Reporting on Japan: From dairy to demographics
3 July 2024
How are Kiwi scientists helping their Japanese counterparts when it comes to volcanoes? Or dairy farming? To answer these questions (and more) journalist Alexa Cook and camera operator Richard Cooper from Newshub travelled to the country to find out. Their travel was supported by an Asia New Zealand Foundation media grant.
“I think the Japanese have let it go for too long, and so they tend to have arrived at it at a crisis point,” is what Emeritus Professor Paul Spoonley told me - he says New Zealand has much to learn about Japan’s population crisis. I interviewed Spoonley before we left New Zealand and his words stuck with me for the duration of our 10 day trip as we learnt more about Japan’s challenges.
I was travelling with camera operator Richard Cooper, and we had four very different stories to film - from demographics, to dairy farming, the Ainu-Māori relationship, and the explosive volcanic history of Japan.
Our first stop was the island of Hokkaido. Checking on to a domestic Jet Star flight proved challenging as they wanted Richard’s camera to measure no more than 56cm in length for carrying onboard, something we’ve never had an issue with - so he whipped off the battery and other attachments to get it down to size.
A Jetstar employee checks the size of Richard Cooper's camera.
We landed in Sapporo and drove out through the countryside to the small village of Nibutani. We met Kenji Sekine at the Ainu Cultural Museum, and learnt about how the Ainu people are using Māori language techniques to revitalise their language. I was struck by how the two cultures are so similar - the pieces of cookware, tools, weapons and textiles in the museum were very similar to historic items from the early days of Māori in New Zealand.
Interviewing Kenji Sekine at the Ainu Cultural Museum.
Just 0.1 percent of Japan’s population identify as Ainu, but Kenji tells me that’s partly because the people have been discriminated against for so long that many Ainu choose not to register themselves officially. It wasn’t until 2019 that Japan’s government officially recognised Ainu as an indigenous people of the country.
"They are struggling to survive their culture and language," Kenji told me, and I could see from his pained expression that revitalising their language meant so much to him. Kenji has been working with Dr Ruakere Hond in Aotearoa since 2013, learning about Te Ataarangi language method of immersion, and it’s proved very successful as he now has a group of people who can converse for over an hour in Ainu, without needing to speak Japanese.
Over his many visits to New Zealand he’s been impressed and inspired by the number of people speaking Te Reo, and the number of kohanga reo and kura kaupapa.
“My dream is to make a kindergarten, where everything happens in Ainu," he said.
Ruakere Hond said the relationship between Māori and Ainu, which dates back 100 years, is a very special one and he enjoys helping them revitalise their language.
"They're like part of our whanau - our extended whanau of using art, but also of language revitalisation.. and we look up to them. Every one of them is hugely courageous. Brave in every sense of the word because it's super difficult to revitalise the language. It's not easy," he said.
An interview on a dairy farm in Hokkaido.
From Nibutani we drove through torrential rain and over a mountain pass to reach the rural farming area of Yuni to film another story. The weather could not have been worse, but fourth generation dairy farmer, Baba Satoshi, was very pleased to see us and show us around his property. He didn’t speak any English, however his farming consultant Kenji Takada was able to translate for us, and he was very interested in my upbringing on a dairy goat farm in New Zealand - asking many questions about how the system worked.
Japan’s farmers are struggling with costs, as the conflict in Ukraine is pushing import feed prices too high.
“It's a difficult situation for the farmer," he said.
When we interviewed Fonterra’s head of sales in Tokyo, Kenichi Hada, several days later he explained that with a declining number of Japanese farmers, New Zealand is filling the gap.
"We want the Japanese government to increase the total amount of imports going forward, in light of the decreasing milk production in Japan," he said.
Fonterra’s head of sales in Tokyo, Kenichi Hada, being interviewed.
From Hokkaido, we headed south to Tokyo where the rest of our trip would be based, and I found the hectic bustling streets such a contrast to the rural quietness of Hokkaido. One of the key issues I wanted to learn more about in Japan was the demographics, and Prof. Michael Cucek from Temple University was the perfect person to explain it to us. Japan has the world's oldest population, with nearly 30 percent of Japanese people now aged over 65 years. Since the 1970s there have been more deaths than births and Cucek said this led to a population decrease of 800,000 people last year.
“Like a catastrophe is happening, but it's a natural catastrophe that's been in preparation for more than 50 years,” he said.
Alexa and Richard at Temple University with Michael Cucek and his students.
I wanted to know whether Japan Government’s efforts to encourage women to have families had worked, and so I interviewed three of his students. Interestingly all three told me they wanted children, but that the demanding work culture of Japan was a big handbrake.
"It's hard to meet someone, get married and start a family" said Juri Tanaka.
And if Japan’s youth are struggling to find a partner, let alone have children, then this is a concern. And Paul Spoonley warns that New Zealand needs to prepare now for similar problems.
"Immigration becomes our major, population policy," he said.
A key observation from filming in Japan is that they are very respectful and love their rules. We had many instances where people politely told us we couldn’t do something, such as setting up for a live cross on the steps near Shibuya Scramble - a policeman asked us to move on, I negotiated another five minutes, but when he returned exactly five minutes later and we weren’t finished, he moved us on.
On a different day we were filming crowds from Starbucks’ window and they came to tell us to leave, although when we queried why other camera were allowed to stay they said ours was ‘too big’ and he politely insisted we remove ourselves.
The crew get a talking-to from a Starbuck's employee about the size of their camera.
The final stop on our trip was Izu Oshima Island to meet Kiwi volcanologist Chris Conway and his Japanese colleague Kiki. We took a jet foil ferry out to the island, which is 100km off the coast of Tokyo, and it was a nice change of scenery from the chaos of the capital with Mount Fuji looming out one window and endless blue ocean out the other.
Conway is working for the Geological Survey of Japan, because there are 111 active volcanos there, compared to just 12 in New Zealand. His findings will help kiwi scientists predict future eruptions, and is a clear example of the strong scientific collaboration between our two countries.
We hope our coverage has helped demonstrate the many ways in which Japan and New Zealand can learn from each other and collaborate on everything from science to farming and language.
Banner image: Alexa (centre) and Richard Cooper (right) interview Kiwi volcanologist Chris Conway.
- Asia Media Centre