Gaijin Head Of Dying Kyushu Village

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]WSJ: The American Who Manages the Decline of a Japanese Hamlet
Jeffrey Irish, a 48-year-old American, is the unlikely village chief of Tsuchikure, a remote farming hamlet in Japan's southern Kyushu island. The tall, even-tempered Californian got the position because he satisfies the post's main requirements: He hears and sees well. In Tsuchikure, where the average age is 77 (if you don't count him and his family), that makes Mr. Irish one of only three residents qualified for the job. He spends his days keeping track of the physical and mental decline of the 24 elderly longtime residents of this wilting Japanese village...The remaining villagers have made a remarkable choice: Rather than try to come up with ways to lure new residents and keep the town alive, they have pretty much decided to let it disappear slowly, even as they do themselves...more...

"The Forgotten Japanese: Encounters with Rural Life and Folklore" by Jeffrey Irish

[GuyJean]

Interesting story.. Kudos to him. If he isn't an ultimate FG, not sure who is..

This belongs in Random Gaijin thread..



GJ

[FG Lurker]

This belongs in Random Gaijin thread..

That's quite the harem he's got there...

[Tsuru]

Quite a story...

I tried looking for the village on a map but could't find it... kanji anyone?

[Yokohammer]

If the details are all exactly as stated, this guy certainly gets my respect. His kind of dedication to service is just too rare. Paid a pittance to do it, too. If he carries it through to "the end" he's a saint.

[Kanchou]

Those inaka jap women don't age well, do they.

[nottu]

[james]

[Greji]

Those inaka jap women don't age well, do they.

I'd do 'em!

[Samurai_Jerk]

I'd do 'em!

Cradle robber.

[Kanchou]

Crypt keeper's more like it.

[Samurai_Jerk]

If the details are all exactly as stated, this guy certainly gets my respect. His kind of dedication to service is just too rare. Paid a pittance to do it, too. If he carries it through to "the end" he's a saint.

Since when does helping stubborn old Japs maintain the status quo qualify one for sainthood?

[xenomorph42]

Quite a story...

I tried looking for the village on a map but could't find it... kanji anyone?

It's like the Smurf village, you gotta keep looking!

[Yokohammer]

Since when does helping stubborn old Japs maintain the status quo qualify one for sainthood?

That's IMO SJ. I doubt that the Catholic Church would agree, and you don't have to either. But that's my "unofficial" opinion.

[Samurai_Jerk]

That's IMO SJ. I doubt that the Catholic Church would agree, and you don't have to either. But that's my "unofficial" opinion.

I'm not talking about official Catholic sainthood. I'm saying that this guy isn't really doing anything great. If he wants to dedicate himself to a cause, why not one that's worthwhile? Helping a village of old inbred farts that is still living in the Meiji Era remain an isolationist backwater is nothing to be proud of.

[Kanchou]

He just needs to get power of attorney from all of them and wait about 10 years. He'll make a KILLING... so to speak.

[Taka-Okami]

[floatr][/floatr]WSJ: The American Who Manages the Decline of a Japanese Hamlet
Jeffrey Irish, a 48-year-old American, is the unlikely village chief of Tsuchikure, a remote farming hamlet in Japan's southern Kyushu island. The tall, even-tempered Californian got the position because he satisfies the post's main requirements: He hears and sees well. In Tsuchikure, where the average age is 77 (if you don't count him and his family), that makes Mr. Irish one of only three residents qualified for the job. He spends his days keeping track of the physical and mental decline of the 24 elderly longtime residents of this wilting Japanese village...The remaining villagers have made a remarkable choice: Rather than try to come up with ways to lure new residents and keep the town alive, they have pretty much decided to let it disappear slowly, even as they do themselves...more...

"The Forgotten Japanese: Encounters with Rural Life and Folklore" by Jeffrey Irish

Who does this dickhead think he is? Some kind of hero?

I bet more than half of the people on this forum have better/more intersting stories to tell than this loser.

[Yokohammer]

I'm not talking about official Catholic sainthood. I'm saying that this guy isn't really doing anything great. If he wants to dedicate himself to a cause, why not one that's worthwhile? Helping a village of old inbred farts that is still living in the Meiji Era remain an isolationist backwater is nothing to be proud of.

I think you have to look a little beyond the old farts themselves to see what I'm seeing, but even if you focus on the villagers I think it's a noble cause. I fail to see what's not worthwhile about it.

In terms of worthwhile-ness, in addition to the obvious benefit to the villagers there's some serious FG PR value here. Here's an FG who isn't skinny dipping in the imperial moat, isn't stealing cars and bicycles and shipping them off to foreign lands, isn't running a black note scam, isn't conjuring away money under the noses of convenience store staff, isn't peddling drugs, isn't joy-riding the carts at the Tsukiji fish market ... etc etc ad-nauseum.

What Jeffrey Irish is doing will have strong positive resonance with the Japanese. As a group I think we need a lot more of that if we even want the slightest hope of being treated as anything more than a marginal annoyance here. If I'm only speaking for myself, that's fine too.

There's also the experience and understanding he is going to take home. That can be the basis for creating a bit more understanding between cultures, and as idealistic as that might sound to some, I believe it's worthwhile.

[Taka-Okami]

I think you have to look a little beyond the old farts themselves to see what I'm seeing, but even if you focus on the villagers I think it's a noble cause. I fail to see what's not worthwhile about it.

In terms of worthwhile-ness, in addition to the obvious benefit to the villagers there's some serious FG PR value here. Here's an FG who isn't skinny dipping in the imperial moat, isn't stealing cars and bicycles and shipping them off to foreign lands, isn't running a black note scam, isn't conjuring away money under the noses of convenience store staff, isn't peddling drugs, isn't joy-riding the carts at the Tsukiji fish market ... etc etc ad-nauseum.

What Jeffrey Irish is doing will have strong positive resonance with the Japanese. As a group I think we need a lot more of that if we even want the slightest hope of being treated as anything more than a marginal annoyance here. If I'm only speaking for myself, that's fine too.

There's also the experience and understanding he is going to take home. That can be the basis for creating a bit more understanding between cultures, and as idealistic as that might sound to some, I believe it's worthwhile.

ROFL. Sounds like you have just graduated from an Arts degree. If this bloke really was a do-gooder, then he'd be working with the homeless or something. He's been in Japan for a long while and has lost the feeling of being the Charisma Man. All he is doing is trying to be quickened once more.

[GomiGirl]

I think that lots of people are being a bit harsh about this story. A few tall-poppy syndromes going on here.

It was just meant as a human interest one and perhaps as a promo for his new book.

I say, anybody who is happy to live in butt-fuck-inaka and doing a job like this, deserves a bit of press. It is good PR about an FG actually doing something worthy and what is interesting is that there are towns like this that are dying off.

If anybody else has an interesting story I am sure you can get covereage as well.

[CrankyBastard]

I guess some of us FGs have become pretty jaded over the years!!!!

[FG Lurker]

I think the guy deserves kudos for the positive contributions he is making to the community where he has chosen to live. That his actions also reflect well on FGs in general (a nice change from the moat swimmer mentioned above) is a nice benefit for all of us and my thanks go out to Mr. Irish for generating some positive FG press!

[GuyJean]

.. and my thanks go out to Mr. Irish for generating some positive FG press!

Totally agree. He writes a column for the local paper, but has he been written up in other Japanese press? It's the locals we need to impress, not us FGs.

GJ

[Mulboyne]

...has he been written up in Japanese press?...

He seems to have popped up quite a lot in the local press whereas that WSJ article is the first time I've heard about him. He's also contributed columns about his life to a local Japanese newspaper in Kagoshima. Up until now, he was mainly known only to the foreign academic community and not the average FG.

I don't think Irish wants to be seen as a saint and he doesn't come across as a misguided do-gooder either. It's pretty clear that his primary interest is in the old folk tales and way of life of Japan's rural communities and that's what led him to the village. His activities in Tsuchikure grew out of that. There are a lot of worse things he could be interested in.

The WSJ piece also mentions that a reader fell in love with him through his newspaper articles and they went on to marry so he has gained a wife and child from the experience so far. The last line of the feature quotes him saying that he may have to leave the village to look after his family so I don't think he's necessarily planning on going down with the ship.

[Yokohammer]

I don't think Irish wants to be seen as a saint and he doesn't come across as a misguided do-gooder either.

Can we just put this "saint" thing into perspective, perhaps?

Jeffrey Irish is a saint according to the YCS (Yokohammer Criteria for Sainthood), which of course are rigorous criteria that apply when someone does something that the aforesaid Yokohammer personally considers to be really nice ... and worthwhile. It helps if the niceness doesn't appear to be a pretext for self-aggrandizement.

I probably shouldn't have dropped the weighty "s" word in this context, but let me just reaffirm that I think Mr. Irish is performing a noble service that may very well have positive reverberations for FGs in general. If he gets a book or two out of it in the process, then more power to him.

I, for one, am grateful, and within the admittedly modest confines of the Yokohammer mind, Mr. Irish retains his YCS approved "saint" status.

So there.

[Number11]

Kudos to anyone offering a little help to anyone these days. There, but for the grace of God...

[Mike Oxlong]

Seems Mr. Irish is a contributing editor at Kyoto Journal.