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From the Olympics Toward Tomorrow
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What happened to "resident participation" ?
- Preparations at the cross-country skiing venue
"We are thinking of asking for one person from each home to volunteer." On December 5, 1996 the Hakuba Village executive committee and the local Association for Commerce and Industry met face-to-face on the issue. Masao Uchikawa, Hakuba Village Olympic Section Chief called for local cooperation in the four test events to be held soon after the beginning of the New Year Season.
With this season's lack of snowfall, reinforcements can be seen piling up nearby snow on the course at the cross-country skiing venue "Snow Harp" in Kamishiro District. There is a possibility that extra hands will also be needed to help remove snow from the stands at the ski jump venue later this month. The district council announced in a year-end plan that perhaps "all the village's hands will be needed".
According to the Village Olympic/Paralympic Promotional Council (Village Mayor Nobuyuki Fukushima, Chairman ) the plan is to have progressively 350, 523 and 920 people working each day. To meet the requests of the World Cup Organization, the village is undertaking an enlistment for volunteers through each of the district chief administrators. The number of people allotted in each of the 28 districts is as follows: from 72 people in Hakuba-cho (which has the highest number of households), to only two in the least populated area.
"I wonder when they're going to contact us with the event requests." "I wonder what they are basing the manpower allotment on." Many questions such as these surfaced in a meeting of district chairmen at the local Olympic office. However no worried voices calling for "mobilization" could be heard, even though mention of "independent volunteer participation" was still a long way off.
One village representative displayed some quite complicated emotions. "In reality it would be nice if each district would tell us 'we want to do this.' But on the other hand when we don't give them instructions the local Olympic office gets angry with us."
Large dump trucks filled with snow have been piling in to the Hakuba Cross-Country Skiing Venue since the end of last year (1996) in preparation for January's World Cup Cross-Country Olympic test event.
Last season Hakuba struggled with snow grooming operations at the World Cup Men's Downhill. The trend for individual participation on the part of villagers is still low.
According to the Nagano Organizing Committee 510 village residents have signed up to volunteer. The goal of 1000 volunteers set by the village soon after the IOC chose Nagano to host the Games almost appears unattainable. "As far as the Olympics are concerned, it's hard to know what to do. We can't see clearly what's before us, so there is an atmosphere of passing the buck on to the higher-ups," say some village citizens.
Mikkaichiba, host of the cross-country events and home to its venue the "Snow Harp", has presented a plan to recruit 16 workers. Kikue Shinozaki (age 62) is not among those recruited, but is a member of a "wives support group" in charge of making soup, However, her work is at the request of the village government as well.
"The Olympics themselves are a wonderful thing. We are happy to be looked upon by everyone in the world. However..." She rebuilt her home using money she received by selling land for Olympic use-- land her late husband left for her 17 years ago. An old field path on which one used to become wet to the knees from dew is now a two-way paved road.
Kikue says, "It seems to me that now the village will be influenced simply by 'convenience and brightness.'" While in office as the Kamishiro Wives Association President her heart will continue to waver with concerns over what they should do to participate in the Olympics.
Tsuneo Shinozaki (age 64), a construction worker in Mikkaichiba, for the past few years has been three times busier than average due to disaster reconstruction and Olympic projects. Even during the ribbon-cutting ceremony and All-Japan Championships inaugural event in February 1996 he was busy working on roads for the venue. According to Shinozaki, "There are no (professional) cross-country skiers in this area. Why build such a venue here? There still is really nothing locally that has anything to do with it."
The Hakuba Cross-Country FIS World Cup test event to be held January 11th and 12th will be the first for the village this season. Mikkaichiba plans to break up into four local groups to help with the event's production, but most consist of neighborhoods with only elderly residents.
District Chairman Shigeki Shinozaki (age 41) is concerned. "There's really nothing else we can do (than give it our best) if the village sends out a request. However, it's difficult to say 'please give us a hand' to the local residents during the peak boarding-house season. There's no way we'll be able to secure the help we need."
No part of the article, photographs, or illustrations presented here may be printed or used without permission.
Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun