Ichiro's Mission: Revival of a Farming Community

Ichiro at Narita (from Nikkan Sports News)

Back in 1998, a young athlete named Ichiro played for a Japanese baseball team known as Orix. The star was admired by a group of high school kids in a vicinity called Yanagidani in Kanoya City, Kagoshima prefecture on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. These boys dreamed of watching him playing in Tokyo Dome stadium.

The village of Kanoya, on the other hand, was a typical farming community where young people left for urban areas, and the biggest population was retirement age folks. It seemed like a community that would one day in near future become extinct.

A leader of the community who had no way to stop the departing young people one day suggested, "Hey, why don't you go and see Ichiro by earning some money and making the trip to Tokyo?"  The kids started farming sweet potatoes. A land which no longer had people to farm was donated for the purpose. Since kids no longer worked in the fields, they didn't know how to grow sweet potatoes. Both active farmers and retired citizens helped the kids.

They made some profit from the sweet potatoes -- it was enough to get the kids to Fukuoka Dome stadium in Fukuoka, which is in the biggest city in the Kyushu island, instead of Tokyo Dome. The Ichiro mission of those kids was completed; it also presented a shining opportunity to the community. They saw they could do something to possibly revitalize the community and prevent a loss of residents. They tried different original products. The entire community participated in this mission.

Kagoshima is the capital of Shochu (claiming "a capital" since other places claim it too), one of Japanese' favorite alcohol  -- it is a distilled spirit made from rice, wheat, buck wheat, potatoes, etc. It is well known that Shochu from Kagoshima is made from sweet potatoes. The community of Yanagitani started producing Shochu from the sweet potatoes. It was originally grown for starch in the Ichiro mission. The brand name is Yanedan (the picture in the left). They gradually added other locally made products. Their touching attitude and modest locally made products won a few different community competitions. They divided the profit of the Shochu among the community members since all worked for that. The community was talked about in news and TV shows as "a village which pays a bonus".

Take a look. I want to show you the community and the products but this is the best image I could find on the Internet. I could hardly surf around in their text-only oriented blog style website. You probably can tell how commercial they are. Their site is www.yanedan.com.

One of their original products is organic compost from their livestock. Their local bacteria does something to it and it reduces the odder. It grows their organic vegetables and is used for other purposes too. Municipal governments from all over in Japan now come to learn now this industrious little community made such an ideal revival. They offer empty houses and buildings for artists to move in. Artists sell their art in the community store; young people once left the community returned, invited several families of the tsunami last year.

The area of Kagoshima has no railroad. This made the area isolated from contemporary conveniences therefore young people left. But the trend is changing. People pay extra for getting safe food and non-industrial commodities. Human nature fought back and it made the community one of the pretty getaways in Kyushu and elsewhere. Visitors enjoy browsing around the new artist workshops, and buying organic veggies, water and Shochu. I think (sorry, not many information available) it is not the business they run but in a near-by public bathing facility; their water is heated by burning trash. The water is mineral spring but the temperature isn't high enough so the trash burning heat is used. This way of using the same source for heating both the bath and swimming pool is pretty common in Japan. It is not their original idea at all but it fits their organic and community-oriented concept.

Here are their cornerstone ideas, called the Ten Articles of Creation School:

1. Laugh during hard times.
2. Always discover human treasures (human resources).
3. Respect everyone's opinion.
4. Pass and teach information to others.
5. Don't do it by yourself. Do it with 100 people.
6. Adopt the viewpoint of children and the wisdom of the old.
7. Support the successes of leaders who will lead the next generation.
8. Move other people by tears and sweat.
9. Put soul into each word.
10. Recharge the community with your own strength.

We'll report more about this amazing success during our next Japan trip. So we will be seeking help from the community to provide an accommodation for us when we visit!

As a big sports fan, I say it's a beauty of heroes. They move fans by working hard and doing what they are good at. Without a baseball hero like Ichiro, the first step might have never been taken.  It's another good job on Ichiro's part, though he probably he doesn't know about this. Even non-sports fans know and can applause.  The regular outfit of him like the above photos by the way, although it makes news in Japan every time he returns, uhh... well... no comment.
 

Hideki Matsui Announces His Retirement From Baseball

Here is big headline about another Japanese baseball player. In New York yesterday Hideki Matsui (松井 秀喜), two-time All-Star and former World Series MVP with the New York Yankees, announced his decision to retire from baseball.

This is kind of a meaningful story to me because I got to watch his career take off when I first lived in Japan. In the early 1990s I remember watching him on Japanese TV when he was still in high school, playing at Koshien Stadium at the annual summer baseball tournaments. He was obviously a rising star in baseball; everyone watched and talked about him. I just didn’t know at the time that he would become an admired athlete in both Japan and the United States.

Matsui was born on June 12, 1974 in Neagari, Ishikawa, and grew up playing baseball with his older brother and friends.  He was such a good hitter that his brother made him bat left-handed. Matsui then became an overpowering left-handed batter, though he would throw a baseball with his right hand as an outfielder.

Matsui was recruited by Seiryo High School in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, a Honshu Prefecture school known for its high profile baseball team. During his high school years, Matsui played in four National High School Baseball Tournaments at Koshien Stadium.  In 1992, he drew five intentional walks in a game at Koshien. This was quite controversial. The intentional walks were thought to be unsportsmanlike. The strategy was effective though; Matsui's team lost that game and was eliminated from the tournament. His reaction to the intentional walks made the news. It was reported that Matsui was calm and emotionless.  He didn’t take it personally.  His demeanor was highly praised by everyone – fans, tournament officials, and news reporters.  At the end of the tournament, someone with the High School Federation stated all students should model Matsui's good attitude. After high graduation he ws drafted by the Yomiuri Giants, led by the great manager Shigeo Nagashima. He played on the Giants team for ten years.

In December 2002 Matsui signed on with the New York Yankees. In his first game at Yankee Stadium, the 2003 home opening game, he hit a grand slam home run - the first Yankee ever to do so.  He played with the Yankees for seven seasons and did very well.  On August 5, 2007 Matsui became the first Japanese player in Major League Baseball history to hit 100 home runs. In the summer of 2008 Matsui began to experience knee pain. From that time on, the physical issue affected his ability to play.  He eventually signed three consecutive one-year contracts afterwards, with the Los Angeles Angels, the Oakland Athletics, and Tampa Bay Rays.  Over his career, it is estimated he has earned $84 million in salary over 10 years in the United States, in addition to ¥2.3 billion ($27 million) paid to him by the Giants over 10 years.

The Nikkan Sports paper in Japan wrote about Matsui in its morning edition just before the announcement. This paper said in a headline that Matsui was due to "bring Godzilla II to the Giants," making a joking reference to the nickname "Godzilla" that he was given while playing for that team a decade earlier.

Hideki Matsui remains a famous and revered sports figure among baseball players and fans, especially at home in Japan. Many hope he will one day manage his former team, the Yomiuri Giants. We’ll have to wait and see what his future holds, including whether the Giants will lure him back into the game with a prized leadership role. Talking about his decision to leave the Major Baseball League and the United States, Matsui's father Masao, 70, said his son had "nothing to regret as a baseball player with such good results."