Perspective: After the visit of the King and the Queen of Bhutan, the people of Japan particularly in the rural areas have shown growing interest in Bhutan. The “Bhutan Boom” or the explosion of fascination towards Bhutan started with the visit of the royal couple. They brought GNH (Gross National Happiness) to Japan, the alternative development paradigm instead of “economic and materialistic development”.
Between 1960s and 1970s, Japan achieved tremendous economic development as never seen before in history. During this period of accelerated development, it was roughly estimated that 500,000 people moved from rural to urban areas every year in search of work and education. Even though the figure is not large, migration took place continuously up until 1990s. This resulted in aged population in villages. To stop over-migration, the Japanese government tried several projects to remove disparity in facilities between rural and urban since mid-1960s. However, there seems to be no significant effect.
When the villagers were asked about the reason of depopulation, they blame economic reasons such as income disparity between rural and urban. The farmbased earnings from agriculture, forestry and fishery was not sufficient to match the income of the urban. It was the trend since mid-1960s.
Another problem was education opportunity. Though it does not mean there is no education infrastructure in the rural. The villagers want their children to go to famous schools and universities for their education so that they have advantage in the job markets in the urban. Most of the peasants in the villages find it difficult living only on income from agriculture, forestry and fishery. Parents generally expect their daughters to marry someone from urban places and their sons to be employed in the non-agriculture sectors including government jobs, companies etc. I understand this far too well as I am an eldest son of a peasant parent.
Except the opportunities of “good” income generation and “famous” education, Japanese government has successfully developed physical and social infrastructure in rural Japan, including roads, electricity, telephone, health services and other governmental services until early 1990s before the break of economic development in Japan. Therefore, almost all visitors coming from developing countries in Asia, e.g. Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Laos usually ask “Where are the villages?” when they visit the rural areas of Kyoto Prefecture, such as the Miyama-cho, the mountainous villages. There are paved roads and houses. But the visitors are surprised and ask, “Where are the children or the people?” In rural areas where the problem of depopulation is widespread and aged people are majority, everyone has raised the same question. At present, it seems that rural people of Japan are giving up on overcoming depopulation problem, because as mentioned before, any efforts by the Japanese since 1960s has seemingly not worked.
What failed in rural development in Japan? Nobody could provide concrete answer because while there were big gaps in physical and social infrastructure between rural and the urban in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, at present the difference is almost nonexistent. The infrastructure and facilities in the rural areas are almost same as the urban areas except income-generation and education.
However, income generation and education may not be the real reason behind depopulation. Nowadays the first immigrant-generation of the 60s and 70s who have migrated to urban region are enjoying the pension or retired life. There are very few who return back to their own village, where their old parent lives. These indicate that economic development including the physical & social infrastructure development may not be the real reason for immigration of the rural people.
It seems that the people involved in rural development in Japan have naively believed that economical or materialism life in the urban is better than the rural without consideration of the real value of living in the villages. The rural lives may be inferior in getting the high salary or large income and materialistic life of the urban but there is an entirely enriching life in the villages, one that exist in harmony with the natural environment. Before the event of depopulation, the landscape consisted of houses, farmlands, grasslands, forest, river, mountain and sea and they were main attraction to the outsiders in each locality, just as in Bhutan today. The beautiful rural landscape with local personality expresses an alternative “civilization”.
According to the book titled YUKISHI YONO OMOKAGE or “the image of the passed- Japanese world” by Watanabe (2005), written in Japanese, the culture can be defined as an element of the life style or social culture such as a behavior of a greeting like a bow in Japanese, but the civilization is the totality or system of lives and societies as a historical individuality supported by the specific cosmology or values and realization of the individual social structure, customs and life style, effecting the relationships of human beings with nature and living beings. Watanabe points out that a culture can sustain with transfiguration among the people but a civilization cannot sustain with transfiguration because of its characteristics. The transfiguration of a civilization means dissolution of the totality or systems of life and societies. Watanabe writes the disappearance of “Japanese civilization” by adopting the Western Civilization to catch up with the western countries’ economic development since the mid 19 century. This opinion is commonly shared by Japanese. However, it can be argued that this may not be the reason of the disappearance of the Japanese Civilization.
The reality of the disappearance of Japanese Civilization is that Japanese had wanted to catch up with the western or materialism life style or society rapidly without absorbing “Western Civilization” into “Japanese Civilization”. How did Japanese build the “Japanese Civilization” in Japanese history? The ancestors of Japan tried to adopt the Chinese Civilization such as Chinese Letters, Chinese Philosophies, Green Tea, etc and the Indian culture such as Buddhism through Chinese Civilization assimilating it to Japanese Civilization through time, not by replacing Japanese Civilization with another. The important point is that one civilization will not disappear if it will be “built” on the basis of totality or system of their own Civilization. The key word for adopt means not “Replacement” but “Build”.
The people concerned in rural development have naively tried to convert the rural into the urban. Therefore, the value of living in the rural areas in Japan has gradually lost the attraction even among villagers themselves. If the villagers are continuously told their life style and society is inferior to that of the urban, they will finally accept the criticism for their survival.
The King and Queen of Bhutan showed the real value of living in the rural places in Japan with an alternative concept of GNH. The CHII community development association of MIYAMACHO has adopted the declaration that the CHII community shall be the Bhutan in Japan in the annual report for 2011.
Rural development is not about the issue of the economic and materialistic development rather it is the issue of emphasizing the values and life of rural society. In this way, Bhutan is unique in the world for giving hope to the people whose life style and society are deemed inferior to the urban lives. From these views of rural development, Bhutan has an advantage in building the value of the civilization such as the rural life style. Most of the urban dwellers still have childhood roots and relationship with rural communities. Furthermore, the aged urban dwellers such as the retired government officials now begin to understand the advantage of rural lives and societies in comparison with their urban lives. If they can return to their own villages and live for several years after retirement to enjoy the rural life with their pensions and “discover” the real value of the rural lives, the young generation can open their eyes to the “Bhutan Civilization” by looking up to the examples shown by these retired government officials. It is a simple practice that has never happened in Japan. GNH should be materialized in this way too.
Contributed by Professor Kazuo Ando,
Centre for South East Asian Studies
Kyoto University
Japan
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