キリストの墓ツアーリズム
キリストの里公園（青森県三戸郡新郷村）
宗教で村おこし。"If you don't believe, you won't be saved,"「信じる者は救われる」大笑
神にもすがる気持なのだろうが、キリスト信者には後味が悪い、悲しいようなおかしな話し。
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Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011
Behold! Christ's grave in Shingo, Aomori Prefecture
By WINIFRED BIRD
Special to The Japan Times
One line of text from Wikipedia was all it took to lure me to the town of Shingo, in south-central Aomori Prefecture. It read: "The village promotes itself as the home of the Grave of Christ after a local legend."
A cross marks the spot: In 1935, Kiyomaro Takenouchi, from a line of custodians of the "Takenouchi Documents" ? a supposedly very ancient collection of papers that tell of Christ's life in Japan ? was led to two mounds in the village of Herai in what is now the town of Shingo. There (left), in what was then a bamboo grove, he identified one of the mounds as being the grave of Jesus and the other as the last resting place of an ear of a younger brother named Isukiri, along with a lock of the Virgin Mary's hair. WINIFRED BIRD PHOTOS=写真
As I was in the neighboring Tohoku-region prefecture of Iwate when I came across that fabulous snippet, curiosity easily got the better of me.
Equipped with a basic tourist map and not much else, I headed for the town of Ichinohe then turned off onto a one-lane road that meandered through idyllic countryside.
With terraced fields of rice and satoimo (taro) and peach trees, hawks circling slowly against brilliant white clouds, and deep forest on every side, it was as if I'd stumbled upon a place hovering in its own quiet realm, untethered from the surrounding rush and clutter.
Eventually the road descended to Shingo, home to some 2,800 souls. Once I was in town, finding the grave was easy. It's the biggest tourist attraction around, so just about anyone can tell you where it is: on a wooded hill overlooking rice fields, beyond a sign proclaiming, in English, "Tomb of Christ."
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There are actually two graves. Each is a circular mound of raw earth marked with an unpainted wooden cross. In front of them sits a basket of coins and a vase holding a fresh bouquet of flowers. The grave to the left, I read on an information plaque, contains an ear of Christ's younger brother, Isukiri, and a lock of the Virgin Mary's hair. The one to the right is where the bones of Christ himself lie at rest.
This, it turns out, is the story told in a peculiar collection of apocryphal papers called the "Takenouchi Documents." They are said to have been copied about 1,500 years ago from even older documents, then passed down as a precious treasure from generation to generation of the Takenouchi family and made public (or fabricated, as the less gullible among us might say) in the late 1800s. Men from the same family also served for generations as priests at the Koso Kotai Jingu shrine in Isohara, which is now part of Kitaibaraki City in Ibaraki Prefecture.
A three-volume English translation of these papers sits in a display case in the Legend of Christ Museum, handily located adjacent to the graves, and may be perused by visitors.
Say it proud: Shingo doesn't exactly hide its claim to fame, what with "Tomb of Christ" road signs, ads for "The Real Thing," and much more. =写真
The Japanese original is the work of the self-styled cosmoarcheologist Wado Kosaka (1947-2002), who not only transcribed the original "Takenouchi Documents" but also — according to the preamble to Volume 1 — attracted national attention in the 1970s when he contacted a UFO on live television.
Although the documents described in the book are widely considered a hoax — Kyoto University religious scholar Toji Kamata has called them "fakelore" — they nevertheless contain all sorts of fascinating material, including descriptions of how ancestors of the human race came from outer space, what happened to Atlantis, and where Jesus Christ ended his life (this small town in present-day Aomori Prefecture, of course).
In 1935, Kiyomaro Takenouchi, founder of a Shinto-derived religion based on the Takenouchi Documents, came to Shingo to search for the grave. When the headman showed him two mounds in a (now cleared) thicket of bamboo, Takenouchi declared them to be the graves of Christ and part of his brother — and a legend was born.
Not content with this scoop, however, observers soon began to point out some mysteriously un-Japanese characteristics and customs displayed by the villagers.
For instance, there was a tradition of mothers marking the foreheads of their babies with a cross drawn in charcoal the first time they went outside. Babies were also kept in round woven baskets like those in the Holy Land. Odd words were used, and some villagers were said to look foreign.
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In 1936, more information explaining how Christ ended up in a remote Japanese village where winters are long and very snowy emerged when "archeologists from an international society for the research of ancient literature" discovered the last will and testament of Christ — according to a pamphlet from the museum.
In Shingo's green and pleasant land: Approaching the small town along a one-lane road is at times quite like driving through a Garden of Eden. =写真
The pamphlet goes on to explain that, according to this testament, Christ first visited Japan between the ages of 21 and 33 (the Bible does in fact skip over large periods of Christ's early life, and many theories exist about what he did in the intervals). The document claims he studied the native language and culture before returning to Jerusalem, where he was crucified. Only it wasn't really him who was crucified. His younger brother, Isukiri (who makes no appearance in the Bible), nobly took his place on the cross, pretending to be the Son of God, while the real Christ fled to Siberia.
A few years later, via Alaska, he arrived at the port of Hachinohe, just 40 km from Shingo. He made his way to the village, where he married, had three children, and lived to the age of 106.
Having absorbed this strange tale, I went back down the hill and crossed the street to a little produce shop called Christop to see what locals made of it all. I bought a bag of wild grapes and sat down for a cup of coffee with Mariko Hosokawa, 58, and Yoshie Okuyama, 68, who were minding the shop. Both were born and raised in Shingo.
So did they believe the legend?
"It's the central element of our tourist industry. If you don't believe, you won't be saved," said Hosokawa, rather cryptically.
Okuyama said that when she was a little girl there was an old man in town who was said to have descended from Christ.
"Looking at him, I felt like there could be something to it. He really didn't look Japanese. His clothes were different, too. He used to wear a long apron, and things that were embroidered," she said.
"And I had that cross drawn on my forehead when I was a baby," said Hosokawa.
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Up the road, Masami Sawaguchi was sitting on his stoop stripping edamame (soybean) pods off their stalks. Sawaguchi, 84, is from a family said to have descended from Christ, and he was 8 when Kiyomaro Takenouchi came to town. I asked if the discovery of the graves caused a local uproar.
"No, we thought it was just an ordinary thicket of bamboo," he said. Then he added, "But I don't think they'd come all the way out here and bury the bones of a horse or a cow up there. The mounds were there to start with, and I think there's probably something buried under them."
Neither Sawaguchi, Hosokawa nor Okuyama is Christian. In fact, it turns out that there is just one Christian family in town. I decided to go in search of them.
Toshiko Sato is 76 and lives with her husband far up a mountain road, in a white house with a pink porch and a pretty flower garden outside. When I knocked on her door she answered in curlers and a housecoat, sat me down, and quite obligingly told me about her life as a Christian in Shingo.
She was born in Kobe, and fell in love with the poor, remote hamlet where she now lives when she was a 23-year-old education student from the Japan Missionary College visiting for a few months. Years later, unable to forget the place and the children she met here, she came back and built herself a house. She didn't know about the graves (they had yet to become the tourist attraction they are today).
It wasn't until a few years later that a municipal official came knocking on her door. The town held an annual Christ Festival at the graves, and wanted to know if she would participate, being as she was the only resident Christian. She agreed.
"I went and led some hymns. Afterward a Shinto priest came out and did a ritual blessing, and I thought to myself, 'Oh no, this is bad.' I haven't got involved with the festival since then," she said.
Two ladies minding the Christop produce store, who cast fascinating light on Shingo's claims.
"Of course I knew the story about the graves was a lie all along. I've been to Israel myself. But there are the odd customs, and the man who looked foreign ... Maybe there is something there. Anyway, I can't very well come out and oppose it. There's a big sign when you come into town announcing 'Welcome to Christ's Village.' It's the center of the revival program," she said.
So Toshiko Sato, the only Christian in Christ's Village, stays up on her hillside, biting her tongue, tending her garden — and listening to Sunday sermons via the Internet.
The Legend of Christ Museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thurs. to Tues. (closed Wed). For more information, call the museum at (0178) 78-3741 or the Shingo Tourism Association on (0178) 78-2345. Getting there: A car makes things far easier, but the Nanbu Bus Co. ([0178] 44-5151) runs six services a day from Gonohe, which is served by buses from Hachinohe on the Tohoku Shinkansen Line.
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日本の空港経営の実態−国内には９８空港
そのうち自治体が単独で経営するのは２５。そのうち３ヶ所羽田（東京）と千歳（札幌）と小松（石川）が黒字、その他２２ヶ所は赤字。（凡人：北陸新幹線の金沢駅が近々出来る石川の小松も、また東北新幹線と結ぶ北海道新幹線の建設計画が進められている札幌の千歳も将来も黒字が続くことに疑問がある）
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ECONOMICS OF AIRPORTS
Bubble era's aviation legacy: Too many airports, all ailing
Nation should have focused on select hubs
By MIZUHO AOKI
Japan Times Staff writer
Monday, Feb. 6, 2012
Japan has 98 airports, and most of them are operating in the red as a result of exaggerated demand forecasts and rampant, costly and arguably pork-barrel construction projects.
The transport ministry hopes to mitigate the problem by selling off the management rights to 27 state-owned airports as soon as 2014. The ministry also plans to issue an airport reform blueprint by summer.
Following are questions and answers about Japan's airports:
Who runs the airports?
In most cases, the central and local governments manage the runways, aircraft aprons and other regulated facilities while private companies or joint public-private ventures run the terminal buildings and parking lots. Of the 98 airports, 28 are run by the central government and 67 by local governments.
In the case of Tokyo's Haneda airport, for example, the state is in charge of the runways while the terminal buildings and parking lots are managed by Japan Airport Terminal Co.
Three main international airports also involve mixed types of management.
The facilities at Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture, including its runways and terminals, are managed by state- and local government-backed corporations, as is Kansai airport in Osaka Bay.
Private companies are also part of the equation at Kansai and at Central Japan International Airport, or Chubu.
Are they all operating in the red?
Not all but most facilities specifically linked to flight operations are running at a loss, even though most terminal buildings and parking lots are turning profits.
Most of the income to cover the operations of runways, aprons and other aircraft-related facilities, however, comes from landing fees, which have suffered for years at airports nationwide amid the sluggish economy and lack of passengers.
In many cases, exorbitant fees have kept airlines from using some airports, like Kansai airport.
In terms of overall airport management, the aircraft- and flight-related facilities are run by entities separate from the ones that manage the terminals and parking lots.
How bad is the airport business?
According to the transport ministry, of the 25 solely state-run airports, only three — Tokyo's Haneda, Sapporo's Shin-Chitose and Ishikawa Prefecture's Komatsu — logged operating profits in their aircraft facility-related businesses in fiscal 2009, mainly thanks to landing fees. Haneda posted \16.232 billion, Shin-Chitose \1.851 billion and Komatsu \499 million.
The rest are losing money, with Fukuoka Airport's flight operations deficit the biggest at \5.973 billion, and Okinawa's Naha Airport running up a loss of \5.481 billion. The ministry began disclosing calculations in 2009, due to mounting public demands for financial disclosure.
Most of the aircraft-related operations at municipal-run airports are also believed to be in the red. Kyodo News reported in 2009 that most of them were losing money in fiscal 2007.
But most terminal buildings and parking lots turned profits, apparently because their concessions attract consumers even when passenger numbers are running low.
According to a survey by Tokyo Shoko Research, among 50 major terminal management firms, 45 posted profits in fiscal 2009. But only five expect to post a profit in the business year to March and five face deficits.
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One key reason is overcapacity. The government built too many airports based on overrated demand projections, experts say.
Because airports are considered public infrastructure, profit is not the only consideration taken into account when building them.
The nation has many remote islands whose only transportation link to the outside world is by air, even when demand for travel is minimal and steers aviation operations into the red.
But the situation was compounded in large part by politics, with decisions made to build airports in rural, virtually no-traffic areas where turning a profit was never a realistic proposition but just a way to get voters government-backed jobs from more pork-barrel projects.
Another drawback has been the "pool system" of state budgetary allocation, a one-size-fits-all policy for financing airport operations that did little to clarify which airports were at risk of habitually losing money, experts say.
The more or less blanket operations of all state-run airports provided little incentive for individual hubs to seek more efficient operations, Sayuri Hirai, a senior consultant at Daiwa Institute of Research, told The Japan Times.
What about Kansai airport?
Kansai airport posted an operating profit in fiscal 2010, but it still has an interest-bearing debt load that exceeds \1 trillion.
To alleviate the burden, Kansai is scheduled to integrate management with Osaka's state-run Itami Airport in July. Land-locked Itami, which is dozens of kilometers from the offshore Kansai facility, is a thriving domestic hub.
Have municipalities or the government taken steps to improve airport earnings?
Yes. A case in point is Noto airport run by Ishikawa Prefecture. The airport opened in 2003 with two daily round-trip flights to Haneda airport by Air Nippon, an All Nippon Airways subsidiary.
The prefecture adopted a so-called capacity guarantee system under which it pays Air Nippon up to \200 million a year to make up for any shortfall in its guaranteed seat occupancy rate.
The system is expected to lure airlines as well as encourage the local government to adopt measures to boost business.
Thanks to efforts by the tourism industry to attract people to Ishikawa, as well as measures the prefecture took, the flight occupancy rate has exceeded the agreed percentages for the seventh consecutive year.
The prefecture also relocated some administrative functions to the airport to draw more users.
How does the government plan to turn things around?
The government is hoping to sell the management and operating rights of the 27 state-run airports to turn around their money-losing operations. It will submit a bill on the proposal to the Diet this year.
Under the plan, private firms would gain the rights to manage airports — both flight-related facilities and terminal buildings — for between 30 and 50 years, while the public sector continues to own the property rights of the airports.
Some municipal-run airports are meanwhile reportedly looking for private-sector help.
"People may think it will be very difficult to turn money-losing airports into profitable ones amid Japan's shrinking population . . . but there is a good chance to boost potential demand by (launching) low-cost carriers," Hirai of Daiwa Securities said.
She stressed that losing money — even taxpayer money — could be permissible in some cases if an unprofitable airport's existence can be justified in terms of the role it plays in a community.
This is arguable, however, if other viable forms of transport, such as shinkansen, are readily at hand, she said. "In that case, municipalities must judge whether to continue operating airports."
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