Slow Life Can Be Good: Japan Shows How

In Iwate, in the north part of Japan, the governor has been re-elected for three years for his pro-relaxation campaigns. Many people are relocating here from Tokyo.

At a certain point Hiroya Masuda said: let'stop giving it up. A strange attitude for one who is the boss of one of the largest Chinese provinces, Iwate, in the north part of Japan and who says such things in fron of a stagnating economic situation, and with such a large public debt to have any politician fired.
Masuda has resisted instead. The second thig, that then he decided to say was: we will not move a finger to change. Apparently with the face of an arrogant, ignorant, crazy, a looser by all means. Nothing further from truth: last year the governor has been re-elected for the third time with 88% of the votes.

 

 

People are bizarre too. Or maybe they are waking up, who knows: fact is that what people like about Masuda, are not his little round glasses and his smooth rounded face, but his political programme: Come back home early in the evening, do a nice walk in the woods with your families, talk and discuss in the city districts, open your eyes on the mountains and vallleys of which Iwate is full, cook yourself a good salmon from our own waters, breathe the breeze blowing between the red pines.

No jokes: since three years Masuda writes these things in his very contract with the Iwatese, and the pro-relax campaign costs him four hundred thousand dollars a year.

Future plans: wooden houses in place of Tokyo's skyscrapers, woods pride rather than profit-driven life ethics. Masuda, who was indeed born in Tokyo over 52 years ago, and who there graduated in Law knows what he is talking about when he talks about profit.

Fact is that he sees profit inside slowness and pausing, not inside the rush and obsession of the city capitol.

"People in Tokyo are run after by speed, and life is made up of working, eating and sleeping", explained to the Wall Street Journal the governor who on the province own Internet web site adds, mentioning poets and the cultural and spiritual progress inspired by the good will of the local nature, that "I would like there was a different vision for things in Iwate".

The will is comforted not only by the response of the local ballots, but also from the thousands of emails that arrive to the governor from every part of Japan to sustain his fourth political campaign. Like the email from a forty-two year old woman from Tokyo: "Iwate seems to me the right place to give up on work: I feel like unloading a real heavy weight".

In the past, even average Japanese workers who devoted their lives to a corporation could prosper. "If you graduated from college and worked solidly, you would reach an annual salary of ¥10 million," about $90,000, says economist Takuro Morinaga, author of a shelf of downshifting bestsellers with titles such as "It's Cool to Be Poor." But now that not everyone gets rich, "They think, why should they work themselves to death for their company?" he says.

The same logic applies to regional economies. Poorer areas used to believe they could catch up with Tokyo living standards, and the central government helped with generous handouts. But this aid has been slashed, and while the urban economies are taking off again, many provinces remain stalled. Iwate people earn less than 60% of what people in Tokyo do, and the prefecture has debts of about $9,000 per citizen.

Actually, the most enthusiastic anti-effort people are former city-dwellers who have rushed to Iwate to lead the slow life - people like the governor himself who used to work for the national government in Tokyo.

Tetsuya Watanabe, a former publishing company employee, now grows flowers and vegetables on a picturesque 2.5-acre farm surrounded by mountains, woods and rice paddies. Mr. Watanabe, a philosophy graduate, says "no effort" means living a more fulfilling life, closer to nature and away from the economic pressures of the city.

Mr. Masuda says that instead of just goofing off, the "no effort" is about rethinking values. He thinks the no-effort campaign has given locals confidence in the things they have - pleasant scenery, traditional pottery and natural foods -so they focus less on the things they lack. "There is more pride in the region and its culture and history," he says. "Young people's thinking will change, and they will stop yearning for Tokyo."

From an original article in the Wall Street Journal
by Sebastian Moffett
June 30th 2004

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