Downright neighborly

WHILE POLITICIANS on both sides of the Sea of Japan continue to troll for votes by creating hobgoblins that arouse the sort of people who like to argue in the on-line comment sections of newspaper websites, everyone else in the neighborhood seems to be getting along just hunky-dory. That’s particularly true in the nether regions of both countries, which–not coincidentally–is the area where Japan and South Korea are geographically the closest.

One example is the region’s female commercial fishermen. Twelve women who fish for a living from Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, and Yamaguchi prefectures went to Busan, South Korea, on the 12th to hold their second annual meeting with six women from the host city’s federation of maritime industry cooperatives. Those four prefectures lie just across the Korean Strait from Busan. Among the mutual problems they discussed were soaring fuel costs and the difficulty in finding successors to their business.

The Korean delegate tasked with giving the welcoming address said, “We hope to achieve mutual development with our neighbors across the sea.” In reply, the Japanese speaker during the opening ceremonies remarked, “We will look for new ideas through our exchange.”

Here’s another example: The Fukuoka Asia Art Museum (link also on right sidebar) and the Busan Museum of Modern Art announced the signing of a cooperative agreement on the same day. Starting next year, the two museums will loan each other works from their collection for exhibits, exchange staff members, and conduct joint surveys. They decided to get started next year because that will mark the 20th anniversary of the sister city arrangement between Fukuoka City and Busan. To commemorate that relationship, next year has been declared the friendship year for the two cities.

The first exhibit resulting from the new agreement will be a showing of the Fukuoka museum’s works at the Busan museum in the autumn of 2009. The Japanese museum is the only one in the world devoted to Asian art, while the Korean museum focuses on modern art and art from the southeastern part of the peninsula.

Finally, a symposium will be held tomorrow at Kyushu University’s International Hall on the topic, “Regional Ties that Transcend International Borders: A new venture for Fukuoka and Busan” . It is being jointly sponsored by a South Korean academic society and the Kyushu University’s South Korean Research Center. Their stated objective is to continue working toward the formulation of mechanisms for creating a transnational economic sphere.

Stepping back and looking at the region from a broader perspective makes it clear that there is a growing contemporary awareness among people in Kyushu and the southeastern Korean Peninsula that they constitute a de facto economic zone with shared cultural traits. Intraregional ties have waxed and waned for centuries, but now people are realizing the time to make it a formal, permanent reality is drawing near.

It might not be too much longer before these disparate groups in both countries will be able to stand together and tell their political representatives that if they aren’t willing to be part of the solution, they’re part of the problem…so either get with the plan or get out of the way.