Center・Off-center

Going back in history, there has been a considerable emphasis in Japan on the local against the central, or the marginal against the core, or the sub against the main. There has also been a strong emphasis on touring the countryside. Recent TV programmes such as ‘regional gourmet’ and ‘route bus journeys’ have long been popular. I see this trend as an ‘interesting aspect of Japan’s drifting and remote areas’. Many excellent stories, documentary literature and illustrations have been written on the theme of ‘drifting and frontier’. It is a one-sided view to talk about Japanese social culture in terms of centre-orientation and metropolitanism. We should know that the interest of Japan lies in the off-centre.