Abstract:

An on-the-scene report from two small towns in northeastern Honshu. One of them, Tono, is nationally famous ('everybody's old home town') for preserving its local legends and making them into a tourist attraction. Towa, a few miles away, strives instead to create new traditions. The 20th century has not been kind to local culture, and Japan is no exception. Living in the old home town seldom generates the excitement that comes with being plugged in to the global media village. Like their counterparts in other nations, people in regional Japan want to have just as special a role in their country's international future as they did in its parochial past. AS IWATE GOES: IS CULTURE LOCAL? captures the home-town story behind Japan's national success. Jackson H. Bailey, an American scholar who has been visiting and studying Iwate for two decades, appears on camera as host commentator for this program, which was recorded on location in the summer of 1991.