

The American Who Manages the Decline of a Japanese Hamlet - cwan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126056499927587793.html

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drinian
_Mr. Irish moved to Japan in the 1980s after studying the language and history
at Yale. He landed a job at Japanese construction firm Shimizu Corp. in Tokyo,
rising through the ranks to become a vice president in the New York office.
But he wanted to see a different part of the country: the vestiges of "Japan
of the past."

He left Shimizu and moved to a fishing village of 1,000 people in Kagoshima
prefecture at the southwestern tip of Kyushu. He spent the next three years on
a fishing boat catching mackerel, sardines and squid, an experience he
described as "an anthropological field study."

After publishing a book about life in the fishing village, Mr. Irish landed a
job writing a column, in Japanese, for a local Kagoshima newspaper. Having
decided that he wanted to live in a farming community, he hopped on a scooter
and rode around the prefecture until, in 1998, he came across a hilltop cabin
with breathtaking views in Tsuchikure._

Always good to see someone make a career out of being interesting.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Since the prefecture owned the property, he negotiated with government
officials a yearly rent of 2,500 yen, or $28_

What

~~~
patio11
Many of the rural Japanese prefectures will give property away for a song just
to get you to live there. My previous job (technology incubator in central
Japan) had a deal with the government where we got housed in the apartments
normally used for government employees. My rent was $20 a month -- which
"skyrocketed" to $60 in my second year.

Think of it as the modern Japanese analog to the Homestead Act.

It makes excellent sense to the prefecture: they have the property whether
someone is living in it or not. If renting it out (free to them) induces one
professional at the margin to live there, they get roughly ~20% of his wages
in taxes and much of the remainder gets spent in the prefecture.

P.S. If any of you want to start a startup in Central Japan, and have some way
of finangling your own visa, I can give you the forms to essentially make you
ramen profitable for two years by government fiat.

~~~
ricosroughnecks
I'd like to take you up on the offer for the forms. Tokyo is getting old, and
I find the city quite depressing; wouldn't mind spending some time in the
country side. Are you in Japan at the moment?

~~~
patio11
Yes, I live in a sleepy town in central Japan and have for the last five
years. Please feel free to email me -- my address is easily discoverable.

~~~
notauser
How hard was it to organise a visa?

My brother has been living in China on short term tourist visas for close to 5
years. In the mean time he has built and sold one (non-technology) business
and claims not to feel worried about the possibility that one day they will
stop letting him back in despite substantial real assets in the country.

I'd been considering it, but in my case everything I own is easy to transport
across borders :-)

------
kulkarnic
Somehow, this reminds me of an Asimov tale. A planet called Solaria, in fact:

The Solarians specialized in the construction of robots, which they exported
to the other Spacer Worlds. Solarian robots were noted for their variety and
excellence. They also exported their grain, which was used to make a delicacy
known as the pachinka.-- from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria>

No offense to the Japanese of course; all I'm saying is fiction is often an
extrapolation of stuff all around us.

