Communication and relationship-building with local residents

The renovation of the house was done and it’s time to think about concrete plans on how to use them. I live and work in Tokyo and the houses are located in a less-populated village (10 hours and 300USD for a return trip from Tokyo), I have to find new users outside from the village. Then things are coming up: how to get along with the local community. I can invite someone, but nobody will visit the houses on a regular basis, if the ambience around isn’t good.

In the first place, I myself am an outsider, though my mum grew up in the village. At the offset, I organized: 1) a small event for introducing the tea house last September; and 2) a workshop to collect the memory of the village last December. More precisely, I proposed but practically Mr. Matsuda, an expert of the local authority organized them. Such ambiguity in the organization is a result of the fact that, even though local authorities value the spontaneous actions by private figures, most residents put their trust in the public sector. If I had organized it alone, nobody would have joined.

INTRODUCTION EVENT

The first event was held on September 7, 2021, just after the completion of the renovation. The planned agenda was: 1) small talk on the renovation by the construction company; and 2) visiting the tea house. But the expert served as a facilitator, and it became a workshop with 40-minute discussion.

The goal for the introductory event was to show my willingness to communicate and respect residents. 15 people joined in total, but there were included my relatives, members of the Oyodo study group for paleography, and the construction company staff. From the village, incumbent deputy head and a former head of the village joined. I can’t say it was successful, but with bravado, there's much point just in organizing it and circulate the invitation among residents.

Apparently residents had a kind of suspicion that their cozy and quiet living space might be spoiled by new-comers. I was on a chair in the center of U-shaped desk arrangements to operate a laptop and a projector, sometimes feeling like in the defendant seat.

If I were in the U.S, Europe or other Asian countries, it could be effective to share a rosy vision and provoke a hope for positive changes. But I don’t think it works in Japan. To get my foot in the door, I tried to relieve them by saying “I won’t do something beyond your assumption.”

THREE MONTHS LATER...WORKSHOP FOR MEMORY RECOLLECTION

The 90-minute workshop was held to collect reminiscences of residents on the village by chatting and watching old pictures and maps on December 18, 2021. The head of the village and Mr. Matsuda put extra effort into inviting community members. Thankfully, 8 people participated in addition to others in office. Ms. Yoshida, Local Vitalization Cooperator also joined. For Local Vitalization Cooperators, please see below. 
This time I just served as a note-taker. They talked about defunct stores, religious events, and the generations older than them. 

Here’s a story on the outcome. My uncle had found an old picture which was taken in front of the tea house before the workshop. A toll woman in the last row center is my great-grandmother, born in 1904. Our relatives know neither who are the other ladies nor on which occasion they took it. When I sought out for information on the photo, participants said one after another: “the second from the left is XXX’s grandmother”, “The leftmost is YYY.”
After the meeting, I contacted a relative of XXX, Mr. Okita. Then he conveyed my inquiry to mum of XXX (88 years old). Now, I could say: 1) It was taken somewhere between 1940 to 1945-46; and 2) the ladies were from different families, at least four. Maybe they took the picture at the gathering of local women’s society.

LOCAL VITALIZATION COOPERATORS

“Local Vitalization Cooperators” program is launched in 2008 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. It encourages migration from cities to rural areas by: 1) Local authorities with dwindling populations receive Local Vitalization Cooperators for one to three years; and 2) The national treasury supports the municipalities for their salaries and costs for their start-up activities (up to approx. 45,000 USD for every cooperator per year), among others.

A lot of municipalities use this program and about 5,500 people are working in 1,065 organizations under the program as of 2021. The Government lays out a target to increase the cooperators to 8,000 by the end of FY2024.

By the way, some municipalities seek foreign cooperators, though the Japanese language skill is essential in almost all cases as recruit information is available only in Japanese: https://www.iju-join.jp/chiikiokoshi/

POSSIBLE LIFEHACKS FOR FOREIGNERS

I often hear stories on foreigners who settled in remoted areas in Japan and have difficulties in building good relationship with residents. It doesn’t come from xenophobia, because even I, a Japanese whose mother belonged to the community, have the same challenges more or less. You may wonder why people is so clannish and don’t welcome new-comers with open arms, though the community needs more members.

In a favorable light, they have developed optimal modalities of their community, and actually they’re implemented perfectly. It couldn't be more comfortable. And it must be very costly to reconstruct the community rule. I could say they are on alert sometimes excessively toward newcomers.

With all these matters in mind, here are possible lifehacks for foreigners. 

1) Japanese language skill is inevitable anyhow, unfortunately...

2) It takes time to settle down and it’s better to play the hypocrite in the beginning, for example by avoiding blue jokes. It might be irrational, but Japanese tend to be forgiving of bad behaviors of familiar people, whereas very strict with strangers.

3) If available, leverage the credibility of the public sector or nonprofit organizations. Sadly, some Japanese have insufficient compassion for private individuals struggling alone. If you are eligible for an interesting job vacancy, the title of Local Vitalization Cooperators will smooth the relationship. Or, JET program is more common among foreigners: http://jetprogramme.org/en/ 

4) It’s absolutely my personal motto, but act based on an assumption that the patriotism toward their home village deserves persistence and the accompanying self-defense is a healthy reaction, even when I’m not sure actually.

I don’t wonder that some foreigners don't want to live in Japan so far as assuming such a subservient attitude. But I hope some of them are acceptable.