the local area and both spent the majority of their life working for the local council in various roles, with Ken-san retiring as the equivalent of a director or general manager in Australia.  With Ken-san now in his early 70s and Keiko-san not too far behind, they too are adjusting to a post-retirement lifestyle.  In their case, the system at the time required them to retire at 60.

Post retirement they have both continued working in various part-time jobs, while being able to receive their pension payments.  Both are still in great health and are typical of many retired Japanese, who possibly have another 30+ good healthy years ahead of them.

On the topic of population decline in rural areas, there is a bit of a ‘Shikata Nai” (there’s not much that can be done about it) mind set and people are aware that things will never be the same as they were with the post-war population boom.  However if things are done cleverly, and resources are used wisely (such as the school amalgamation) there will still be thriving, healthy rural communities.  The key will be to ensure there are meaningful employment opportunities for people.

Ken-san told me about a nearby Nuclear Power Plant facility in a town called ‘Rokkasho’, 30kms away.  The facility is a 24 hour operation that directly employs several thousands of people, with highly skilled and well paid roles available.

The flow on economic impacts of a facility like that no doubt help many of the small towns in the area to remain economically viable.

In a similar way, the USA airforce base in nearby Misawa-city has a similar effect of helping stimulate the local economy and supporting employment.

Both the base and the nuclear power plant clearly have fairly significant potential risk factors.  The deafening roar of fighter planes cracking the speed of sound as they carry out practice drills does disrupt the peace and serenity a bit, and the mention of any nuclear facility conjures up images of the Fukushima plant melt-down disaster.  However, for the rural communities of eastern Aomori, it appears it is a price people are comfortable to pay in order to maintain a healthy local economy and way of life.

It is also helping to support the trend of ‘U-Turn’.  This is a term given to Japanese people who leave their hometowns for study and employment in the big cities, who then make the decision to return to their hometowns for a simpler way of life.  Having job options and some hope for ongoing sustainability of the community clearly helps with the U-turn decision.  Indeed, many rural municipalities have identified the promotion and facilitation of U-Turn as a key pillar of their ongoing viability and are putting resources into attracting U-turn talent back from the major cities.

You’re only as old as you think you are! – Over 70’s Baseball

Another reason for me visiting Aomori was that I’d heard that Ken-san would be playing baseball, in an over 70’s competition.  By coincidence the game also fell on a national public holiday called ‘Kei-Ro no Hi’ (Day to respect our elders).  I tell you what….I came away from that day with a truck load of respect!

The energy and exuberance displayed would put many kids’ teams to shame.  The pitchers were throwing bullets, the batters were clobbering balls to the far fence, and they were all sprinting around without any apparent fear of pulling hamstrings, or popping calf muscles (something that I as a relatively healthy 40 year old often have to contend with when exercising these days!).  The game was part of an Aomori Prefecture play off series and the winner would advance to the next play-off game. 

While it was all played in good spirits, there wasn’t one person on the field that didn’t want to win and from a distance I honestly couldn’t tell if they were 30 year olds or not.

Ken-san said that he thinks this group of players will keep going and form an over 80s team when they get old enough.  I was left with no doubt they would. 

(For the record Ken-san’s team won convincingly 10-2!)