Rikuzentakata:
Dreams Go Global
While the majority of public works projects are still in the planning stages, the large commercial facility and library that opened this year have made waves among locals.
This April, Abasse Takata became the first large commercial facility to open since the disaster went public.
Located in a central part of town, a 12-meter embankment on a 90-hectare plot is where this, the largest-scale reconstruction project thus far, was built in the newly zoned area.
In the local dialect, “Abasse” means, “let’s go together.”
The site has restaurants, a bookshop, and a supermarket, for a total of 21 tenant stores.
The library adjacent to the shopping center opened in July and was visited by 20,000 people in just one month.
When I visited the library, the use of natural materials throughout left a comforting impression on me.
Looking up, you see a pillar made from Iwate pine trees and a ground of Kesen cedar trees. Being in this space fosters a relaxed mood.
It is a space in which anyone, not just readers, would feel at ease to spend a meaningful and relaxing moment.
According to staff at the library, they have close to 1,800 books on the subject of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
The reconstruction plan for Rikuzentakata is based on three core pillars and aims to create a “coastal capital in which people live in tandem with the ocean, the forest, and the sun.”
These three pillars are:
1) “creating a beautiful town that we are proud to show the world;”
2) “creating a town in which healthy people grow and form ties;” and
3) “creating a vital, dynamic town.”
After taking a tour of the construction and development plans underway and seeing how the infrastructure is going up in Rikuzentakata, Takanori Obayashi of the Rikuzentakata Policy Planning Department spoke to me about the “soft” side, or intangibles.
Mr. Obayashi was formerly involved in a project in support of Africa with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). In his university days, he visited Rikuzentakata and was charmed with the area. After returning home from Africa, he chose to move to Rikuzentakata.
Having experienced life abroad, he is one of the most vocal people in sharing the story of Rikuzentakata with the world.
Mr. Obayashi says, “By connecting with the world, we have the potential to create a momentum that could stimulate the local economy. At the same time, it will lead to more residents with a global outlook and way of thinking, globalizing the region itself.
Each year, the number of inbound travelers to Japan is increasing by 1M or more. Yet in Rikuzentakata, we have just 500 people a year. We aren’t even on the map yet.
The immediate issue we face is how to attract more visitors from abroad. Japan is promoting a measure to revitalize tourism in Tohoku through inbound demand, but there are still the unique particularities of the area to take into account.
It is by no means easy.”
The Visit Takata Project was selected by the Japan Tourism Agency in 2015 as among the “attractive tourism projects making use of local resources.”
Mr. Obayashi says that when they first proposed the project, the concept of inbound tourism still did not have the popular vote here, and people reacted dimly.
However, many people changed their way of thinking through a certain episode that Mr. Obayashi himself was enthusiastic about.
A training ship with the Oceanic Systems Department of Takada High School was struck by the tsunami, but it traveled beyond the Pacific Ocean to reach the coast of Crescent City, California in April 2013.
This led to Takada High School and Del Norte High School in Crescent City becoming sister schools, with students from each school mutually visiting the other school on an exchange program each year.
Mr. Obayashi said, “Through ongoing interactions like these, we can get more people to interact with those from overseas.
This will lead to net benefits for the city, which I am already starting to see. Gradually, we have seen not only young people, but students and their parents, civil servants, local residents, and others increasingly come out in support of these international exchange programs.”
He added, “In this way, Rikuzentakata is offering itself up as a place for learning, research, and disaster prevention training. We are exploring more ways of external interaction and exchange, among them the interpreter-guide program. We want to engage with the world.”
Mr. Obayashi says that, while the number of overseas visitors may still be small, the infrastructure is already in place in Rikuzentakata.
The local interpreter-guide system launched as part of the national “special zones for structural reform policy” has already succeeded in certifying four English-speaking and Chinese-speaking interpreters as of this February.
This is the first case of this in all of Tohoku’s six prefectures. Through them, the news of the reconstruction is being conveyed to the world. The area hopes to foster increased international exchange and communication.
Shimotomai, the only Chinese-language guide in the area, married into a family in Iwate in 1999, coming from eastern China.
She now lives in Ofunato, the town adjacent to Rikuzentakata. She had this to say:
”I used to often bring the children to play on the beach.
There was a lodge there for students, and my children stayed there in elementary school. So I had very fond memories of this area.
While the area was stricken by this disaster, it is still my home.
The rhythms of this rural life are now a part of me. I hope we can contribute to international exchange as a town.”
During my visit, I frequently saw the way in which locals actively promoted to others the features of this area.
In the afternoon, Hiroshi Sasaki, proprietor of local restaurant Rikumaru, enthusiastically introduced me to the Hota-Waka Platter. The Hota-Waka, taken from the first parts of the words for scallops and seaweed, which are local specialties, features both of those products in one set.
Local food and drink purveyors have formed the Rikuzentakata Scallop and Seaweed Dish Promotion Committee to encourage use of these local items, with the Hota-Waka platter being served at four restaurants.
Hirotaka Koeto had this to say: “Rikuzentakata has sought to engage the world, and it is in the midst of changes.
In 2016, 137 organizations and 2,637 people from within and outside Japan took observational trips of Rikuzentakata. Of these, 23 organizations and 205 people came from overseas, or 8 percent of the total.
We are also gradually seeing more and more private homes being rented out for travelers, to the tune of 108 overnight facilities. 30 of these cater to overseas guests.
Rikuzentakata is making clear strides towards reconstruction.”
Writer Sun Hui
Japan-based journalist born in China’s Henan province, Sun is mainly in charge of coverage, articles, and compilation relating to Japanese-Chinese economics for “中文導報” (Chinese Review Weekly), a Chinese newspaper with a circulation of 80,000 in Japan.
