Japan is an archipelago and has no land border with any neighboring nation. However, several towns and regions take the modern role of “border town” — politically, economically, and culturally.
Wakkanai is the northernmost town in Japan and is located just across from Sakhalin island, which today is Russian territory. Wakkanai developed a century ago as a port for transportation of goods to and from Sakhalin Island, the southern region of which was once Japanese. Today it serves primarily as a fishing town and regularly sees Russian sailors who bring their catches to Japan.
Tsushima Island is situated between Japan’s Kyushu Island and Korea, between the respective cities of Fukuoka and Pusan. Historically Japanese, it has long been a point of transit for trade between Japan and Korea through the course of many centuries, from lacquerware to cuisine. The island was ruled for centuries by the So clan, which historically even advocated Korean interests in Japan, and the last member of the clain Takeyuki married Princess Deokhye of Korea in 1931.
I have visited both Wakkanai and Tsushima, and one telling example that shows the interraction with the neighboring regions is road signs. All road signs in Japan display the Japanese names followed by Roman letters. Road signs in Wakkanai and Tsushima are trilingual, with a third language of either Russian or Korean.
Relations with the the respective foreigners in both border towns are polar opposites. Tsushima has an economy that has grown very dependent on investment and tourists from South Korea. In Wakkanai and other parts of the northern island of Hokkaido, incidents of crude or criminal Russian sailors has led to poor relations.
Check the article on this week’s Shukan Shincho,Curz.
I thought that was pretty xenophobic,but islanders are not very happy with Koreans for various reasons nowadays it seems.
Yeah, I saw it already thanks to Lady Curzon. I just got back from Tsushima today.
Ace, the number of people on the ferry we took from Fukuoka to Hitakatsu port earlier this week was, I kid you not, EIGHT PEOPLE including my friend and I. There were more crew members than passengers. We also did not see one tourist at any of the numerous sites we visited. There is very, very little Japanese tourism in Tsushima from what I saw. However, Korean tourists are everywhere and are visiting in the tens of thousands. And while there are always concerns, the money from Koreans does keep that place running.
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The SO lords of Tsushima were considered quasi-feudatories by the Joseon dynasty, which conferred various seals of office on them that entitled them to conduct trade and diplomacy with Korea on behalf of Japan, which those was held at arms-length, diplomatically, economically and, equally if not more important symbolically in maintaining the East Asian “world” order and the Koreans’ sense of their own place in it vis-a-vis their Chinese overlords, on the one hand, and the putatively lesser Japanese, on the other.