The largest town in the Ina valley, Iida (population 80,000), is a base point for the Ina valley traditions among the surrounding villages. But it is also strongly influenced by the Kansai dialect and culture coming from the west. To a small town deep in the mountains, it's like the birth of Atake Shigetoshi famous for his achievements in drama, during the time when Kabuki, Jyoruri and Shoga were successful. Compared to other towns in Shinshu, Iida is more worldly Epicurean, in terms of "Aesops Fables" they are the grasshopper, not the ant. A local friend who sells "Mizuhiki" strings wholesale explains Iida is more "convenience minded" in terms of its dialect.

In 1947 (Showa 22), about 4000 stores were lost to a conflagration. This destroyed the sort of lyricism a castle town usually leaves, but the basic character has not greatly changed. And so one part of the town criticizes, "if Yuni- and Seiyu come here they will wipe away the small shop holders; and yet there are those that welcome them in a carefree manner. It's dozei (dialect term).

The busiest street in Iida is the "Horibatadori" which runs along the edge of the moat of Iida castle. But like other places its called "Ginzadori" like the one it copies in Tokyo. The area that covers all 70 stores more or less equals the area of the soon-to-be-completed Yuni- (4000 tsubo). Seiyu will have an area of 2500 tsubo. According to the shop owners of Horibatadori, its total annual revenue is around 26,000,000,000 yen. Yuni- has the potential of having 5,000,000,000 in revenue and Seiyu can amass about 4,000,000,000. If that is so, they'll lose 9,000,000,000 yen in revenue and will drop to 17,000,000,000 yen. But what flusters everyone is that there will definitely be stores that will take serious hits and will have to close. There is absolutely no countermeasure.

The process that Yuni- came to Iida is like a cancer cell, absorbing and combining similar stores as it gets larger. It was only a couple of years ago that the "Seikawaya" store based in Nagoya absorbed the "Maruzan" clothing store in Iida. Now, the dry goods store "Hoteiya" from Nagoya is about to combine with "Seikawaya" to become Tokai Yuni- and have a branch in Iida. This is the full-scale invasion into Iida at present.

Seiyu's process into Iida, on the other hand, is to dump a significant amount of capital into a small city all at once. In the spring of 1972, without other stores having an idea, the restaurant "Dazaiho" was suddenly sold. It was the birthplace of Dazai Shuntani, a scholar from the Edo period. That's when the Seibu building began construction.

Both Big Stores advertised to local stores to become tenants in their buildings. But Yuni-'s conditions included money for the right to become tenants, rent, and 2 to 3 percent of the sales. Seiyu's conditions did not include money for the right to become tenants but included a floor price and 10 to 18 percent of the profits. In any case you had to be prepared for very burdensome exploitation. It seemed the Big Stores anticipated that locals would reject this and are waiting for those self-employed to be tenants as a strategy from the beginning.

What of the typical folks and farmers of Iida other than the shop owners. To them, it's become outspoken with pandemonium, a debate without merit. But to large crowds, the anticipation of lower prices is positive, but they are worried about the negative violence on an oligopolistic progress to a monopolistic enterprise. As people gather around the latter point, people disappear around the former, but unless you let the genie out of the bottle it's difficult to decide. The progress of supermarkets in America makes clear of what is certain to occur. Products become uniform and places pressure on local products which may eventually disappear. Even if the prices are cheaper, it doesn't restore the local community. Revenue is drained from the area and only contributes to the enlargement of the Big Stores. Something like a fixed income tax on the Big Stores will not offset the loss, so the local region is certainly robbed.

The observations that are made by the store owners however is not the main current of thought. The administrative director of the Iida Commerce and Industry Association anticipates a yearly revenue of 7,000,000,000 yen from both Big Stores. His sense is that, "without these supermarkets and department stores we can't become a large city". More accurately, the anticipation of enormously magnifying the commercial sphere will suck the consumers from the surrounding towns and villages to Iida, and increase the revenue. That means this is a major event to the shops of the surrounding towns and villages, and has become a huge topic for them.

In the town of Ina, Yuni-'s way of buying land was not a cheerful one and led to the creation of a organization against it, the "Ina Existing Traders Development Realization Union Society". The city council also formed an organization against Yuni-. But the comments around the area were that, "it would be a plus for the consumers" and instead of the organization against Yuni-, and a large number of signatures were brought to the mayor. At the end of the chaos, the situation was saved when Yuni-'s plan was insignificantly reduced. The person in charge from the Commerce and Industry Society optimistically stated, "consumers may buy only inexpensive products but through their personal relationships they will in the end return to the local shops."

In this way, the full scale invasion of the Ina valley began. Of course, in anticipation of the "invasion" plan of the opening Chuo highway to traffic.
 
 
 

HUNGER AND THE POISON MANJU
(ppg. 68-71)

As I change the subject to my hometown, the Ina Valley, I am shocked, along with its size, of how much I didn't know. Up until now, it goes without saying that this report has is only one recent cross-section. Even if the topography is left, we see the on going situation of the destruction of people and possibly the culture of the "Ina Valley"; but what's happening to the people of the Ina Valley is a real example of unfortunate relationships in other places.

For example, the relationship between the city people that come to the countryside to play golf and to the villas, and the village people, is very much like the relationship of the American military and their Japanese workers and Japanese town folk. Like the inconceivability that the central branch of an American base can order Japanese workers, it's also inconceivable that the housewives of the villages can play golf and then caddie for the men who come by car from Nagoya. The village children who see the children of the families that come to these country villas are like Japanese children who see the elegant lifestyle of the children of the American military families. Children that should be raised as majestic natural babies are being implanted with a sense of humiliation from childhood that will be difficult to wash away.

It's also like relationship between the foreign masters of a colony and their "slaves". Like the whites and Indians in America. Without a doubt, the people of the Ina valley are the "slaves", the Indians. And in reality, the Ina valley is simply only "one example". Every country resident and culture is becoming a "slave" or an Indian.

In passing, along with the opening of the Meiji period, every major change in the past has not brought about the tumult over "development" under this high growth policy as a exterminating blow of humanity itself. Moreover, the isolated villages that are more vulnerable to this blow have the tendency to be inattentive. There once lived a Shinshu novelist, Maruyama Kenji, from the Asato village in the Ina valley. He once wrote, "the city people know it. Their lives at present is not a happy one. But the village folk don't know this. The real happy life is the one from the past." [Asahi Journal, January 26, 1973]

The words "from the past", definitely does not mean vermin running amuck or a time with small pox or in other words "rejecting civilization". The words "from the past" means a time when there was a sense of a full filling life, without human estrangement or destruction. Observing this, on the topic that city people can't be anything but victims, Professor Adachi Seigaki of Shimane University points out the following ñ

"The reason why city people increasingly demand more of nature is due to the worsening of their living environment in the city from pollution and population density, and unable to endure the condition of estrangement from others in an administrative society and an information-ization society. They look for nature, they demand more greenery and take actions that are anti-urban. To say it simply, the high growth of the economy, a high population density society, the formation of an information and administrative society, with the unstoppable force of capital and a results oriented society leads to, on the one hand the destruction of the farmlands, and on the other, the progress of population, pollution and an estrangement from others." ["'Village' and the destruction of humanity" volume, Shobo- 31]

The phenomenon of estrangement is like starving someone in a cage and feeding him a poison Manju. Even after becoming dependent on oil by following a high growth economic policy which made it difficult for the agricultural and fishing villages to survive, companies with bundles of money come to the farmlands, the mountain and forests, and the coast for their "clam fortune-telling'. The starving village people devour the poison Manju. At first a little sweet, but on reflection they are deprived of Mother Earth and Father Ocean which had truly supported them, as they becomes slaves to big business.

This diagram can be seen not only in the Ina valley but all the provinces in Japan, and fits unadulterated with the relationship of foreign Japanese corporations and their "slaves" in South East Asia. Until now, this report until has placed responsibility on people in the towns and villages for allowing this diagram to foster. Their ignorance is by no means the core of the problem, in reality it is without a doubt the central government's policy and structure.

On the present so-called "oil crisis", the golf courses and country villas are in terror, old people clap and from their inner heart and remark, "there you see". Middle aged folks remark, "this is good medicine for the young" as they remember the years at war, and even the main artery of the "invasion", the construction of the Chuo highway, has become dull. Is this a one-time phenomenon, or is this an early omen for huge changes to come?