Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907-81) was a a leading scholar of Japanese folklore and customs. He walked over 160,000 kilometers through rural Japan, collecting the songs, stories, and images of a dying way of life, and was an advocate of social and economic invigoration of rural Japan. Jeffrey Irish is a scholar and translator who has long been immersed in life in rural Japan. A contributing editor to the Kyoto Journal, Irish has been a columnist for a Japanese newspaper for seven years and is the author of the Japanese-language books Prewar Kagoshima and Island Life. He was recently elected "mayor" of his 28-person village.