Thank you. Good morning, everybody. As was introduced, I am from Omi Hachiman City in Shiga Prefecture. I work in the City Office, and my Division is Policy Promotion Section. In April there was a reform in our organization, and this section is a newly developed one, only two or three months since the launching of this new section, in which only three people work for the policy promotion. And for the overall city of Omi Hachiman we are making this assignment. So I am here as the Policy Promotion Section representative, so some people might wonder why a person in Policy Promotion being in this seminar, but up until April this year I was in the Planning Division, so, so-called "machizukuri" or "community development" was the major stay of my assignment prior to this office.

　All in all, I might be quite aware of various aspects of the city of Omi Hachiman. The time is fairly limited, 30 minutes, but I would like to do my best to present the city and the city undertaking.

　The name of Omi Hachiman might ring some bell; it is in the center of Shiga Prefecture, along Lake Biwa this city is located. In Lake Biwa there is only a city called Okinoshima. It is an inhabited island in which a fishing village is situated. More recently this Okinoshima has been limelighted with a lot of tension coming from outside. It has a rare value that has been identified. So this is quite in line with the subject we are addressing. So focusing on tourism, how can we revitalize that island and also the community altogether, that is my assignment.

　Freshwater fish is available, but the problem is that they do not keep fresh so long. In the seawater fish can survive quite a long time, but after one day the freshwater fish is not fresh any more. But an experience-oriented fishing is now promoted as the village vitalization initiative, and we have been making a lot of approaches. Up until recently, for the past three years we had some initiative in which three primary school students were invited and stayed in their home, then they can go into the Lake in a boat which is run and operated by a fisherman, and they can observe what the fishing activity is. It was very impressive and they were really thrilled by this experience. When going back home, those students and children talked about their experience. And sometimes parents say: he used to dislike fish, but after that stay in that island, he loves fish. Why? Fresh fish is really excellent in flavor, and of course if the fish was caught by yourself, you would really love it, and you can appreciate every bit of the flavor. So I was involved with that program, so in various aspects of the community we can develop this initiative of tourism-based community development.

　Now I will give you the outline of Omi Hachiman so that you can have an overall picture. After that I would like to touch upon specifics of our initiatives. In Osaka, Kansai dialect is quite pervasive, but in our city Omi Hachiman dialect might be the dialect, so you might find it rather peculiar when I talk. I give my speech in my dialect. But if you are not so clear, please ask questions about my presentation.

　This is the JR station of Omi Hachiman City. The angle of this picture taking is a bit of problem. Although you might not see it so clearly, the new town area is now being developed. In this picture, towards the background of this picture there is a newly developed commercial zone. Although you might not see it so clearly, when actually the picture was taken, which was last year, that particular zone was not so well presented, but it is quite a large commercial area in the city. As was mentioned by Prof. Nishimura, who knows a lot about our city, the former city was about 2 kilometers more towards Lake Biwa, and that was an old town of Omi Hachiman where a lot of merchants' residencies were tidily and also neatly arranged. But this is the nearby area of the JR station, therefore, it is 2 kilometers away from the old town. During the Meiji Era, Tokaido Railway was launched by the National Railway of Japan. Until that time or before that time, 2 kilometers away from the city center it was situated, so it was right in the midst of rice paddies; so, right in the midst of the rice paddies there came the train station. But in the nearby town the station was in the very center, and the people living outside Omi Hachiman often said that people in Omi Hachiman are stupid: why do you have the train station so outside of the city center? That's why you have decay of commerce and everything. But more recently, we realize the wisdom of this location. Because the station is away from the city center, we can preserve the old town of merchant houses in orderly manner and we do not have inorderly constructions of skyscrapers, which are often built without any order, so there is a very well preserved old town in Omi Hachiman.

　But this is another town center focused on or centered around the JR station. Of course, Omi Hachiman is not the satellite city from which people can commute to the business centers in the Kansai area, but perhaps I am not so keen on developing this Omi Hachiman as a satellite town. Omi Hachiman is here and you can see this Okinoshima about 10 minutes by boat, 3 or 4 kilometers from the shoreline of Lake Biwa. For the first time in Japan a Japanese national population resort village is situated, standing on the beach of that resort village. Okinoshima is somehow highlighted, drawing a lot of attention. 30 percent is an aging rate of the population among the islanders. The care-taking insurance is now available in Japan, and more than 65 years old population is high in this island, but the ratio of those who require the care through the national insurance system is only one/half of the national average. In other words, there are many more lively and energetic aged people living in here. There are many many factors for this phenomenon, I believe, but because of the time limitation I will not dwell on the factors. So people are quite attracted to this particular island.

　There is a rope-way. You can go up to the summit of Mt. Hachiman. Toyotomi Hidetsugu, who was a nephew of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a feudal lord, constructed a castle on the top of this mountain, and there is the castle ruins on top of that. And you can use this ropeway. As you see, there is an old town of merchants' residences. You can see the lattice structure, so both horizontally and also vertically there are quite well defined streets and roads located, just like Kyoto. And most of the houses have got roof tiles; we have indigenous industry engaged in the production of Hachiman-gawara, which are roof tiles. And when you have these roof tiles on top, under the sunny and blue sky they really shine beautifully. You can see the JR station as a very high building in the distance. So when you go up to the summit of this Mt. Hachiman, you can see Lake Biwa, which should be on the opposite side of this picture.

　This is a street of Shinmachi. It is the most representative old town area where merchants' residencies are located. We don't have any museum. As you see, there is a very traditional Japanese house, which is inhabited. While people do live inside these old buildings, the preservation is under way, and there is quite a successful preservation or conservation of these buildings. And actually the City Administration is not involved with the preservation work, and the people who live in these houses are very proud of these traditional houses, so they are making effort for the conservation. About 15 hectares of the city are designated as the important area of important buildings, traditional buildings, therefore people cannot exercise their discretion to rebuild their houses or rebuild or refurbish old houses. So as you see, we have very successful conservation. Towards the left-hand side we have got a museum in which there are a lot of materials about the mercantile of Omi area, Omi Hachiman stores. And when you go to visit that museum tomorrow, you will see many more.

　This is the Hachiman-bori, which is the city canal or moat. And as you said, the nephew of Toyotomi Hideyoshi constructed a castle. This place was not naturally available. When constructing a castle in that mountain, this was constructed. The water level is the same as that in Lake Biwa; although it is a canal, it is directly communicated and connected to Lake Biwa. The castle is of course a strategic building, so usually boat navigation was not allowed. But Toyotomi Hidetsugu was very keen on constructing the environment for commercial activities and also merchants. So he did not give the highest priority to the strategic functions of the castle. Against this background, therefore, during the Civil War age in Japan, he actually issued the notification encouraging many merchants to go through this canal using their boats. Therefore, as a benefit of that policy, there came a lot of information gathered in here, and it was very hectic and busy with a lot of traffic. During the civil war age, actually the information communication was very limited; even about the things happening in the neighboring village you could not get access to it so easily. But because of the boat navigation and busy traffic, this was a concentration of information, and that was the very source of the merchants in this area going abroad expanding their businesses, and to Vietnam and Annan they started their businesses. Therefore, this was the center of the commercial activities of Omi merchants.

　This moat water is very clean, but around the end of World War II this was not used as the traffic channel, therefore, it became very dirty, and the odor was awful and tremendous, and you could see a lot of bulky rubbish thrown away into the water. But it is now cleaned. As you see, this is another angle of the picture of the same moat. It used to be like that, because after World War II this water channel was not used for commercial activities, so nobody paid attention to the conservation. As you see, weed is over-spread, and you see bicycles and other bulky rubbish and pieces were thrown away. And it was somewhat of a load and burden for people. And especially, motorization was introduced to urban areas in which the city government and administrations were very keen on reclaiming this part for using it as car parks or maybe roads or streets. And actually that project was almost launched. But the Jaycee and other organizations and also city groups focused on the community development and presented their strong opposition to the reclaiming of this channel. That was some sort of treasure of Japan, and once you start reclaiming you will start to regret, and once it is not used as a channel it would stop navigation, which was the center of the Omi merchants' activities. Thus the civil activity and movement has triggered for the preservation of this area. Then the Prefectural Government and National Government responded to the voices of the citizens positively and it was restored to the clean situation as before.

　And of course it was not aimed at just preservation as it used to be, and it was not for the tourism purposes, either. It was for the benefit of people who actually reside in there, because people cherished the value of this beauty and also the environment, and also for the preservation of the spiritual assets of Omi merchants, and people thought it was essential to be kept. So, that was the very origin of those citizens' initiatives. So tourism was not part of that at all.

　But what is happening today? The area is the destination for tourism. Because of this preservation there is an increasing number of people visiting here. The traffic system is not so full-fledged, and it's about 2 kilometers away from the JR station. On weekend people walk to come here; they have the sneakers and knapsack on the back, and maybe in a small group of two or three people, they come to this place looking up to the map. That is the fashionable style of tourism today.

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　On the right-hand side there is the white hall of "kura, " and the woman group is making a coffee shop there and they are serving teas. And this is of course designated as the traditional area, so we won't be able to have a big sign. So even though for the tea shop they cannot have a big sign; just a small sign is there, you can see. And originally that " kura," hall, was of the ownership of the Nishikawa Futon, Headquarters of the Nishikawa, the mattress or blanket manufacturer. The quality of the water was not really bad, but we have conducted a purification of the water, so it's now become very clear these days. For the residents the picture is not a rare scenery, but the people who come from outside of this city are greatly impressed by the scenery.

　This is the surrounding area of Lake Biwa, and I don't know whether you know, but the inner Lake, surrounding area there are something like small lakes, a lot of small lakes are located around Lake Biwa, and it is also linked directly to Nishinoko, the Nishi Lake. And migration birds came in the past a lot and the reeds were being witnessed a lot. And in the past, because of the policy of the increase of the rice production after the War, almost all the inner lakes have been reclaimed and rice paddy was established instead of the lakes. And there was a movement of the citizens that they were saying that this is a precious asset for the Omi Hachiman so we have to preserve that, and there was a strong lobbying movement from the citizens to the central government. And we still have several small lakes that have been remained, and these are a big tourist attraction now. And on tomorrow's tour you would be able to go and visit there by using the ship. In the past, on the ship the rice was transported. However, currently we are transporting visitors or tourists on this ship through these lakes. Unless there was the citizens' movement, then those areas would be replaced with rice paddy fields.

　Omi Hachiman City has a very strong power, the citizens' initiative power, and governments actually are sort of following the citizens' movement or citizens' initiative. That is the way we have been witnessing these days. And this is the place where we are going to visit tomorrow. This is part of the Hachiman canal, and this is called Shinmachihama. And in summer time, on the right-hand side you can see the stairs, and in summer time people can sit there and every year there is a concert held in the night time and various events are held, and a lot of tourists are coming to see the night concert, which has always been held at the end of summer.

　And this is also Hachiman moat, and this is not only done by the government but for the plant you can see in the front, this is preserved in association with Hachiman moat preservation. And those citizens are doing voluntarily for cleaning those areas or preserving this plant or taking care of garbage, and so on; so they would like to have the pride to preserve this area voluntarily. And this is also the moat, and you can see the museum for the roof tile. This was established about five years ago, and when the Prime Minister was Takeshita there was the movement for the revitalization of the home town, and 100 million yen was provided to each town for revitalization of the town. And Omi Hachiman City thought about what they should do, and they distributed a questionnaire to the citizens. And among the answers some people said that: we have to build a museum for preserving the roof tile which is the local industry. The local government is usually taking initiative in building such a museum, but actually citizens took the initiative to collect money, and those money were provided from the citizens to the local government of Omi Hachiman, and citizens said: why don't you build the museum for roof tile. Actually citizens collected resources for building this museum, and they came to ask the local government. But actually, the local government built this museum without using citizens' money. But anyway, citizens are always taking a great initiative in order to preserve their city or historical heritage. Citizens are not only blaming or giving the complaint; they would rather like to pay out of their own pockets in order to preserve their own assets.

　In order to love your city I think you have to increase the number of the fans who love the city. We have the population of 68,000 people, but out of that, a lot of people love Omi Hachiman City. So the ratio of the people who are actually fan of the city is very much high compared to other cities, maybe compared to Osaka City. So, the citizens are asking us to build "kawara" or roof tile museum, so we built it. Maybe you think that is a very big museum. But this is also on the designated area, so we are prohibited to build a big museum. So it is kind of a small building.

　And this is the trail with the ship through the canal. And forgetting about the secular world, people are drinking teas in the ship, or maybe they are eating "sukiyaki" using the Omi beef, and in spring and autumn the tourists enjoy. Without reservation you can never go into this ship. My father is doing part-time job on this ship. And a lot of tourists come from far away to Omi Hachiman, so my father is studying a lot, because tourists would like to know about Omi Hachiman and ask him.

　And this is also the one which was proposed out of the questionnaires to the citizens. In the Meiji Era it was established, and the Omi merchants wanted to teach their children their merchant businesses, and this is the school for that. And very much Western look architecture, which was built in the Meiji Era, and the school was established and called Hakuun-kan. And about five years ago it was totally refurbished. About ten years ago it was a very old structure and the roof was sort of destroyed, and when I was the elementary school child, it seemed like it was the ghost house, and we were very scared looking at this house ten years ago. But five years ago it was totally refurbished. So this is also the tourism attraction. People can take a rest here, and on the second floor, there is a gallery.

　And now, this is not inside the town; this is in the villages surrounding the town. Why is this tourism attraction? Most recently, because of the citizens' movement, the town has been developed a lot, and in line with that movement people living around that town also wanted to make their own village better. It used to be the creek area, and this is the area where the ship was called. And about twenty years ago there was a proposal from the government maybe we have to reclaim, but there was a movement by the citizens to preserve as it is. And there is underground water; if you dig a little bit, the water will come out.

　This is a very natural look community development based on the tourism. This is not really the tourism attraction but many people come from all over Japan. Visitors and tourists are very much interested in why they are reformed again after they reclaimed or they made a landfill. Why they did that in order to preserve their own assets? They are very much interested in how or why they are preserving this way. They want to see the actual situation or they would like to listen to what the citizens think. And why this is a tourism attraction, maybe you think. Why this is related to tourism, you may think. This is just as the same as the villages you just saw in the previous slide, and looking at this picture, is there any strange thing or any peculiar different thing?

　In this picture, what is a little bit strange is that the paved road for the children is soil; it used to be asphalt; pavement is the soil. And we want the children when come back from the school to enjoy trail from the school to their home. If it is raining, maybe they can enjoy in the raining road, so that's why we have made this pavement the soil-based pavement. And at the same time we planted the plants or seasonal plants where the children can enjoy the seasonal change of the color of the leafs. Because we want them to be the healthy human beings; in other words, we want them to live in a healthy environment. That's one of the community development concept. And why we had such kind of initiative, such concept, was also interested by the visitors. Visitors are not really the tourists; maybe we can call them as tourists, but they are not really tourists, they are really interested in why we are doing this, and they come to Hachiman; the moat, or this kind of pavement, they ask us why we are doing so. So it is not really the tourism but it is a little bit different way of the community development. And this draws much attention from all over Japan. So a lot of visitors are coming, because they have interest.

　I showed all the slides in Omi Hachiman City. There are a lot of so-called tourism attraction places, and we have too much tourism resource, I think, environment of the history and culture, and so on. And those are just numerous in our area. And it seems like all the residents are very familiar with these historic heritage or the cultural heritage in daily lives. But people coming from outside, for them it is very different and it is very precious. So we often hear the advice from outsiders as well. And those are integrated to the tourism plan. Hachiman has the long history, and we have the history of the Omi merchants, and this is the starting place where the Omi merchants started their businesses.

　Omi merchants; there are other types of the merchants, for example. Goman merchants or Hino merchants, depending on the origin or depending on the historical age or depending on the products they are selling. They are the kinds of the merchants in Omi merchants. But Hachiman merchants out of the Omi merchants had the longest history in the merchant history. So Hachiman merchants, they have their own philosophy: If you generate a profit, you have to return back to the society. And they usually have that kind of message or motto on their wall. If they can have profits out of their businesses, they have to return back to the society by making some donations or something in the form of endowment. This is the spirit and custom being inherited over the years. And at the beginning of Meiji Era, Mr. William Meloboris(phone.), who was a missionary from the United States, was dispatched as an English teacher of a Shiga Prefecture high school, a commercial high school. He was the first person who was designated as an honorary citizen. He bought a patent from a certain American company, and he used some percent of the profit to return back to the society, for example, establishing schools or establishing a hospital for tuberculosis. He made a great contribution to society. So looking from outside of this Hachiman City, I think our city has the very strong enthusiasm for the community development or contribution to the society.

　One of the representatives just mentioned that if you create a town where the persons love the town, then you would be able to develop your tourism. The Mayor said; well, he wouldn't say that he doesn't like tourism but he says that tourism came later, after making our own town or city better, making the improvement of our own city where the residents can live in a comfortable manner, and then tourism comes later and follow. So tourism would be generated naturally if you make your own town better, especially better for the residents. The word "machizukuri, " community development, our philosophy, or our Mayor says that we have to create a town where people like to die. It is kind of exotic word, but if you are going to die, you have to die in one place. You can make "worth living" or "purposefulness" in your lives many times, but to die just occurs once in your life. And when you die, you want to feel that I am lucky to be able to die here. Such kind of a town should be provided or city should be provided to the residents, where people feel that they would like to die here. Then, if we preserve such kind of spirit, then the town will prosper forever and wouldn't die, town wouldn't die forever.

　I think energy is very high for the community development in this Omi Hachiman City, driven by such strong activity; tourism came later, after activities for the community development. The roof tile museum and also Hakuunkan and also the lakeside preservation, we never thought of tourism at the beginning. We wanted to preserve our treasure. We wanted to make our environment better. We wanted to preserve our nature. These are all things for us to make our city better, and then a lot of people paid attention as a very good tourism attraction. I think that's the way we have to do and we have to have in community development, in harmony, hand-in-hand with the citizens.

　My talk is not really organized. I am sorry for my unorganized speech, but I would like to conclude the presentation for the case study of Omi Hachiman City. Thank you very much.