島根／テキサス産業技術共創委員会

テキサスと島根の技術交流というのは、三年前に連携して目的としては
１）両地域における経済活動の活性化
２）両地域の雇用の創出
と狙っています。県には重要な課題が、人口減少が続けつつある背景で、どのように経済発展を進んでいけるかということです。今、努力しているのは、ナノテクノロジーを始めとする有名なテキサスのハイテクによる、新しい産業と雇用又は起業を作る、それによる若年層の定着ができるようにすることです。

２月１８日（日）に合同委員会が開催されました。今回こそ活発な意見交換ができ、経済活動の活性化又は雇用の創出につながるこれからの具体的な目標を協議されました。

Matsue in the NYTimes

Was a little surprised to login to my NYTimes account and find an article featuring a photo that looked suspiciously like the view out my office window...

The article was a decent read - shared it with the office too. It concerns Lafcadio Hearn, his role as preserver of Japanese folk tales, his influence on tourism, and the ongoing activities of his great grandchild. I hadn't given Koizumi Yakumo too much of a thought, but he's been coming up a little lately, and so I plan on visiting his residence this weekend. After all, it is close.

I'd have liked to have seen it, but there was an interesting sounding exhibition at the Prefecture's art museum that was featuring Mr. Hearn's poems along side photographs of the scenes they depicted. Anyway, work kept me far enough away from the museum until the exhibition had finished.

Choice bits from the article:
Mr. Hearn lived in Matsue only 15 months

a foreigner had the foresight to preserve folk tales a century ago when Japanese were dismissing them as superstitious

Matsue’s Hearn connection led the national government to proclaim it one of Japan’s three top international tourist cities, along with the ancient capitals of Kyoto and Nara.

City officials say that last year the Hearn sites helped draw 8.1 million tourists, mostly Japanese, to this city of 150,000 nestled on a lake near the restless green Sea of Japan.

this year, its first St. Patrick’s Day parade

300-member Hearn Society of Matsue

He found Japan to be a crimeless, almost Utopian society — a “fairyland” populated with “the most lovable people in the universe,” as he wrote.

Matsue, dominated by its “grim castle, grotesquely peaked,” as he described it

Generations of Japanese have been frightened by his images of haunted Matsue

Mr. Koizumi leads tours to Hearn-related sites and runs a summer camp for children to learn about Mr. Hearn.

“I don’t understand Hearn,” said Natsuko, 16, who won the city’s Hearn speech contest last year. “He’s a little strange.”