Japan (Lonely Planet, 11th Edition) - Chris Rowthorn [28]
In the Country
Only one in four Japanese live in the small farming and fishing villages that dot the mountains and cling to the rugged coasts. Mass postwar emigration from these rural enclaves has doubtless changed the weave of Japanese social fabric and the texture of its landscape, as the young continue their steady flight to the city, leaving untended rice fields to slide down the hills from neglect.
Today only 15% of farming households continue to make ends meet solely through agriculture, with most rural workers holding down two or three jobs. Though this lifestyle manages to make the incomes of some country dwellers higher than those of their urban counterparts, it also speaks clearly of the crisis that many rural communities are facing in their struggle to maintain their traditional way of life.
The salvation of traditional village life may well rely on the success of the ‘I-turn’ (moving from urban areas to rural villages) and ‘U-turn’ (moving from country to city, and back again) movements. Though not wildly successful, these movements have managed to attract young people who work at home, company workers who are willing to put in a number of hours on the train commuting to the nearest city, and retirees looking to spend their golden years among the thatched roofs and rice fields that symbolise a not-so-distant past.
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ECONOMY
The Japanese ‘economic miracle’ is one of the great success stories of the postwar period. In a few short decades, Japan went from a nation in ruins to the world’s second-largest economy. The rise of the Japanese economy is even more startling when one considers Japan’s almost total lack of major natural resources beyond agricultural and marine products.
There are many reasons for Japan’s incredible economic success: a hardworking populace; strong government support for industry; a strategic Pacific-rim location; infusions of cash during the Korean War (during which Japan acted as a staging point for the US military); and, some would say, protectionist trade policies. What is certain is this: when free-market capitalism was planted in the soil of postwar Japan, it was planted in extremely fertile soil.
During the 1980s the country experienced what is now known as the ‘Bubble Economy’. The Japanese economy went into overdrive, with easy money supply and soaring real-estate prices leading to a stock market bubble that abruptly burst in early 1990. In the years that followed, Japan flirted with recession, and the jobless rate climbed to 5%, a surprising figure in a country that had always enjoyed near full employment.
The early years of the new millennium saw a strong economic recovery in Japan: in the last three months of 2006, the Japanese economy grew by an impressive 4.8%. There was talk that Japan had finally escaped from the curse of economic stagnation (the so-called ‘lost decade’).
However, it was not to last. The world economic crisis that started with the collapse of a housing and credit bubble in the USA in late 2008 had dire effects for Japan, which traditionally depended on America’s spendthrift consumers to keep its factories running. Japan’s exports in January 2009 fell an astonishing 46% compared with a year earlier (including a drop in exports to the USA of 53%). The results were predictable: Japan’s economy contracted at an annualised rate of over 12% in the last quarter of 2008. As this book goes to press, unemployment in the country is climbing fast and Japan is running a trade deficit for the first time in years. It’s too early to tell what effects this will have on the country, but one thing is certain: it’s going to be a time of change for Japan.
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POPULATION
Japan has a population of approximately 127 million people (the ninth-largest in the world) and, with 75% of it concentrated in urban centres, population density is extremely high. Areas such as