Wired and Wonderful
The Web Brings New Life to a Japanese Village
By Mark Litke
The Internet has given the mountain village of Yamada, Japan, a new lease on life.
Y A M A D A, Japan, March 19 — The small, remote village of Yamada is hardly where you would expect to find cutting-edge technology. But the farmers and pensioners who live here claim to have the most wired community in Japan.
Thanks to a few technophiles and a government grant, nearly every home, school and office in Yamada is linked by high-speed lines and video conferencing. It’s all connected through the village’s central server — a cyber version of a town square.
Nobu Tanaka, 83, used to have trouble changing channels on his television set. Now he has his own Web page and chats with friends and neighbors via his Web video phone. He even uses the Web for medical purposes, sending his blood pressure and vital signs to his doctor via computer.
Villagers can manage their businesses, improve their education, gossip with their neighbors, and fight off loneliness during the long winters. The most popular village event this winter was weekly sessions on Web site construction.
New Lease on Life
What’s remarkable is how the connectivity has revived the village’s fortunes. A few years ago, Yamada’s future seemed bleak. As in many rural areas in Japan, most of the village’s young people were moving away for better opportunities, leaving only the elderly.
Now Yamada’s elementary school is one of the most high-tech classrooms in the country. The Web-savvy 9- and 10-year-olds say they can’t imagine ever wanting to leave.
For the first time in decades, Yamada’s population has stopped declining, and outsiders are moving in.
One family, the Tshibashis (Ishibashis), moved to the village after two years in the United States. The Tshibashis (Ishibashis) arranged for their new home through Yamada Web sites, where they also made new friends and got involved with village life, well before they arrived.
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interesting, i’ll be back later