Hokkaido people (Dosanko道産子） are immigrants like Americans. They are from all over the Honshu (the main island of Japan) and other islands like Shikoku or Kyushu. Not many are from Okinawa. It was only a little over 100 years when Japanese government decided to expand their territories to other places. This expansion policy affected to form a pioneering companies to move farmers to Hokkaido. Many were promised to receive large land after they cultivate the land for farming. Usually it was those of 2nd child or later since they could not inherit their parents’ land. It was the 1st son who will inherit the land and 2nd, 3rd, 4th and forth are not the heirs from their parents. They will either be renting portion of the land and become very poor in the future ending up helping their elder brother. If they are lucky, they can survive in their lives. It was that harsh for the farmers in Japan back then. So this expansion policy attracted many, but the sad thing about moving to sepearte and unknown island of Hokkaido was emotionally heart breaking. Seperating from their parents and their home land was not an easy decision. It was many times one way ticket.
It was not only to Hokkaido, but to Hawaii and Brazil and many other places. Many young men went to war to Korea, China, Russia, and other Micronesian islands. Many of them never returned.
It was in these flow of history that many decided to come to Hokkaido as pioneering farmers. My wife’s great grand father and great great grand father were the ones who came to Hokkaido with this flow. Ayumi’s grandfather was born in Hokkaido while her great great grandfather was the 1st generation pioneer farmer. They started their pioneering in Makubetsu town. Makubetsu town happened to be our 1st church planting place as well. We found it very interesting to find out Ayumi’s ancestors started their pioneering at this land. Ayumi’s parents live in Bihoro town about 3 hours away from Makubetsu.
Most of Hokkaido people are challengers and very open to new things because of their ancestors are pioneers. They are very different from people from Honshu, the main island of Japan. They did not carry on the traditions of their ancestors because it was too hard for them to make a living. And it was a new land from many different places. It was melting pot of Japan. While Osaka people will negotiate the price of any products, Hokkaido people would never negotiate the price when they purchase. They are very serious people with straight heart. They do not like flattery.
Many well-known Sumo Wrestlers are from Hokkaido. If you find a sumo wrestler with 北（North) in their rikishi name, you should guess that he is from Hokkaido. Hokkaido in Kanji is 北海道：North, Ocean or Sea, Way. It is located in North. You have to go through ocean in order to reach to Hokkaido. And it was new way of opportunity for your life time. Many casted their dices for this fortune to have their own land.
Those people I worked with and met were very pure in heart without much of their calculation in the back of their mind. Most of them were straight forward in their dealings. I had met many good people who liked to talk straight. I liked that and we became good friends very fast. If you went to Kyoto, you could not really guess what they were thinking. They would hide what they were thinking and spoke something else away from their real feelings. This is called Tatemae(タテマエ). Honshu has more Tatemae than Hokkaido people.
I am glad that I am in Hokkaido where God has led me to. Hokkaido has very cold weather. As I write this journal, it is about -10 degrees Celsius (14 F). Well, it is the coldest degree of the day. In the daytime, it is about 3 or 4 degrees Celsius (37.4 F or 39.2 F). People in Hokkaido have to shovel after the snow fall. Many of them are from farming families. They are not afraid of snow. Because of this, people in Hokkaido are strong in spirit. Current Hokkaido people are in their 3rd or 4th generations from their 1st settlements in Hokkaido.
They are bigger in height and weight in general. Some of them intermarried to Ainu people who were the native Hokkaido people like American Indians. Japanese fought with guns when Ainu people fought back with arrows and swords. You could guess who dominated the battle. Ainu is peace loving people harmonizing with the nature. They do not want to harvest more than what they need. Many Ainu people helped Japanese to survive through the winter since Japanese never knew how to prepare the severe and harsh winter. Many of them returned back to Honshu thinking that Hokkaido was not a place for men to live in. Only the survivors were left in Hokkaido. Japanese took away Ainu’s language and customs, and forced them to be like Japanese. This left deep wounds and scars in the spirit of Ainu people. There are still many Ainu people, but most of them have Japanese names and intermixed with Japanese. There are only a few pure Ainu people, even then most of them can not speak their language because of ban of speaking of Ainu language for a long period of time.
Hokkaido has lots of interesting history and people are relatively open to the Gospel. I hope to connect to these people some way to present the Good News.
Abraham Lee@Gospel House
