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일본 리포터를 시작하면서. 이태현 taihyun@civil.doc.kyushu-u.ac.jp 일본 리포터를 시작하게 되었습니다. 몇 달 전부터 정말 해보고 싶었는데 미루고, 미루고 더 이상 안 미루려고 1월경에 김진애 님에게 메일을 보냈지요 3월부터 준비하겠다고 자신있게 말을 하고, 이제는 그 약속을 지키지 않으면 안되겠다 싶어 3월을 이틀이나 앞두고 컴퓨터 앞에 앉았습니다. 다른 두분께서 열심히 하고 계신 것을 보니, 조금은 부담이 되기도 하지만 너무 큰 욕심을 부리지 말고, 제가 할 수 있는 것부터 천천히 해 나가겠습니다. 리포터라고는 하지만 매체의 발달로 인해 전해지지 않는 소식들은 없을 거란 생각이 듭니 다. 또 찾으려고만 하면 인터넷에, 위성에, 더욱이 일본은 가깝기도 하고 일본어를 잘하시는 분들이 많아서 제가 함부러 지껄일 수 없다는 생각이 드는군요. 아무튼 시작해 보려고 하니 많은 조언 부탁드립니다. 제 나름의 계획은, 제가 지금 공부하고 있는 후쿠오카(福岡, Fukuoka)시를 대상으로, 도시읽기를 해볼 생각입니다. 물론 도시읽기라 는게 어떤 형식이 정해져 있지도 않으며, 또 많은 상식을 필요로 하는 것이기에 제 능력밖 이라는 생각이 들지만, 조금은 단순한 단어들로 도시를 읽어 보겠습니다. 후쿠오카시의 경우 일본의 지방도시로 밖에 알려 있지 않지만, 1997년 12월 잡지 아시아위크(ASIAWEEK)의 특별 조사에 의해 아시아의 가장 살기 좋은 도시로 뽑혔으며, 같은 잡지의 1999년 1월조사 에는 동경에 이어 2등을 했더군요. 개발 잠재성을 중심으로 살펴본 일본내의 도시순위가 동 경, 오사카, 나고야에 이어 네 번째로 올라선 도시입니다. 참고로 아시아 위크에 따르면 서 울은 97년 12월 7위, 99년 1월에는 18위를 했더군요. 물론 조사 방법에 의해 순위가 달라질 수도 있지만 순위를 무시하고라도 후쿠오카는 참 매력적인 도시입니다. 여타 아시아의 도시 의 매력이라면 빠른 개발 속도에 따른 흥분과 젊음에서 오는 매력이거나, 동양의 신비로움 에서 오는 매력이랄 수 있지만 후쿠오카의 매력이라면 적당함, 적절함있다고 할 수 있습니 다. 간단히 ASIA WEEK의 97년 12월호를 인용하면, #1 FUKUOKA Young at Heart IT HAS MOUNTAINS on one side, a calm bay on the other, and tree-lined rivers running through town. It has big department stores and streets full of small shops. It has a baseball team, a soccer team and an annual sumo tournament. It has a Blue Note jazz club, a Broadway-style theater -- and a well-patronized red-light district. It has an international airport and a bullet-train terminus. Best of all it doesn't have 20 million people living on top of each other. To its residents, Fukuoka is not too big, not too small, but juuust right. "You can bicycle from one end to another -- not a big city, but one with everything you want," says native Ezaki Hiroko. Fukuoka sits on northern Kyushu, Japan's westernmost major island. The city of 1.3 million people may not have the business and cultural weight of Tokyo and Osaka, nor the history or scenery of nearby Nagasaki and Kagoshima. But what it has is a modest charm, and a willingness to try new things. Maybe because Fukuoka was for millennia a port of entry for Korean and Chinese culture. Maybe because its population is the second youngest in Japan. "Companies like to test market products here, because if it sells in Fukuoka it will sell in the rest of Japan," says Hiroshi Seto of the local Chamber of Commerce. One new development is Canal City -- a futuristic mall with explosive fountains, trendy shops and a 13-screen movie complex -- that opened last year. The cinemas are a case in point. No Japanese company wanted to open such a large operation, so the developers turned to a U.S. outfit that had been trying to break into the tradition-bound market for years. The gamble paid off all around. Cinema attendance is up 50% citywide, the mall sparked a retail boom in traditional shopping districts, and officials and businesses from all around Japan are trooping to Fukuoka to see how the city did it. Like most Japanese cities, Fukuoka is meticulously clean for an urban area. It is also blessed by its history as a commercial center -- there is no legacy of smokestack industries to clean up. The major problems are ever-increasing traffic, water pollution and garbage. To cope, the city is building a fourth incinerator. It is talking with neighboring districts to reduce waste water flowing into Hakata Bay, and improving its highway network. Resource conservation is a priority. Those local incinerators generate their own electricity and sell surplus to the city grid. Many retailers are joining a campaign to reduce the amount of packaging. Canal City's fountains use rainwater and waste water treated within the complex. There is a blight on the horizon, though. An enormous artificial island is being built in the bay to house port facilities and new homes. Initial plans to start reclamation from the shoreline were revised after it was shown to threaten wetlands essential to migrating birds. Sounds "green," except the island has changed the water currents in the bay and is killing the marine habitat. "City officials won't even discuss our ideas to improve their plan to reduce the island's impact," says Ito Yoshino of the Hakata Bay Citizens Alliance. "Japan still operates for the benefit of bureaucrats and businessmen." Still, that's changing. For the first time, the environment was made a pillar of Fukuoka's master plan, its seventh, when it was announced recently. Citizens can do their part. Neighborhood opposition to building on a wood called "The Forest of Owls" led the city to buy the plot instead. Ezaki helps run a group called Clean Fukuoka which organizes an annual spruce-up along the shores of Hakata Bay -- an exercise that enjoys strong government and corporate support. She acknowledges garbage-picking is a tame sort of activism, but points out that the campaign was little noticed by officials and businessmen when it started eight years ago. "It's only a first step," Ezaki says, "but it's a step we can build on." 역을 하는 것보다는 원문을 그대로 싣는게 낫다는 판단에 실었으며, 내용 역시 후쿠오카시 를 잘 설명하고 있다고 생각합니다. 좀더 구체적인 계획으로는
위와 같은 계획을 세워서 진행시킬 예정입니다. 그저 열심히 해보겠습니다. |
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